Stargazing

Originally Posted by TandJ

Not that I have personally seen...

Erika, I would take this to the bank as reliable info.

Flagyl (metronidazole) is a good medication, amongst others, used in the treatment of protozoan and bacterial parasites, such as coccidia and giardia. What is probably being referenced is perhaps a temporary controlling treatment for cryptosporidiosis. I have no idea how effective it would be as the last I researched, better success was seen using SMZ-TMP (sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim). Probably, since metronidazole has an injectable form while SMZ-TMP does not, using it in snakes would be easier via injection than trying to give daily oral medications.

Now what all this has to do with stargazing is beyond me, although the innuendos are not, and they really don't belong here.

Originally Posted by Susan

Now what all this has to do with stargazing is beyond me, although the innuendos are not, and they really don't belong here.

This whole thread has been a mess to be fair.

Okay, final edit - is this post acceptable/correct/not offensive?

Q: What is Stargazing?
A: It is a recessive gene that causes neurological problems in cornsnakes - it affects a cornsnake's sense of balance and coordination without causing any visible bodily/physical deformities to the snake. It is also known simply as "SG".
~~ Though the term "Stargazing" is also used to describe a snake's lack of balance or odd behaviour which is caused through genuine illness and not from the Stargazing gene. Neurological problems similar to Stargazing can also be caused from hatchlings not developing properly within the egg (due to genetics or problems when incubating) but these snakes would likely be visually different eg. small heads, odd head markings.

Q: What are the signs of Stargazing?
A: ~ Homo Stargazing (cornsnakes with 2 Stargazing genes) move fine on flat surfaces when not stimulated, but once stimulated by food/people their movements become uncoordinated / jerky. They may choose to lay on their back, or are unconcerned that they are on their backs - for example when focused on eating. When offered food, they will strike, but due to the stimulation are relatively uncoordinated and may miss – though once they have their food they will constrict like any other cornsnake. Some do seem aware that they have to constrict longer than most corns. Stargazing cornsnakes will still shed and poo like any other cornsnake despite their Stargazing.
~ Het Stargazing (cornsnakes with 1 Stargazing gene) show no visible signs of carrying the Stargazing gene.

Q: Does it occur in any one morph/gender?
A: It is more likely to occur in Sunkissed clutches as the Stargazing gene was first linked with the Sunkissed morph (but due to outcrossing can now occur in any morph hatched from 2000 onwards). It will occur equally in male and female cornsnakes. Older snakes (from 1999 backwards) are highly unlikely to be carriers (het) Stargazing.

Q: How can I find out if my corn snake is het Stargazing?
A: If you discover Stargazing cornsnakes in a clutch then this means that both parents are het Stargazing. Here's a punnet square to explain this : "s" is 1 (recessive) Stargazing gene and "S" is 1 (dominant) normal gene.

Het Stargazing (Ss) x Het Stargazing (Ss) :

..... S | s
S | SS Ss
s | Ss ss

There would have been a 25% chance per egg of a homo/visual Stargazer, so statistically only a quarter of the clutch would be visual Stargazers. The rest of the clutch would have a 50% chance of being het Stargazing, and a 25% chance of being Stargazing clear.

To find out if your snake is het Stargazing (and be 99.9% sure), you would need to breed it to a Stargazing cornsnake. This is because as a Stargazing cornsnake would have a pair of Stargazing genes, if your snake is het Stargazing, half the clutch would be homo (and visual) Stargazing.

Stargazing cornsnake (ss) x Het Stargazing (Ss) :

..... s | s
S | SS SS
s | Ss Ss

You would therefore expect 50% of the clutch to be homo/visual Stargazers. The odds are 50% per egg, so the chances are good that you would get Stargazers from a homo Stargazing x het Stargazing clutch, proving that your snake is het Stargazing. If there were no Stargazing hatchlings in the clutch, then you could be 99.9% sure your snake isn't het Stargazing (and therefore clear).

Q: How can I find out if my corn snake is clear of Stargazing?
A: The way to find out if a snake is clear of Stargazing and be (at best) 99.9% sure is to breed with a Stargazing cornsnake and have no Stargazers in the clutch. Or alternatively breed to a KNOWN het Stargazing cornsnake and producing 16 hatchlings (from an average sized clutch) without any Stargazing hatchlings - this would give you a (statistically) 99% clear animal.

Q: Why can't you be 100% sure if a cornsnake is clear?
A: Because the predicted outcome of all breedings is percentages and chance - you could be highly unlucky even with good odds. So you can only ever be, at best, 99.9% sure a snake is clear. There would still be a very very slim chance that the snake is het Stargazing.

Q: How could I get a homo/het Stargazing cornsnake in order to test breed?
A: Some breeders are doing a loan system (with no money involved), or some people with homo/het Stargazing cornsnakes are accepting other people's cornsnakes into their collection and will test breed them themselves.
Some breeders are selling het/homo Stargazing cornsnakes, but some would consider it unethical to pay for such snakes, as it would encourage people to breed Stargazing snakes, in order to sell them and profit from Stargazing.

