Questions about kinked caramels and breeding

[TooManyToys]

Well, I have heard a lot about what needs to be done to produce non-kinked Caramels..

Het to Het, and Caramel to het.. NEVER Caramel to Caramel..

I plan on trying either of those (first two options) with mine this upcoming year, but anyone with more experience can chime in on this??

I think Ralph has produced kinks from both of those options?

[LadyOhh]

I think Ralph has produced kinks from both of those options?

Sure, but less likely to kink than the Caramel to Caramel option, so I've heard..

[TooManyToys]

Sure, but less likely to kink than the Caramel to Caramel option, so I've heard..

I wonder if it's just a genetic flaw that came with the first W/C's brought in?

[grunt_11b]

I've heard that the Malsin line may have fewer kinks.. Has anyone else heard this? I'm wanting to get hets later this year but don't know what line to get.. Should I get two different lines of hets and do it that way? Or does that still produce the same amount of kinking? Any advice will be appreiciated!!!

Thanks
Alan

[Larry Suttles]

I've heard drier egg boxes at cooler temps is a must for caramel eggs.

[Gloryhound]

One question that needs to be answered is if you breed two hets together do the normal appearing offspring have a tendency to have kinks?

If we could produce that info we could figure out if the trait is attached to the the Caramel gene in its visual form or not. Also what needs to be figured out is if the kink is recessive, co-dom, or dom. If the trait only appears in visual caramels that does not mean the trait is necessarily a recessive trait. It just means it needs the altered caramel genes to pop out! This could create lots of issues as normal appearing ball pythons could be carriers of the kink as well, so breeding it out would be next to impossible. The only way to prove the gene separated would be breeding two caramels together multiple times with no kinks resulting. Then the offspring from those two would be the holy grail of Caramels as long as they were bred to other Caramels from that line. Once you breed it to a normal all bets would be off! Also once you started trying to make combo morphs all bets would be off.

As for selling a kinked Caramel (slight or not) as a pet I don't think it would be very responsible as a breeder. Breeders are the ones responsible for reducing genetic issues in a breed. By allowing an animal with genetic issues to leave your facility and out of your control you are not really making an effort to improve the breed.

Another big question or dilemma for a breeder is if you breed two snakes together and a genetic issue such as this is produced do you allow these two animals to breed together again? Do you allow either to breed again? (If the kink is recessive then both are carriers, if it is dom or Co-dom then only one could necessarily be the carrier.)

[grunt_11b]

What line are you working with gloryhound? I see in your sig it says caramels. I was just wondering if your doing het to het, homo to het or what?

Thanks
Alan

[BT41042]

I've heard drier egg boxes at cooler temps is a must for caramel eggs.

Same here Larry...I've heard Caramels have weak spines and that you must incubate them drier and at lower temps...The drier your box - The less water gets absorbed into the egg which in turn puts less pressure on the spine - I've heard this theory from several breeders...My het Caramel female ovulated about 10 days ago - She has 6 nice eggs in her and that's the approach I'll be taking - Drier than usual box and cooked at 86F...The breeding was het x het (both hets are NERD line)...Wish me luck...

[dr del]

Hi,

Lots of intresting information.

Do the cooler incubation temperatures just slow everything down developmentally and possibly allow more time for corrections of any problems or just reduce the overall stress placed on the animal during growth?

How dry can you go in the incubation medium without causing other (non-caramel) related problems?

Do the eggs appear completely normal from caramel to caramel clutches?

I wondered if there was an incidental problem with how the animals handle or pass on calcium during development or egg production which could be countered using techniques learned from other species?

The information about lines that throw less kinks sounds facinating - how many years/pairings though would you need to be able to claim that with any certainty?

And of course best of luck for your clutch look forward to the pictures of lovely little wrigglers.


dr del

[RandyRemington]

From posts I've read it sounds like about half of the imported caramels where kinked and that the normals in caramel clutches don't appear to have any increased incidence of kinking. It's really looking to me like the tendency to kink is just part of the caramel mutation and not a separate gene that could have been bred out by now.

That said, genetically I don't see how not breeding caramel X caramel could help. Say you produce a clutch of caramels and hets. Other than the caramel gene, how would keeping two of the caramels back for breeders be different than keeping two of the hets back? They are all the same amount of inbreeding. Of course we should still gather the stats and if it really does produce a higher percentage of kinks from caramel X caramel then come up with some theory as to why. Maybe female caramels are more likely to produce eggs that encourage kinking than het females.

If some breeders are producing large numbers of caramels with now or a low percentage of kinking then we need to figure out what they are doing differently. I think incubation techniques or perhaps nutrition might be the best bet for a workaround to this kinking tendency that to me seems to be just a part of the mutation.