What's wrong with sibs?

[EL-Ziggy]

I recently came across a beautiful Jungle Jag sib and even though I love pure jungles some of the JJ and DJJ sibs are really nice. I understand the need for full disclosure if you ever breed the animal and sell the offspring but other than that why do some keepers frown on sibs?

[DennisM]

There’s two issues at play here. Sibs refers to the normal offspring of a pairing involving a jag.

Issue #1 – some people frown upon ssp crosses, whether there are jags involved or not. This partly due to the frequent difficulty in identifying these as crosses. I keep plenty of crosses and smile upon them.

Issue #2 – the term “jag sib” is simply stupid, or an attempt to pretend the snake is something it is not. If you bred a pastel BP, would you call the normal offspring from that clutch “pastel sibs”? No you would not. When jags first became available to the general public there was a debate claiming jag sibs were “nicer” than other normals. Naturally, this was reflected in their price. This was nothing more than a marketing ploy. Some claimed sibs could produce jags. The fact that none ever did was not a deterrent to those looking to make a fast buck. I do frown upon the term “jag sib”.

[EL-Ziggy]

Thanks Dennis- I'm still trying to understand the whole sib thing. So if you pair a Jungle Jag with a pure Jungle the normals would be JJ sibs? And if the sib was later paired with another pure jungle they would only produce normals, and maybe coastals, but no jags? The sib should also not be paired with another jag. Am I getting this partially correct?

[DennisM]

Thanks Dennis- I'm still trying to understand the whole sib thing. So if you pair a Jungle Jag with a pure Jungle the normals would be JJ sibs? And if the sib was later paired with another pure jungle they would only produce normals, and maybe coastals, but no jags? The sib should also not be paired with another jag. Am I getting this partially correct?

not quite. the jag gene is codominant. jj to jungle would produce jungle/coastal crosses. some would be jag and some would not. the normal from that pairing to jungle pairing would produce all jungle/coastal crosses, no jags. once the JJ is in the mix, all descendants will be jungle/coastal crosses.

[DennisM]

Thanks Dennis- I'm still trying to understand the whole sib thing. So if you pair a Jungle Jag with a pure Jungle the normals would be JJ sibs? And if the sib was later paired with another pure jungle they would only produce normals, and maybe coastals, but no jags? The sib should also not be paired with another jag. Am I getting this partially correct?

there's no reason not to pair a normal (sibs are normals) with a jag. The issue is with jag to jag, the homozygous jag (super jag) is lethal. an expected 25% of jag to jag offspring would have the lethal homozygous outcome.

[DennisM]

Thanks Dennis- I'm still trying to understand the whole sib thing.

here's all you need to know about the sib thing. "sibs" are normals. they don't carry the jag gene. that's why I frown on the term, it's meaningless. it has nothing to do with crosses either. a pure coastal can be a "jag sib". it means at least one of my parents was a jag and I am not.

[EL-Ziggy]

Thanks again Dennis. I think you've cleared things up quite a bit. So if I pair the "sib" with a pure jungle would the offspring be 75% jungle and 25% coastal? Here's a pic of the "mutt" in question. She's supposedly a cover to cover jag x highlighter jungle. I'm still working on verifying the lineage. Either way I thought she was nice looking.

[piedpipper]

Well it would depend what percentage jungle the parent animal was to begin with. If the father lets say is 50% jungle and 50% coastal and you paired that to a pure jungle the resulting offspring would be 75% jungle 25% coastal. if you pair the offspring with another pure jungle you will get 87.5% jungle 12.5% coastal. Basically the more you breed them to pure jungles the more watered down any coastal genes they have become.

Thanks Dennis- I'm still trying to understand the whole sib thing. So if you pair a Jungle Jag with a pure Jungle the normals would be JJ sibs? And if the sib was later paired with another pure jungle they would only produce normals, and maybe coastals, but no jags? The sib should also not be paired with another jag. Am I getting this partially correct?

You seem a bit confused here on the whole jungle/coastal thing. Jungle and coastal are simply subspecies of carpet python. They're not morphs. So if you breed any jungle/coastal mix regardless of whether they are jaguar or not to a pure jungle you don't get some jungles and some coastals. You just get offspring with less coastal blood in them.

[DennisM]

Well it would depend what percentage jungle the parent animal was to begin with. If the father lets say is 50% jungle and 50% coastal and you paired that to a pure jungle the resulting offspring would be 75% jungle 25% coastal. if you pair the offspring with another pure jungle you will get 87.5% jungle 12.5% coastal. Basically the more you breed them to pure jungles the more watered down any coastal genes they have become.

nothing depends on that at all. 50/50, 87.5/12.5. they're both jungle coastal crosses. the difference is that most 87.5 jungles will be much easier to pass of as pure jungle if they lack the jag gene. which goes back to why some people frown on crosses.

edit: sorry, piedpipper. I missed the 75/25 question in the previous post.

[EL-Ziggy]

Copy that Pied. I wasn't very clear in my thinking or my writing. I do understand that they would all be jungle/coastal crosses and how the higher percentage of jungle genes will reduce the coastal influence in the offspring. I was wondering how much the physical characteristics would vary. Would some look more like jungles and others look more like coastals? As long as the seller is honest about the animal's lineage I see no issues with crosses. Some of them are visually stunning. The problems come in when they're misrepresented as something they're not. I think there's a market for crosses, morphs and the pure stuff.