Quote Originally Posted by Pythonfriend View Post
which lines are compatible with VPI?

maybe the way to go would be to get good examples of VPI, SK and Joliff and MJ and then just breed them and pick the best of the best babies as holdbacks. of course that only works if they are compatible.

basically the good old line-breeding game: select excellent examples to start out with, breed, produce a lot, hold back the best you get, and so on. with hypo, people mix regular/unbranded hypo with named lines all the time, and it has advanced to a degree that you can asks for a specific line if it will be compatible with regular hypo. and the question makes sense and you get an answer.

how is it with axanthic? are there mixed axanthics, with different lines in them, or something you could call regular axanthic?
VPI has 2 lines.
The standard well known VPI Axanthic and the VPI Black Axanthic (which is not supposed to brown out with age, much like the MJ line which is why I asked if anyone had bred to check the compatibility of those 2 lines).
I've only personally seen VPI, TSK and MJ, the others only photos. Of those snakes I've seen I have found good snakes in both VPI and TSK lines that were very good examples of an axanthic morph and in both lines some very brown examples. I have yet to see a brown MJ or a photo even of a brown VPI Black Axanthic(but these haven't been around that long so not a ton of people have grown out examples).

I'm pretty sure VPI, TSK and MJ lines are all non-compatible. You do have a point about line breeding, animals with strong blacks, and little brown (in non-axanthic these should be the brighter yellow animals) would lend themselves well to that project. Infact, this is just a guess but, I would think that attention to this detail is responsible for the better examples of VPI and TSK I have seen and lack of attention is a contributing factor to the less than stellar examples.