How do you tell a blood red motley?

How can you tell if a blood red is also a motley? All corns have the first few blotches joined, but some have more than others. Some motleys don't look all that "motley-ish" (with lots of joined blotches), but you can tell by the patternless belly. My new little hypo bloodred has 10-11 connected blotches, which is a lot more than other non-motley corns I've got. And of course she has a patternless belly from being a blood red. Since I didn't buy her as a motley, I'm guessing she probably isn't, but how would you tell in a case like this?

Kate,

One of my hypo bloods is also exhibiting the type of pattern you're talking about, but I think it comes from the boodred lines more than anyhting else, because I have seen bloodred outcrosses even showing the same thing.

The only way that you could tell would be to breed your little gal to a motley to see if the clutch has a significant representation of motley babies. I say "significant representation" because even the outcrossed bloodreds will show some clear bellies at times.

Personally, I don't believe that there is any way that these babies are het for motley. The reason I say this is because I have seen Rich write about what a waste of time it would be for him to cross the two, because in the F2 you could never be able to say for certain whether a baby was a motley, a bloodred, or a bloodred motley and those couldn't easily be sold. So, I don't think Rich would knowingly introduce motley into the bloodreds, let alone the hypo bloods where each one was so sought after!

Just my two cents' worth --

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kenalotia said:

How can you tell if a blood red is also a motley? All corns have the first few blotches joined, but some have more than others.

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They don't always have connected saddles. Here's one of mine that doesn't.

But it seems like the most extreme non-motleys generally don't have more than 6 or 7 of them connected. 10 to 11 seems like a lot, but I also know nothing about its parents, so who knows.

It is a good question, and I think the only way to really tell is to breed it to a Motley that has no bloodred heritage and see what you get. Although I'd think you bought her with something else in mind, and who wants to spend one year's breeding just for that?