Contemplating a Future Mate for my Blue Eyed Leucisic - What Would You Get?

[wendhend]

This is my Lucy. She is a Russo BEL that I got directly from Vin Russo. She is still young, but I am contemplating obtaining a future mate for her. Now I know the combinations used to create blue eyed leucistics (lesser, mojave, phantom, Russo het, phantom, butter), but I am wondering if there is anything I should know about breeding a BEL, such as compatability issues? I would like to be able to breed her and get nice clean blue eyed leucistics out of her.... at least some. Would breeding her to a BEL that came from a different combination or to any or the morphs used to make BELs produce nice clean leucistics, or would she have to be bred to a Russo leucistic or het to produce them?

I know I have plenty of time to find a mate for her, but at the same time I would like to be practical and buy a dominant / codominant morph male that could also be bred to my big normal female to produce morphs. I have heard that someone in my area has blue eyed leucistic for sale that was produced with a mojave / lesser combination. I saw a picture, and it is a stunning, clean, white snake, but I'm not even sure if it is a male yet. Before I inquire, I want to know if this would even be a compatible match for my Russo BEL. Also, if this mojave / lesser BEL were bred to a normal, I could expect it to produce some lessers and mojaves, right?

What kind of male would you get?

[SNIKTTIME]

From what I hear, as long as you don't use 2 Mojaves you will get whiter BELs. With that said you can even get a Mojave at this point and get white BELs because the snake you have isn't a Mojave. So you are in a good spot with many options.

[dr del]

Hi,

One important point to remember - if you beerd your BEL to another BEL ( aside form a homozygous one ) you will have no way of telling what on earth the genetics of any BEL offspring are without waiting and breeding them back to a normal.

So how would you market any offspring from;

mojave/ lesser BEL, mojave/ russo BEL, mojave/ butter BEL, mojave/ mocha BEL, lesser/ russo BEL, lesser/ butter BEL, lesser/ mocha BEL etc.

When bred to your russo BEL?

I don't know if phantom makes a BEL when bred to a russo so didn't include it.

The best you could say about your baby bels is they have russo and something else in them.

That might put a lot of buyers off if they had a specific project in mind.

Just my but I'd only buy a BEL made from one kind of morph - a super lesser or super mojave.


dr del

[lesserlover]

What has been said is true. I like your lucy and I would purchase a het russo to pair with her because you will know the exact genetics as mentioned above. I purchased a mojave girl, lesser girl and a lesser male to produce my lucy's in the future and the reason why I choose the lesser 1.1. pair is because I love lessers and they make good combos. You might want to invest in another lucy that is super lesser.

[jjsnakedude]

I would personally do something like a super pastel. If youve seen the het Russo pastel on kingsnake I would think it would be awsome to see an entire clutch of those hatching!

[chago11]

i would get a double codom that has anything that still can produce BELs like a lesser bee or a pastave. like that you still get BELs, lessers, spiders etc.

[dreese88]

i would get a double codom that has anything that still can produce BELs like a lesser bee or a pastave. like that you still get BELs, lessers, spiders etc.

But would you know when you get BEL Spiders? Personally, if I had a White Diamond BEL, I would probably either get a lesser or super lesser or another het russo or White Diamond. That way, you'll get your clean white BELs and you'll know the genetics behind it. I don't know if het russo x phantom has been done, but I would be willing to bet that that pairing would also yield some clean white BELs


Hope this helps

[Russ Lawson]

It really boils down to if you want to go the leucistic route, or the combo route. Not a lot has been done with russo hets, so you might even be able to find something nobody else has done before. There are a lot of choices with double codom/dominant mutations to choose from, so go with what you like if you go that route. From what I've seen though, the russo het combo mutations aren't really as spectacular imo as lesser/butter combos.

If you want to go the leucistic route, I think a super lesser/butter would be a great choice, as all of your offspring from that pairing would have one mutated gene from the lesser/butter, and the other from the russo het (you could also go with another russo white diamond if you are a big fan of those, but I think you'd get a bit more diversity in the long run out of a super butter/lesser). I would avoid getting something where you might end up with leucistics with questionable genetics, such as Derek and Dylan mentioned.

[dreese88]

Russ, I agree about the double codom, but in the OP, she mentioned wanting to make more BEL's...if it were me, I might try to work an ivory or pastel ivory into it or even a super enchi...I think a het russo enchi would be a badass snake.

[wendhend]

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies! You have given me a lot to think about. I did go ahead and inquire about the mojave/lesser combo BEL for sale in my town and found out that it is a female... so not an option for my breeding with my White Diamond BEL after all.... although I am almost tempted to purchase her anyway, as she is quite lovely, affordable and would be coming from someone that I actually know and trust. If I do end up purchasing the second BEL female, I am thinking that a lesser or lesser combo would be the way to go as far as a male that could breed with them both and the normal to produce nice morphs in the future. Anyway, thanks again for all the advice! I really appreciate it!