1st clutch of the year . . .

Well, you think you have everything under control . . .then your own snakes prove you to be nothing of the sort!

I bred my bloodred male to my amel motley female this spring, and they produced sixteen eggs (One whent bad quickly). Out of the fifteen surviving eggs, thirteen hatched (two died in the egg). Out of the surviving clutch, I produced:

Three normals (th for br, amel, and motley),
Five amels (dh for br and motley),

AND

Five amel motlies (het . . .anery)

At first, I was really excited! I mean, I just proved that my BR male is het for amel, and I was hoping against hope that he was also het for motley (thereby explaining the last 5 I mentioned). I do have a motley snow corn, but I could have sworn he never had contact with the female in a breeding capacity (ie: I never took my eyes off of them and never saw them breed).

However, after speaking with Don S. (from whom the BR originated), I have concluded that it is not the BR that sired the motley babies; the motley snow corn did, and I obviously made a mistake! This is reinforced by the fact that all of the motlies are amels. If the BR had been het for motley, I would have expected one of the normals to be motley too. Now, the fact that there are no normal motlies in the clutch does not PROVE that the BR is not het for motley, but it is highly suggestive of that fact. Conversely, if a normaly motley would have crawled from an egg, THAT would have proven that my BR male WAS het for motley, but that didn't happen.

I know the normals and the amels were sired by the BR, because they are not motley, so I do have those double and triple hets. I will also be producing some some double het motley/BR, 50% possible het amel babies from another clutch I'm expecting to hatch any day now. And, I did prove my bloodred male to be het for amel! So, it was an interesting clutch full of surprises . . .just not QUITE as interesting as I hoped when I first opened the containeer of hatchlings!



Pics coming soon . . .

Look forward to seeing the babies!

Isn't there still a better than outside chance that the snow motley had nothing to do with the genetic equasion? I'd like to run that one on the progeny predictor and see how unlikely it would be for all 5 normals not to be motley.
And geez, if you watched the pairing closely, it's hard to imagine that quick of a quickey!
I've never put my females with more than one male in a season just to be sure of the lines, but I've joked if I ever get out of this hobby, I'm throwing everything together and selling gravid "grab bag" pairs. Not just different corn morphs, but asian rats, milks, everything!

Like I said, I really don't recall ever having the two of them together during breeding season, but I can very easily have simply messed up. I don't have alzheimer's but I do have "sometimers!"

Yes, it is POSSIBLE that my BR is het for motley and he only threw the motley gene along with some of his amel offspring. However, Don said that this particular male came from a line of his that never has been introduced to the motley gene, so that's enough for me, right there. EVEN IF I seriously suspected that these little amel motlies were also het for bloodred, I could not sell them as such in all good conscience, because I simply cannot exclude the possibility (probability?) of my mess-up.

Likewise, because of space constraints, I really cannot keep them to raise and breed to see if they are het BR. I will keep some of their sibling that I KNOW are het BR/motley, but I just cannot afford the space on a hunch for these five.

So, I will sell them as amel motlies het for anery. Those who buy them will either get exactly what they expected, or they will get a huge BONUS some day! That's cool too, in my book.

Gotcha

Yeah,
Don keeps great records of his lines. Knowing that, I'm on the same page. Would be neat if your buyers get a big happy surprise, though! Best wishes with your remaining clutches!
Chip