Pairing up co-dom/doms to normals

[JimNAZ]

I thought this might be an interesting topic and I could not find anything similar in my searches.

What are your thoughts (or thinking process) when pairing up co-dom/doms to normals?
Example: With a cinnamon some try to pair them up with a really dark normal to accent the colors etc. With a pastel I would believe you want to try to have as light of a normal as you can.
What about patterns? Does a reduced or busy pattern have any affect on a pairing with a spider or mojave? How about blushing?

Those were just a couple examples and I know there are hundreds of others. Just wondering if anyone has any general guidelines when thinking about this.

Take care and have a great weekend. I'm finally able to open up all the doors and windows . . . yeah!

Jim

[rabernet]

All of my normals were chosen with selective breeding in mind. My lemon pastel is only paired with my brightest females. Doesn't matter to me how busy the babies are, since lemons tend to be a busier patterned pastel, and I'm going for high contrast.

With the exception of one of my normals, all of my normal females are reduced pattern normals.

One of my banded females threw very jungley babies this past season, and one banded baby (but that baby got her genetics from her dad - who is a Jolliff Tiger, and that baby looks like her daddy and nothing like her mom). Two seasons she's thrown busy babies, but she passes on her amazing head blushing and colors to them - so I keep that in mind now when deciding who to pair with her.

I have a blushed black back normal - very dark, that I will probably pair with my mojo this year to try to pass on some of her blushing, but make a deeper colored mojo.

I also selectively choose my morphs as well, with the hopes of improving my morphs with each generation that I breed them.

IMHO, and with my business plans, selective breeding is the future of the ball python market. While I currently have a waiting list for my lemon pastels and have about 10 females ready to go, only 4 or 5 are females that I feel will enhance the babies, and so those will be the only females that he will be paired with.

[JimNAZ]

All of what you stated makes a lot of sense and I agree with selective breeding.

Do you (or anyone else) feel that a reduced pattern makes any difference with pairing to a mojave or cinnamon?

In reference to a spider, does the pattern have any affect at all? I imagine a very light normal can help lighten up a dark spider but does blushing or a large reduced pattern do anything?

Just wondering stuff . . .

Thx

Jim

[rabernet]

All of what you stated makes a lot of sense and I agree with selective breeding.

Do you (or anyone else) feel that a reduced pattern makes any difference with pairing to a mojave or cinnamon?

In reference to a spider, does the pattern have any affect at all? I imagine a very light normal can help lighten up a dark spider but does blushing or a large reduced pattern do anything?

Just wondering stuff . . .

Thx

Jim

I've heard anecdotal results that a reduced pattern normal to a spider results in lower white spiders, but I don't know if that's true. I do know that my reduced patterned normal bred to a spider resulted in all reduced patterned babies. However, the spider was also reduced patterned.

Not sure if reduced pattern would affect the cinnamon or mojave, since those are both pattern morphs, and I would tend to believe that their pattern would be less likely to be affected by the normal. The reason I plan to pair my dark reduced pattern normal to my mojo this year is that I'd like to see if it will make the contrast between the yellows in the mojo and the darkness of the rest more extreme.

[snakesRkewl]

Not sure if reduced pattern would affect the cinnamon or mojave, since those are both pattern morphs, and I would tend to believe that their pattern would be less likely to be affected by the normal.

What makes you lean towards that conclusion, may I ask?
I've always been led to believe the patterning of both snakes played into the babies appearance?

[rabernet]

What makes you lean towards that conclusion, may I ask?
I've always been led to believe the patterning of both snakes played into the babies appearance?

From what I said - they're both pattern morphs, and tend to be very consistent in their patterns. I have a completely reduced patterned, banded girl that has not thrown any reduced patterned bandeds, until she was paired with a genetic Jolliff Tiger. That baby got it's pattern from her dad, and not mom. All the normals she's ever thrown have been busy patterned.

[Mike@OutbackReptiles-D]

Since cinnamon an Mojave are dominant pattern morphs, I would assume they would dominate the "normal" pattern.

[matt71915]

Since cinnamon an Mojave are dominant pattern morphs, I would assume they would dominate the "normal" pattern.

cinny and mojave are co-dom

[Mike@OutbackReptiles-D]

cinny and mojave are co-dom

Which I'm sure you are aware means co-dominant, which is a form of dominance.

[matt71915]

sorry about that, the way you worded it confused me.