Best blood x ball python aproach

[dturner100]

What would be the best approach to breed a ball python to a blood python? Would it matter if you bred a male blood to a female ball, or the other way around? Would it be safer for the ball female if she was a big proven female?

I've heard of a few people doing this, but I just want to for 1 increase my chances of successfully breeding the hybrid, and 2 keep the whole process safe for both animals that will be involved.

Also would the genetics be similar? For instance if I used a spider het albino ball female to an albino blood would I end up with spider/albino super balls? Or is all this going to be trial and error? I just don't want to jump into the whole thing without knowing a little about the cross.
Any info would be very helpful.

Thanks
Dustin

[SNIKTTIME]

Personally I am not a big fan of hybrids but I know people that have done it successfully. They would use for instance female Ball Python shed on a Female Blood and would basically trick the male Ball into thinking it was a Ball he was mating with. Not sure if there have been different methods developed as this was like 5 years ago.

[Russ Lawson]

As far as the mutations go, because the chromosomes of a blood python are different than those of a ball python, it is extremely unlikely the alleles would fall on the same locus. You theoretically would end up with all being heterozygous albino from the blood python, half of which would theoretically be spider blood balls, and all would be 50% chance het albino from the ball python (you'd basically have some double heterozygous blood python albino and ball python albino). However, I am not an expert on hybrid genetics, so there could be a possibility the spider mutation may not be dominant to the blood ball hybrid phenotype. I'm not even sure if any studies have been done on how genetic mutations from one species pass on if it is hybridized with another species though, and there is likely to be a lot more variance in the hybrid than with mutations of one of the species or the other by themselves.

[michele769]

I have no idea how true this is, but i was told once that if you were going to do it make sure the blood is female. Since male bloods have to much sperm or something along those lines, and the female bp wouldn't be able to produce. Again i don't know how true this is, but a guy i talked to once told me this.

[dturner100]

I would agree that using a female blood would be better since they lay 14 to 20 eggs.

[Russ Lawson]

I would agree that using a female blood would be better since they lay 14 to 20 eggs.

Yeah, in any case of hybridization I would guess it better to use a female of the species that lays more eggs considering most you will be getting will be infertile. It's also likely that it may take you years of breeding to get any fertile eggs that make it through incubation. I am somewhat curious about the effects of using a male of one species versus a female of another. It seems to me like there is a decent chance the hybrids from each pairing may turn out different from each other (I'm thinking liger vs tigon).

[chago11]

if you figure it out let me know how you did it. i am wanting to do the ball x blood and ball x carpet

[2kdime]

Dont do it!

[dturner100]

Dont do it!

Wow, I'm not trying to be mean, but how was that at all helpful?

Granted some people aren't big fans of hybridization, but this wasn't a thread about whether or not I should do it.

For those of you who take offense to it I'm sorry, but I'm no pioneer here. Also I'm not trying to make a market with it here. I'm just trying something I find very interesting.

And for it being wrong, it's not. It's only wrong for the people who run a bigger breeding facility than us hobbyists, and they thing that our little hybrids are going to create a competitive market. That's not my interest. As far as this topic here goes, I'm a hobbyist, and the "Don't do it" remark isn't at all helpful.

[Elise.m]

I wouldn't do it. If you are seriously considering doing it, contact Kevin McCurley (Of N.E.R.D.) or Steve Roussis (of Roussis Reptiles). Kevin wrote about the hybrid in his book, and Steve produced it.