Cajun And Butter Het Cajun

[Bill Buchman]

My first clutch of the year proved my c.h. "Red girl". I suspected she was genetic looking the way she does. But you can never know until you breed them. I chose the Butter for her because it would foster a unique merging of color and pattern -- and I wanted to see pink! While I was hoping for the shades of pink and black backs -- the mauve blushing was an unexpected surprise. In person they are stunning in a subtle way!!! They have Boa-like hues really.

The clutch hatched on 4-5-08. The pics are post first shed. For now I will say there were 1.2 Het Cajuns and 2.3 Butter Het Cajuns. My best guess is that she is codominant as I don't see any "normals" or "Butters" when I look at them. The combos have no true browns or yellows. As you can see, my Butter male is VERY light and very yellow(breeding Cinny ).

2 of the 3 prettiest combos are males and so the plan is to grow them up and breed them back to mom and a normal next season -- and possibly a Pastel. I am keeping the whole clutch which officially makes this a PROJECT!!! I'll take pics as they grow in order to keep track of any color changes. Thanks for taking the time.

[FL0OD]

good luck those are really nice :sweet:

[karbogast]

Cool project, and I like how the trait meshed with the butters. Good luck with them and I hope you are able to prove out a super.

[janeothejungle]

SCHWEET!! That's a most excellent clutch, bro! Can't wait to see how that pans out. Congrats!!

Cheers,
Kat

[snakelady]

Awesome! I like mom too.

[NickMyers03]

really cool, she reminds me of a het red. was she CH?

good luck on the super and i hope you hit it next year

[Bill Buchman]

Nick,

Yes, she is captive hatched and if she looked like any established morph -- it would be a Het Red. As far as I know, a Butter Het Red has not been done(Pastel cross only???). I imagine that they might look similar to this combo.

In my opinion, the Cajun girl is much prettier than any Het Red I have seen, but is less extreme than a Red Axanthic. That, along with from eight eggs I did not get anything that was "clearly" not het for her trait, leads me to suspect she is co-dom. She already has ALL her 1800 grams back and will surely be ready for next year.

The babies are doing GREAT! All have eaten each of the three times they were offered food. They are real cute!!!

[RandyRemington]

If all the babies look like mom I would suspect she is homozygous for a dominant mutation. Homozygous so that all her babies get the same version of the gene from her and dominant so that even if the babies are hets they look the same. Of course it could be just luck to get 8 hets from a het X normal.

[soy.lor.n]

In my opinion, the Cajun girl is much prettier than any Het Red I have seen, but is less extreme than a Red Axanthic. That, along with from eight eggs I did not get anything that was "clearly" not het for her trait, leads me to suspect she is co-dom. She already has ALL her 1800 grams back and will surely be ready for next year.

So you're suspecting that she IS a super, correct?

[Bill Buchman]

If all the babies look like mom I would suspect she is homozygous for a dominant mutation. Homozygous so that all her babies get the same version of the gene from her and dominant so that even if the babies are hets they look the same. Of course it could be just luck to get 8 hets from a het X normal.

Randy -- Based on reading your posts on genetics I would have to defer to you in almost all matters in that rather complex area. You know your stuff!!!

The 3 non-Butters in the clutch are all black backs and are VERY similar to each other in belly markings, head markings/blushing, and overall color -- and DON"T look like a "Normal" that would likely have come from either side of the gene pool -- Butter dad or Cajun mom if mom was not Homozygous for her trait.. They are DARKER(less red tones) than mother -- just like Het Reds are darker than Red Axanthics.

4 of the 5 combos are black backs. The combo that has a more traditional Butter pattern DOES have the color tones of the other combos.

Above is my long-winded attempt at saying we agree. Your are right in that I could just be lucky and hit on all 8!!! Some snakes/projects are not completely understood in one generation -- this is clearly one of them. I'll see what happens with them next season and keep everyone abreast of any developments. Thanks for your input Randy. I value your opinion greatly. Bill