Ultra Lavender?

I think the one on top may be an Ultra Lavender, but that hypo looking thing SURE is brightly colored!

Okies Rich.. Here comes a volley of questions for you about the first picture..

Ultra Lavender? Might this one be an ultramel anery lav? Wouldn't that be cool...

Now the hypo looking thing... Ultramel? Dark iris', but that doesn't nescessarily rule out the ultra/ultramel idea IMHO...

The little one under the Hypo looking thingamabob.. Sunkissed? Me and the wife are at odds about what that is.. To me, it looks sunkissed though..

Regards.. Tim of T and J

Oh geez...you're already combining ultra and sunkissed ('cause I agree with Tim) and I don't have EITHER in my collection yet. Guess that's something I'll have to rectify at Daytona this year...Gorgeous snakes Rich.

~Katie

I a few years away from even trying to make the hets for sunkissed lavender now.. I need to do some breeding trials with the het sunkissed offspring I teamed up with another player to create this year.. Dayum..

What ever it is Katie, it screams sunkissed to me.. Just need to confimration from Rich on that critter..

Regards.. Tim of T and J

No, there is no Sunkissed blood in that mixture. The parents were the results of breeding Ultra x Hypo Lavender. Since no amelanistics came out of that stock (that I can recall, anyway), it is very doubtful that an Ultramel is pictured there. I do have one odd looking animal that appears to be an Ultra/Hypo/Lavender. I thought I posted a photo here somewhere....

Now I do have results from breeding animals het for both Ultra and Sunkissed, and there are some really odd patterned animals coming out of that mixture. And quite likely there are some Ultramel Sunkisseds as well. But it's still too early in the project to have a handle on what all the different things that have hatched out really are.

The problem is that just about every project produces results that can be just a stepping stone for a new project. But man, how many projects can I support at one time? I really want to breed a Hypo Sunkissed to a Hypo Pewter this year, but not sure I want yet another clutch of animals to raise up. :crazy02: But the F2s would certainly be interesting........

The problem is that just about every project produces results that can be just a stepping stone for a new project. But man, how many projects can I support at one time? I really want to breed a Hypo Sunkissed to a Hypo Pewter this year, but not sure I want yet another clutch of animals to raise up. But the F2s would certainly be interesting........

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I am just a tiny guy Rich, will have het clutches like that ( animals with differnt hets here and there.. ).. How many can I take care of in my situation, I don't have an answer to my own question, however sell the hets once the homo's hit the ground though.. *lol*

Regards.. Tim of T and J

TandJ said:

I am just a tiny guy Rich, will have het clutches like that ( animals with differnt hets here and there.. ).. How many can I take care of in my situation, I don't have an answer to my own question, however sell the hets once the homo's hit the ground though.. *lol*

Regards.. Tim of T and J

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Well that sounds good in theory, but suppose those homo's have fertility problems or your only male DIES on you? Do you REALLY want to have to start from scratch again if that project proved to be worthwhile? One thing I have learned doing this is to hope for the best, but PLAN for the worst..... And never, NEVER, if at all possible, put all of your eggs into one basket.

The very first Butter Motleys ever produced luckily turned out to be 2.2. But upon reaching adulthood, I lost the male in an unfortunate accident taking him up to the Mid Atlantic Show as a display animal. Then that same year, the female died eggbound. I had gotten rid of all the het males, so quite literally EVERYTHING hinged on that lone male Butter Motley for me, otherwise I was REALLY up the creek on that project. Fortunately he proved to be quite the stud, and saved the day. Things would have been VERY ugly that year had he been infertile. That just is NOT a position I want to be in again if I can help it at all.

Quite honestly, unless I have three males for any given project, I feel severely underfunded for any project I am undertaking. Yes, one GOOD male can do the job, but one BAD male can really ruin your plans badly. So why take the chance if you can avoid it? Most everyone likes to be VERY heavy in females, but in my opinion being heavy in males is much safer. If you breed a single female with three males, you are pretty much taking a safe bet that she will have her eggs fertilized. But one male breeding three females? Man, you better HOPE he is fertile, because I can guarantee that if those three females lay all slugs, you are going to be fit to be tied. That entire project if likely OVER with at that point. All for nothing....

IMHO, of course.

One of these days I need to document all the clever ways that Murphy's Law has kicked me in the teeth........

But now Rich, what do you do when you have something 'unique' pop up from a clutch of a female that happened to breed with 3 different males? Do you spend the next 3 years testing out each male with that female?

That seems a bit counter productive....

Joejr14 said:

But now Rich, what do you do when you have something 'unique' pop up from a clutch of a female that happened to breed with 3 different males? Do you spend the next 3 years testing out each male with that female?

That seems a bit counter productive....

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I still have the female (hopefully) that produced it as well as that animal itself. Yes, it does seem counter intuitive until you consider the alternative. Yes, it would be nice to know that each and every male were fertile, but what does it cost you in order to find that out? Well, one clutch from a female, at least. But it is not at all unusual for males to temporarily become infertile, so do you just cut your losses with one attempt? Even if you do, there is absolutely NO guarantee that those males that proved fertile this time around will have to be NEXT time.

I remember way back when, the guy who produced the very first Blizzard Corn (Art Meyer) loaned me that male on breeding loan. I bred him to about a dozen of my females, figuring I would try to capture that gene in as many projects as possible. Well, every BLASTED female he bred threw slugs! That was a VERY hard lesson for me to learn, and one I have obviously never forgotten. So no, I much prefer the methods I am now using.

I thought long and hard about this, and came to the conclusion that it is better from my perspective to run the risk of getting a one in a million animal that I could not prove which male was the parent rather than losing the entire production from a single female trying to prove the fertility of a given male. If the animal is all that unique then I simply keep ALL the males and then try to figure it out using them individually with that same female. Hoping they will all still be alive through the three seasons necessary to do this. Not all adults will live through the breeding season, unfortunately. Some losses are inevitable.

Not that this has happened particular situation has happened yet, however. Yes, I have gotten some unique animals, but nothing that made me regret my procedures here at all.

But, your mileage may vary, of course..........

Rich on your web site I cant see any pics of your snake for sale. I was looking at 05's, and 06's and there were no pics of any of your snake. If I did buy anything from you how do I know what Im going to get with out seeing a pic.

Rich does not take individual pics of the snakes for sale. If you look under the 2007 listing, there are general pics of what the morphs look like. I also don't think there are any 2005 snakes available on his site. It looks like they are all sold out.

dionythicus said:

Rich does not take individual pics of the snakes for sale. If you look under the 2007 listing, there are general pics of what the morphs look like. I also don't think there are any 2005 snakes available on his site. It looks like they are all sold out.

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Yes, that is correct.

There is the further issue that I do not directly ship outside of the continental USA. Buyers from outside of the country need to make arrangements with an exporter on this side of the border for me to ship to, and then they ship to you.