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Stargazer testing

I think they've sequenced the cornsnake gene and now are gathering funds to develop the test??? They have a Facebook page.
 
It's an undesirable trait where the snake doesn't balance properly. Breeders are trying to keep it out of their lines.
 
The genome has been sequenced. Now we are raising money to fund developing a genetic test for the stargazer. We need £5000, unfortunately we are still about £3500 short......
 
That seems like a large amount, but considering the amount of corn snake lovers, we should be able to get it super fast. It's a shame that people like the ones from snakebytesTV seem to ignore the subject - if they called out to their fans, we could gather that amount in a matter of hours :(
 
Hrmmm - well, I do plan on going to one of the reptile shows in NY, maybe I could ask them? Snakebytes has recently gone through a show change (Animalbytes now) and seem to be more geared towards proper care of reptiles/conservation, etc? So, maybe now that the format has changed they'd do an episode on Stargazing?
 
Has stargazer appeared as a heterozygote in non homozygous SK?
Once the groundwork is complete, what would it cost breeders to have their complete inventories tested, @ per animal? All of my morphs came from other breeders, so I sometimes have no idea if one of my snakes came from a het SG 4 generations back. I am not breeding to produce SK, nor to produce SG (even though I have heard it's entertaining to look at, while others say it's undesireable). The videos of feinting goats, which have been around for centuries, are undesireable to me. Interesting topic. Thanks for sharing.
 
ravendance said:
Hrmmm - well, I do plan on going to one of the reptile shows in NY, maybe I could ask them? Snakebytes has recently gone through a show change (Animalbytes now) and seem to be more geared towards proper care of reptiles/conservation, etc? So, maybe now that the format has changed they'd do an episode on Stargazing?
Click to expand...

It would be great if you could actually ask them. Would be so so awesome if we could actually get this going.

As for how much the tests will cost - estimates have ranged from 15 - 80 dollars per animal. It wouldn't be cheap, but at least we could sell all offspring as 100% gazerfree. That should be worth a lot in itself, and earning such an amount back with awesome little sunkissed snakes should not be a huge problem.

The gene has indeed shown up in non-homozygous sunkissed animals already, which is why this gene is so dangerous. For all we know, all our non-sunkissed animals could be carrying the gene as well... :/
 
I was wondering today-
if there are other, possibly similar, or other debilitating genes in other species of reptile pets.
If there are, would it possibly, possibly, be worth developing genetic testing for all of them?
Sort of a collaborative effort among the entire global herp community, to support funding towards testing of all reptiles; not corn snakes exclusively. Maybe there are bad genes in pythons or other "higher dollar" reptile species? To create a greater cash flow towards researching, and testing for, on a broader scale. Just a random thought.
 
I knew about stargazer before I saw somewhat similar actions being done by my cinna bee ball python. I looked up 'stargazer disorder in ball pythons', and was pretty quick to discover the spider morph in ball pythons carry something similar called Wobble. As far as I know, all spider morphs/combos carry the Wobble, yet it may be less prominent in combos. So as far as I know, Corns have Stargazer and Spider Balls have Wobble. I'll keep an eye out for other species that may display similar issues. :)
 
Chimaera said:
I knew about stargazer before I saw somewhat similar actions being done by my cinna bee ball python. I looked up 'stargazer disorder in ball pythons', and was pretty quick to discover the spider morph in ball pythons carry something similar called Wobble. As far as I know, all spider morphs/combos carry the Wobble, yet it may be less prominent in combos. So as far as I know, Corns have Stargazer and Spider Balls have Wobble. I'll keep an eye out for other species that may display similar issues. :)
Click to expand...

Jaguar Carpet Pythons also have neuro oddities. All of them have it, but not all of them express it. Some "corkscrew" pretty bad, some only when stressed or worked up (such as feeding time), and some don't at all.

In Carpets, though, it is not something that can be passed along to non-Jag babies, it is strictly a Jag thing.
 
MysticExotics said:
Jaguar Carpet Pythons also have neuro oddities. All of them have it, but not all of them express it. Some "corkscrew" pretty bad, some only when stressed or worked up (such as feeding time), and some don't at all.

In Carpets, though, it is not something that can be passed along to non-Jag babies, it is strictly a Jag thing.
Click to expand...

OH I remember a breeder friend of mine saying something about Sand Boas having corkscrewing, as well.
 
So, if we test for SG at $80 per snake, we can find out well in advance if the snakes are carriers of SG. Say I had a sunkissed lavender anery and bred it to a golddust stripe, held back a lot of the babies, raised them up, bred them together, and some SG hatched out. I'd be devastated, all that time and money and years and breeding seasons shot, to have SG appear in the bloodlines. From a strictly monetary viewpoint, $80 test per snake sure beats thousands of dollars in food/materials/heating/cooling and hundreds of hours invested-- it sure looks like $160 spent in advance of starting the project is affordable.
 
dave partington said:
So, if we test for SG at $80 per snake, we can find out well in advance if the snakes are carriers of SG. Say I had a sunkissed lavender anery and bred it to a golddust stripe, held back a lot of the babies, raised them up, bred them together, and some SG hatched out. I'd be devastated, all that time and money and years and breeding seasons shot, to have SG appear in the bloodlines. From a strictly monetary viewpoint, $80 test per snake sure beats thousands of dollars in food/materials/heating/cooling and hundreds of hours invested-- it sure looks like $160 spent in advance of starting the project is affordable.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. This is why I'm really really REALLY hoping we can fund this research. I would love to be able to test my snakes, even though they are not from SK lines as far as I'm aware.
 
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