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producing colour and pattern morphs
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by pw on December 12, 2006
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how would i know if i have a snake with a possible for albino or another morph if it has never bred with anything, or even if it has bred and has not produced any albinos or other colour morphs. Also how will i be able to put that trait in the offspring or change geneitic lines to produce colour morphs. the most i have ever come out with to any extreme is A.c.contorix and A.c.phaeogaster with broken patterns and/or minute too partial body stripe. ANYBODY, PLEASE INFO IN THIS AREA HAS BEEN GREATLY SOUGHT AFTER FR ALONG WHILE, ineed help. ....Thomas
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RE: producing colour and pattern morphs
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by LarryDFishel on December 12, 2006
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How do you know if a snake carries the albino gene if it has never been bred? You don't, unless you have the parents or got it from someone who has the parents and one of them is albino. Or maybe if you have a genetics lab at your disposal...
Some morphs, in some snakes, may show partial signs that indicate a recessive gene that can be produced in the young, but usually not.
You don't "change the geneitic lines to produce colour morphs". You either have breeding stock with genes for one or more morphs or you don't. If you have two "morph" genes in your breeding pool, you may be able to combine them to get a third (but usually only the three given two mutations to start with).
If I had to guess, the snakes you produced with stripes or broken lines were more likely the result of improper temperatures during gestation (partial stripes are a common sign). These are probably not genetic and so won't be passed on to the next generation and can't be combined.
What I think you're missing is a common misconception that is, to some degree, encouraged by some breeders of snake morphs to make it seem like there is some sort of magic tachnique that goes into creating new morphs.
They didn't start with normal animals and breed until they got morphs. They either find or buy (usually buy) one or more wild snakes with a new color morph that no one has seen before and bred that animal into their gene pool.
Most snake morphs are both fairly simple (therefore showing up in a significant number of offspring) and a DISadvantage in the wild (because the offspring are easy to see and get eaten). So the line tends to die out quickly. Therefore the chance of any given, normal looking, wild snake carrying a gene for a new color morph is very, very small.
Ususally, the way they are found is that someone stumbles across the babies of the first generation to show the trait before they get eaten. There are certainly exceptions to this, some morphs that don't mess up the snake's camoflage are found now and then as adults.
Either way, the bottom line is, the only way you have any chance of breeding any interesting morphs is to find or buy snakes that already show some color difference...or buy the offspring of such a snake, but then you're already behind whoever you bought them from...
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RE: producing colour and pattern morphs
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by rabbitsmcgatess on December 12, 2006
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If you do this then no one will buy the snakes from you but a way to produce snakes with "morphs" is to cross one species with another to introduce gene variations into everything. Then you cross those, if they aren't sterile, to get all sorts of variations and/or backcross to one parent species. Then cross all those things you have produced. Everything is a hybrid. As you select for what the original species looks like you can get "morphs" from the hybrid genes and you can select those for breeding. It will take a while but you would end up with a lot of different things you might like.
I would never do this because I would never buy a hybrid snake and wouldn't produce any. Some other people would find them interesting though. It would just take time and effort to do it.
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RE: producing colour and pattern morphs
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by LuckyStrike on December 13, 2006
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Hybrids are not the same as morphs. A "morph" is an animal of the same species that lacks or has a mutated gene, i.e. the gene that "writes" the code that tells the animal to produce melanin.The lack of this gene would result in an albino animal.An albino animal is the same species as his normal counterparts, he just lacks melanin. A hybrid is totally different. Hybrids are the result (often sterile) of two species breeding. They are not true "morphs" because they are not the result of a genetic mutation within a single species. They are the result of two animals of different species breeding. Though this hybridization does happen in nature, it is rare.
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RE: producing colour and pattern morphs
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by AnonEMouse on December 13, 2006
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As was pointed out, morphs and hybrids are very different things.
Advising someone to breed, interbreed and reinterbreed hybrids is irresponsible in the extreme. Antivenom is hard enough to come by for the snakes that we already know about without "creating" our own toxic soup for which no antivenom can exist and none that exists may wind up being effective!
I seem to remember that the SHHS promotes responsible husbandry. What's going on here?
The Mouse In The House
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RE: producing colour and pattern morphs
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by rabbitsmcgatess on December 13, 2006
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Yep, what I described was crossing two species to introduce variation into all genes to form a hybrid. Other snake breeders of nonvenomous snakes, and birds, and cats do that all the time. Whether its a hybrid at one gene in a morph or in essentially every gene in a species cross the DNA doesn't treat it any different. Same with genetic engineering, put a firefly gene into a plant and get a glowing plant if you are lucky. Or the Glo-Fish with a jellyfish gene put into Zebra Danios to yield a reddish glowing fish. Its all just DNA to the cell.
Like I said, I wouldn't do it and I don't think many people would buy them. But there are people on here talking about making hybrids. I even saw some Eastern Diamondback X Western Diamondback Rattlesnake babies for sale not long ago.
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