Palmetto Corn Snake

Mr Oni said:

I noticed SMR is starting to sell females only for $2,000.
I have tried searching but i dont think im throwing in the right keywords.

Why would females be less?
Wouldnt they pass on the same gene as a male?
Im just getting to reading about breeding and genetics so i please forgive, i did try to search.

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I believe you may of misread. The HET females are 2000 dollars.

Mr Oni said:

Why would females be less?

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As pointed out, the females are het.

But sometimes, in new morphs, males will be more expensive because they can sire multiple clutches, while the females are limited to, at best, two clutches per season.

Okay, how did i not see that bold red lettering. Thank you guys for pointing that out. Nanci, that really makes sense. I guess the thought process isn't working today.

2000$ for a female het. The first clutch will give you some het palmetto and some normals. If your lucky and pick the right male to breed back to mom, you just might get some palmetto phenotype offspring.

Carpe Serpentis said:

2000$ for a female het. The first clutch will give you some het palmetto and some normals. If your lucky and pick the right male to breed back to mom, you just might get some palmetto phenotype offspring.

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Um, sort of.

The first clutch will give you classics, 50% possible het for palmetto.
If you hold back all of them, and breed all the males back to the mother, and sib X sib, then one stands a greater chance of hitting the target. In the second year breed the het female to a wholly unrelated male, to get a second group, 50% related to the mother. Keep the 2 groups separate. The basic formula is outlined in the 'vanishing pattern' thread, so that when one's breeding program reaches the F3, one does not have to out-cross and start all over again.

By het, I mean heterozygous. As a heterozygous palmetto bred to a normal or non-palmetto carrying genotype will give offspring that carry the palmetto gene (heterozygous)/ carriers as well as normal or non-palmetto carrying normal corn snakes.
Each male born of palmetto (het) x normal is going to be either palmetto heterozygous or normal non-palmetto carrying genotype corn. Its still guesswork determining which male to breed back to mom unless there are some markers to look for.

You corn is either are a carrier or it is not. If you say your corn is possibly a carrier as one of your corns parents was a carrier then what your really saying is you have not been done a test cross yet to prove that your corn snake is a carrier or is not a carrier as the case may be.

Carpe Serpentis said:

By het, I mean heterozygous. As a heterozygous palmetto bred to a normal or non-palmetto carrying genotype will give offspring that carry the palmetto gene (heterozygous)/ carriers as well as normal or non-palmetto carrying normal corn snakes.
Each male born of palmetto (het) x normal is going to be either palmetto heterozygous or normal non-palmetto carrying genotype corn. Its still guesswork determining which male to breed back to mom unless there are some markers to look for.

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A 100% het palmetto bred to a non palmetto/non-het palmetto will produce snakes which are 50% POSSIBLE het palmetto. NO PALMETTO will be produced in the F1.

About half of these F1 babies, when grown to adulthood will prove out to be either het palmetto, or not het palmetto.

Keep the female babies numbered, named, identifiable.

Breed multiple males back to the mother,
and breed multiple males back to their sibling sisters.

Keep records.

Just because a female F1 does not produce any palmettos does not mean she is not het palmetto; it may simply show that the males she was bred to were not het palmetto, or vice versa.

And even within any pair of siblings, known to be 100% het for anything at all, sometimes hitting the target does not happen in the F2.

The corncalc shows us possibilities based on mathematical principles.

What nature actually produces is often different.

I have a 4.7 group of adults het for amel, caramel, and a pattern.
The females have been paired to 2 sib males for 4 years running.
They have produced caramels, amels, pattern, classics, amel wild-type, caramel wild-type, butter wild-type, caramel pattern, but so far, no butter+pattern, no amel+pattern. It's in there. But where? So I have to hold back the amels, which are 66% POSSIBLE het caramel & pattern.

There are no guarantees.

Eric, how many clutches of F2 snake eggs produced through your own breeding programs (not stock brought in from elsewhere) have you hatched out?

I agree 100% with you. Its the same odds as flipping a coin. Heads is Palmetto recessive and tales is Non-palmetto. The other coin representing your male however simply has two tales. Each flip of both coins gives your your f1 potential baby of which all with either be heterozygous for palmetto or completely devoid of the palmetto gene altogether. Its the F2 where you cross hopeful males back to the mom that you may or may not get lucky. Of course crossing sibling to each other will speed up the process of hopefuls as mom can only get lucky with a limited number of males each year. Its all a numbers game.

The lottery. You can't lose if you don't play. That might have come out wrong.

Missed your other question about f2 hybrids. Sorry, I'm fairly new to snakes and I try to make that abundantly clear in many of my posts. I do however have some f5 hybrids (chickens) I'm working with right now that I started from scratch and I've also started some 10,000 hybrids of my own F1 in a single year when dealing with plants. So, I've got a firm grasp on just how hard it is to when the lottery and the more genes your working with the harder it is. I definitely tilt my hat as a gesture of respect to any who have tried in earnest to play that lottery and I salute those that have played the lottery and one so to speak.

Okay- when you do get to snake projects, I'd be curious to know if there's different nuances between say mammalian, avian, and reptilian breeding projects with regard to genes, traits, newly developed traits, and traits which have been developed for several generations, & stuf like that. That is, with regard to punnet calculations, predictability, etc, is any one family of animals more prone to behaving the way the calculator says it should then another?.

Mr Oni said:

I noticed SMR is starting to sell females only for $2,000.
I have tried searching but i dont think im throwing in the right keywords.

Why would females be less?
Wouldnt they pass on the same gene as a male?
Im just getting to reading about breeding and genetics so i please forgive, i did try to search.

Click to expand...

I've thought this thread over some more since originally seeing it awhile back.
1.) The first females from the first couple of years they were available have been sold out and moved on, so there will be a few more younger ones available, for an understandably lower price, as they will not be of breedable size until a later time.

2.) as for hets. If one acquires female hets or male hets for the palmetto expression,
-- hets may contain other genes and thus may be 50% unrelated to the visual Palmettos. Because most breeders already know there is a risk element involved regarding breeding stock to the same stock beyond the F3 generation (risk of congenital birth defects); the advantage of having 50% unrelated stock is worth consideration. These questions may be best to ask when involved with making a transaction.

3.) with regards to female hets for palmetto specifically:
If you already have a female visual Palmetto,
and get some babies from her, and hold back the males which are 100% het Palmetto,

3b.) because males grow up faster to safe-breeding size then females,
then if one has het females which are older and of clutch carrying size,
then one can increase their possible production of visuals more rapidly.

I underline possible because punnet square/ genetics calculators are based on mathematical principles, but what nature yields is often different. Who knows, you may get more, you may get less then the calculations indicate. Is it a risk worth taking? (That's a rhetorical question).

Glad I found this. I will put the Palmetto as "out of reach" for me at this time. LOL
This was the morph I was wanting to get the most. Go figure.

You might be able to sell your first born. On the site, I think he said he was offered $20k. and then $10k. Very interesting. I think he said they came from the Carolina's. You could go up and beat the bush and see if you can find it's relatives.

Everything that has inheritable genes should follow a punnett square. UNLESS the gene is inherited differently than you expect it is. This is usually the case when people think a trait is a simple dom/rec and it ends up being trait that is affected by many genes.