Candy Canes
 

I still like Candy Canes and when doing a search I came across the SerpenCo article where you discussed your experience developing the amels over the years. I'm wondering if you later found a different way to maintain the clean white background, instead of using Miami's? I've seen photos of Peppermints with clean white backgrounds that I like, but many have the frosted look too, which I assume comes from the cinders.

The Candy Canes that I bought from SerpenCo years ago developed into real beauties with white backgrounds. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find good ones today. The people who have them seldom sell them, and I can't blame them for keeping them.

Oops, should say Candy Canes. fat fingers, small keyboard.

This male was produced by Nanci LeVake, out of a Candy Cane Tessera het Cinder x Peppermint pairing.
I think the het Cinder does do something.
This male is het Cinder.
I will primarily be using my Miami's to produce Candy Cane's (and Candy Cane Tessera's), but I will be working in some Cinder genes as well to see how it plays into the Candy Cane stuff.

HERE is the link to the thread on the clutch he came from.

Hi Twolunger!

I love them too - super pretty! I was able to get a sunkissed candy cane this year and love him. That said, he's not super white and would agree with you, most aren't super white.

-Tonya

I have a few too many possible breeding projects already, but I do want to work on the Candy Canes in the future. The problem is that there are so many awesome morphs out there that few people devote much time and effort to just one.

Actually, the first time I heard the term "Candy Cane Corn" was in reference to a group of animals that Kevin Enge was working with that I believe came from Hogtown Herp out of Gainesville. But my memory might not be right on target about that any longer. Of note is that this original line came from a project that had infused emoryi blood into them.

I liked the look, but chose to "roll my own" starting from Miami Phase stock, and I guess had I known better at the time, I should have chosen a different name to divorce the line I was working with from Kevin Enge's line. But hindsight, and all that...

And it was a difficult project, to say the least. Getting the orange out of the background color was difficult. Although the Miami Phase I was working with had pretty uniformly gray backgrounds, putting Amelanism into them seemed to have unpredictable results as to the orange coloration forcing it's way back to the surface. There was likely a subtle genetic marker in there somewhere, but I was never able to isolate it for the predictability I sought.

So on a project that I spent 20+ years on, I would have to say that the results I was getting was not what I had hoped for. I felt the results I was getting was just "OK", and not really the spectacular look I had in my mind's eye when I started that project. Which, of course, would be a pure white snake with pure red blotches on it.

The real stickler there was that the orange background often just was not visible in newly hatched babies. So in the beginning I pretty much had to keep all of the babies for a year or more, and then select the stock for the next generation as I could more easily determine how the background coloration was turning out.

Honestly, had I known then what I know now about how difficult that seemingly simple project was going to be, I never would have started it.

So, honestly, if you want to buy Candy Cane project animals, I strongly suggest getting them no younger than yearlings so you have a fighting chance at getting what you are really hoping for. And good pics of the adults would certainly be helpful. No, let me rephrase that. Good pics of the adults should be a REQUIREMENT!

Edited the topic line for you...

Thanks for the edit. While I sure don't want to line breed good amels for 25 years I do want to produce some nice Candy Canes before I get senile, or more senile than I am already. What I want to know is if there is another morph, or combination of morphs, to whiten the background. While checking out the classifieds on Fauna I came across an ad on 10-13 for high white extreme reverse Okeetees. The gentleman showed a picture of a male he called a high white Ultramel that looked pretty sweet. While it wasn't a perfect white background, it is obvious that he didn't spend 25 years to develop that morph. There has to be a way to produce high white clean backgrounds, especially since there are several morphs available to us now, like charcoal and cinder. I'd like to know who is using other morphs to produce a white background, assuming they want to share the info. It shouldn't be a secret, since Candy Canes won't surpass Palmettos or even the scaleless on the list of expensive corns. I do want to thank MysticExotics for sharing her info. While I never had any Whiteouts, it's obvious that a combination such as the one that produces them may be useful, but my knowledge of genetics in very limited.

Very pretty!

-Tonya

I just recalled a further detail (I think) concerning the origination of the Candy Cane line. I believe that Hogtown Herp got them from a guy by the name of Glen Slemmer who originally produced them. Of course, my information is all coming via hearsay anyway. :shrugs: Details of this nature are fading away into forgotten history nowadays. Which, I guess, doesn't matter to a lot of people anyway.