Testing for Stargazing

Who tests for Stargazer? Why do people only assume since their SK projects show no SG then they are free. Has any one every seen the little guys doing the SG in person it's so sad. There are some really good reads about SG. I will post some links showing what the odds of producing a SG from projects, how long it would take to surface. I know most people will not waste a productive year of SK to test for SG. Once the SG starts popping up in various people's collections. There are going be some very unhappy folks. I have tested all my females. Waiting on the results. If I have SG in my lines I will raise enough females to start testing males. All of my SK sold this year will be gazer free lines. Also the ACR will be just about the only way to make sure you are getting gazer free corns. I just wanted to throw this out there. I know some
will be upset, mad, and some agreeing. My good friend Joe Pierce is really up to snuff on testing for SG. Connie and Charles also have some awesome reads about there findings. I don't have all the answers but their is a ton of info out there on this disease. I hope I don't get the spear for bringing this up.

Just seems as much as this forum cares about corns, there would be a lot more testing going on and a lot less assuming everything is good with SK.


SK are a favorite of mine. I have tons of projects containing SK. Like I said before the ones sold from us will be gazer free. I have an adult gazer male male I aquired free, a het gazer male on loan, and some yearling gazers for more testing. So if any one wants homo gazers for testing I am offering my 2012 stock free of charge to anyone interested in getting gazers to test their SK stock.

I've seen some videos of stargazing corns - it's very sad. Do only the sunkissed morphs carry the stargazing gene or how does it work? And how is it tested for?

If you do some searching there have been plenty of posts/threads about this already and most people ARE testing out their sunkisseds when they can get a hold of a known gazer/het gazer.
This drum has already been beat by most of us.

Also, it is worth noting; just because you're breeding a gazer/het gazer into your stock to 'test' it does NOT mean they are gazer free if the hatchlings are normal. It just means that the percentage/chance is lower. Ever breed hets and miss your target morph? Same thing.

I was fortunate enough to get 1.1 yearling homo gazers and a 2011 female homo gazer from Joe as well. The yearlings were not large enough to breed this year, but I will be starting to test my holdback SK combos next season, so I probably won't have many, if any SK animals next season due to testing. Hopefully this homo gazer male will be ready to perform because I plan to put him on as many females that he can handle.

I was also fortunate enough to obtain a pair of young adult PROVEN GAZER FREE Sunkisseds ph Lava from Joe that I will start new projects with, so I know I will definatly have gazer free lines in the future.

Next year when I start testing I will have a page on my website dedicated to my gazer testing so everyone can keep up with my findings.

Thanks again Joe !!
Walter

Originally Posted by Walter Smith

I was fortunate enough to get 1.1 yearling homo gazers and a 2011 female homo gazer from Joe as well. The yearlings were not large enough to breed this year, but I will be starting to test my holdback SK combos next season, so I probably won't have many, if any SK animals next season due to testing. Hopefully this homo gazer male will be ready to perform because I plan to put him on as many females that he can handle.

I was also fortunate enough to obtain a pair of young adult PROVEN GAZER FREE Sunkisseds ph Lava from Joe that I will start new projects with, so I know I will definatly have gazer free lines in the future.

Next year when I start testing I will have a page on my website dedicated to my gazer testing so everyone can keep up with my findings.

Thanks again Joe !!
Walter

Walter, do you plan on testing parents of any SK combos you have already produced, so you would be able to say, with as much certainty as possible, that the parents were gazer-free? Specifically the parents of the SK Blood girl I have at my house?

Originally Posted by Nanci

Walter, do you plan on testing parents of any SK combos you have already produced, so you would be able to say, with as much certainty as possible, that the parents were gazer-free? Specifically the parents of the SK Blood girl I have at my house?

Nanci,
YES.....I still have some F1 normal project parents to SK combos I have produce, and the parents to that girl is still here. This is the thing though, seeing I will have only one breedable HOMO gazer female, it's going to take a little while to get my males proven, at least until the 2011 girl is big enough, then it will move ahead a little quicker. Another good thing is, I don't have ALOT of males. Most of my holdback were females.

I do plan to breed as many females as I can with the HOMO gazer male though. I will say this, I WILL NOT be breeding any of my SK any further starting next season except for testing........well, let me back up a little bit.

I guess I should say, the ONLY Sunkissed animals that will/might be available will be from new projects started with my PROVEN GAZER FREE adults that I recently aquired, any others will only be bred for testing.

Until I know who is or who isn't, they will not be bred any further.
Another good thing is, quite a few of my F2 combos will be breedable next season, such as SK Miami, SK Hypo Miami, Honey Bloodred.

Even though I still have their parents, these female's first breedings will be to the HOMO gazer male........Reason???
It will take me longer to prove BOTH parents to each (due to what I mentioned above) than it will take to prove 10 females. I'll know about these girls first round either YES carriers or NO carriers for sure.
If NO, then I can move forward on projects with these girls while waiting to prove their parents. If YES, than it's back to the drawing board using my proven gazer free Sunkisseds.

Walter
BOUT' CORNS !!

Breeding hets does give you a better idea. Breeding homos are going to give you 99.99% gazer free hatchlings. Het gazers are more work to test with. I will offer any homo and het gazers to anyone free. If they want them. With a little searching I was able to aquire them very easy.

I see a lot of post asking if there stock is gazer free and the most common answer is it hasn't shown up. It could take many breedings for the two caring the gazer gene to be breed together. I think if your gonna raise SK you should make an effort to prove you are not selling SK projects with the possibility of them poping up in future breedings.

You have to put forth an effort to make sure what you are selling is not carrying SG. Most breeders are not going to waste the time. That will come back to haunt them.

For your question before Tara, SK is being crossed into everything. The big problem is they are using untested SK lines.

Just thought I would bring it up. Since the ones who seem to care about corns are not testing only racing to the next SK combo. To each his own. I don't run anything but my own collection. I will have gazer free lines tested and paper work to go with. While others will say it's never been tested only answer the others will have is I haven't seen it in my lines.

I plan on breeding micro scales into gazer free lines. Others will pick there project using SK and use the never seen it in my line of SK.

Also you ate wrong believing breeding homo gazers into SK lines. It will prove them positive or negative. Wow!

Originally Posted by nmoore601

You have to put forth an effort to make sure what you are selling is not carrying SG. Most breeders are not going to waste the time. That will come back to haunt them.

This is simply not true. The word "most" is fairly all encompassing and incorrect. You do not know this and are making an assumption.

As I said earlier, there are multiple places where you can find threads on this subject already. Including the 'other site'.

Here's a good start:
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/sho...ighlight=gazer

Just because people haven't made threads as inflammatory as this one, doesn't mean they aren't either testing or already have "close to proven 100% free" lines (as math works - this would be considered a differential equation btw).
For example, most of the ones I'm breeding already have had their lines extensively tested by Chuck Pritzel (as they came from him) and I have a homo gazer for the rest.

Do not assume, that's usually a bad thing.

Thanks, Walter. Breeders like you Joe and others are the one that will make a difference. Before this gets out of hand. I'm not knocking anyone. I just think if you are into SK projects you should try and prove them gazer free. If not they should not keep moving untested lines into the market. It will be horrible for this to start showing up in every kind of corn morph. Eventually SK will be associated with numerous morphs.

Originally Posted by nmoore601

Breeders like Joe and others are the one that will make a difference.

.