I would like some opinions....long

[carol]

Hi everyone. I am trying to decide what to do with my female stripe corn. A friend of mine has made me a nice offer on her. She wouldn't be bred but she would be used for an educational reptile show. They are also taking a male which they said I can take back for a couple of weeks during the breeding season.

This is not the female I posted in the photo gallery, this is just a plain stripe with ??? hets. She layed a clutch of 19 duds after I didn't breed her this year fearing she was too small. I was planning to breed her to my Hypo Lavendar this coming season.
So the question is do you think a Hypo Lavendar x stripe is a mix worth doing? On the down side I believe your chances are 1 in 64 you will get a striped hypo lavendar from crossing these babies, on the up side you could get striped hypos, and striped lavs, and normal stripes, normal lavs, hypos. It is still a fun combo. Like an updated Milkshake corn.

I am planning on working toward Hypo Lav stripes but I was going to wait until 2004 when I will have some hypo stripes old enough to breed. That way my chances are much better. So should I keep her and do this mix and give my friend an extra male instead, or should I just let her be a corn spokesgirl?

What do you think?

[Neil]

IMHO I think you should keep her because her offspring could be quite lovely. This may sound a little nasty but couldn't your friend just use another corn for this "educational reptile show"? It's 100% your decission and depends a lot on how attached you have become to her.

Good luck. :).

[Serpwidgets]

Hypo striped X Hypo lav would probably get you there a lot more quickly and with a lot less hassle.

If my goal were to create hypo striped lavs, I would definitely go with this pairing instead of trying my luck against the triple hets. I prefer to have more of them to choose from, rather than having to start out with whatever that single one is that eventually happened to hatch, and there should be no guessing games as to which ones of them are hypos. :)

Also, look at what it will take to produce a line of them, if that is part of your goal. Using the triple hets (assuming you're not going to keep more than a pair or two of the F1s) once you've produced the lucky 1 in 64 F2 hatchling you're more than likely going to have to breed back to triple hets to produce more of them, this gives you 1 in 8 odds on those clutches (triple mutant X triple het) versus 1 in 4 odds when breeding triple mutant X Hypo double het Lav and Striped.

But in the end it's a matter of what you're looking to create. If you want lots of variety, then the first option may be more like what you're looking for.

Some food for thought. :)

[carol]

Yes I plan on using two different blood lines of hypo stripes when I seriously start to breed for Hypo Lav stripes.
But my question was pretty much this. I really don't have a suitable male for this female right now (as far as another stripe) so would people be willing to buy triple het animals and have some fun with it or should I not even bother and wait until the hypo stripes are big enough. You have to admit, you could get some neat stuff even if you don't get that 1 in 64 animal. Then again is there a market for them? I can't make up my mind.
I am also going to cross a hypo lav with my stripe motley het hypo and keep all the hypos. Those will have better odds as well and I'll get a suprise to whether or not I'll get stripes or motleys.