To be, or not to be, an Enchi

[Ladybugzcrunch]

Color is wrong=not enchi. Looks like a normal to me.

[h00blah]

That's a tough one. I'd say it's a very low quality enchi . I probably wouldn't breed him/her ..

[Kiara1125]

I found an enchi that looks dark like yours. Maybe it's a mix between a normal and an enchi. You never know since the breeders/suppliers could try to not have inbreeding, therefore they breed with random other ball pythons to create either fancies or mixes. Where did your friend get the BP from?

[TurkeyPython]

I found an enchi that looks dark like yours. Maybe it's a mix between a normal and an enchi.

Every enchi, unless it's a super enchi, has both normal genes and an enchi.

[sho220]

I found an enchi that looks dark like yours. Maybe it's a mix between a normal and an enchi. You never know since the breeders/suppliers could try to not have inbreeding, therefore they breed with random other ball pythons to create either fancies or mixes. Where did your friend get the BP from?

It's either an Enchi or it's not. You can't really have a "mix" of normal and Enchi, however you can have an Enchi that is just a low expression Enchi, or in other words, a poor quality Enchi that doesn't look much different than a normal...

[DooLittle]

My vote is banded normal. I'm not seeing the pixelation that enchi's have.

[happysmile88]

I have no idea where my friend got the snake. The only thing I do know is that he lost contact with the seller.

Also, will a low quality enchi only produce low quality enchis?

[Pythonfriend]

for breeding, its really simple: its either a low-quality enchi or a really nice normal. so if its a male, its useless for breeding either way. you want the male to bring genes to the table, new and valuable genes or really good examples of less expensive genes or something like that.

and if its a female you could treat it as a nice normal female, possible enchi, and if you have a really nice male you can use it for breeding.

when breeding, you can take a low quality example of a morph and pair it up with top quality normals or morphs with a top quality genetic background and hatch better offspring. and in some morphs (low-white versus high-white pied and calico) some factors are really quite random. but the general rule is: you want to breed the best possible example of any morph to the best possible example of a different morph, and anything that is lower quality is supposed to be a pet for someone. so the question if you can start out with a low-quality enchi and produce quality has a simple answer in the form of another question: why even try? stellar single-gene enchis are available, and if you want to breed BPs and you want to work with a (male or female) single-gene enchi, you should try to get the best.

as a future breeder you are standing on the shoulders of giants, there is no progress to be made in refining a poor example of a morph into a better one when others already did that and you can get a nice example of the gene in the form of a nice triple-gene combo. if you produce BPs, be aware that someone will (hopefully) take care of the animal and care about the animal and look at it several times each week for an average of two decades. thats a bit of responsibility.

all that being said, i think its a really nice normal, so there may be some potential for breeding if you have a really really nice male, and if it is a female. i think it doesnt have enchi in it, but just happens to have a really nice reduced pattern.

[h00blah]

I have no idea where my friend got the snake. The only thing I do know is that he lost contact with the seller.

Also, will a low quality enchi only produce low quality enchis?

When people tell you to "buy quality" in a morph, they're telling you to buy an example of a morph that best displays the traits that the morph is known for.

Enchis are known for their orange / gold coloration, the orange/yellow coloration that creeps up from the belly and side, and the banded pattern.

Below is an example of a very nice orange / gold enchi with very high orange/yellow coloration creeping up from the belly, and an almost spot-less and banded pattern. I was happy to sacrifice the non-spotless pattern for an extremely nice example of the Enchi. I would consider this a high quality - top shelf enchi .




EDIT:
Buying quality won't guarantee that you will reproduce 100% quality babies, but you're hoping that some if not all of the traits of your breeders will translate into the other morphs. For example, I'm hoping the overall coloration of this enchi will translate into my Ultramel project. I'm also hoping that I produce some banded enchis, and enchis with high orange/yellow. With any luck, I'll produce an enchi or 2 that has more than 1 of the traits that I like in enchis .

The enchi you posted a pic of has some cool banding, but it has very low orange sides, and dark brown overall coloration. That's only 1/3 of the enchi traits, so personally, I wouldn't breed him/her.

[Eric Alan]

This guy knows his Enchi!