Q: What happens to the offspring of testings?
A: When testing for Stargazing, there are several things that could be done with the offspring. Whole clutches may be (humanely) killed, even if there is a chance of clear snakes. Stargazing snakes can kept in the collection to test breed with other snakes. Possible clear snakes can be kept to breed when they are mature enough, to prove that they are clear (this way a line can still continue - just without the Stargazing gene). All of the snakes could be kept or rehomed to trusted sources as pet animals (but rehoming is considered a riskier option).
If offspring were sold on without informing the new owner of Stargazing and it’s Stargazing status e.g. untested/unknown, it could continue to spread Stargazing when the snakes are bred from in future. Also, by selling to anyone without keeping in contact/tabs on the snakes, people could breed from unknown Stargazers (having decided that the Stargazing isn't an issue) and undo the work of people trying to eliminate Stargazing.

Q: Why is it important to get rid of Stargazing?
A: It can be considered best for cornsnakes, and the hobby as a whole. Especially as it is proven to be a simple recessive gene, so it can be removed from the hobby with relative ease (compared to the neurological problems which occur in royal pythons and carpet pythons which vary between individuals and have no apparent pattern of inheritance), if people are honest and open about this gene instead of ignoring it or trying to cover it up.
Lots of breeders are already in the processes of testing their lines to find out their Stargazing status , with some putting the priority on Sunkissed lines and Sunkissed projects. There is expected to be a premium on the cost of snakes from proven clear lines, to encourage people to keep them clear.

Originally Posted by Wilko92

I spent quite a while typing that, might have ended up borrowing a couple of phrasings and sentences from other sources though.

IMO, seeing as it's a recessive gene, why not make a little effort now to make sure homo Stargazers don't crop up? Bit of effort breeding it out and then you'd never have to worry about it.



Ah my bad, I was looking through a couple of websites for information and none of them were completely clear about who the originator was for the Sunkissed morph. I think Rich had one of the largest Sunkissed projects but Kathy originally discovered it. If I could I'd edit the post to "The Stargazing gene was really discovered in the year 2000 in America, in Sunkissed snakes. The breeder claimed that more than 50% of the Sunkissed carried the Stargazer gene"



And no it was not.

I certainly do hope the rest of your research was undertaken with much more attention to accuracy and detail than the efforts you apparently made to determine the actual source of the Sunkissed gene.

And for the record, I purchased a single pair of Sunkissed (which was labelled as "Hypo Okeetee" from Kathy. Since they were both only used for outcrossing, there was never any provable evidence noted that either one was het the stargazing trait, but I suspect that if either WAS, then it would have to have been the original female. I really only bought them because I thought they were Hypomelanistic Okeetees, and this was going to shortcut my own project to produce Hypo Okeetees. So the male got bred to all of my female hets. Of course, when I noticed that I got NO Hypo Okeetees in the subsequent clutches, this certainly raised my eyebrows.

Of course, once you discover you have a new gene on your hands, then creating new combination projects is a given. Since the male was used much more often for outcrossing (which would be typical in such projects) and the incidence of anomalous appearing animals so extremely low, this would fit. Matter of fact, Kathy suggested that I not breed them together in a later conversation, and I told her that, no, I had not done that. Sunkisseds never were big sellers so there really wasn't any incentive to produce them specifically. It was a chore to even get $25 for them, so their only value to me was in the pursuit of generating combination genes with them anyway. If that male HAD been carrying the stargazing trait, I am certain I would have had TONS of babies that exhibited this anomalous behavior. Even had the female been DEFINITELY carrying stargazing, my breeding with that line would have me normally breeding offspring from the male line of the project to the parallel line that might come from the female. I RARELY would breed brother and sister from the same clutch together. And even then, only if I had no other option. So pretty much, just my breeding regimen alone would tend to reduce any trait showing up that I was not specifically targeting. To give you an example of my typical project methodology, I would have bred the male Sunkissed to a female Lavender (group A), and the female Sunkissed with a male Lavender (group B). When those offspring were to reach maturity, I would breed pairs whereby one sex came from group A and the other sex from group B together. If you do it this way over multiple generations, it greatly reduces any issues that might arise from multi-generation inbreeding, and certainly would help tremendously in suppressing the expression of something that was not desirable. Of course, the flip side of this is that it would tend to reduce the chances of a DESIRABLE unknown new gene from surfacing as well.

The reason I have not been completely sold on the stargazing "problem" at all is simply because of the extremely low incidence of it showing up that I had personally seen. I tend to base my beliefs on what I can see with my own two eyes over what someone else may claim, for whatever reasons. Let's face it, if you hatch out 300 to 500 clutches of eggs every year, and only see at most three or four animals exhibiting neurological symptoms, can you really come to any firm CONCLUSIONS? And the fact of the matter is that I have seen neurological symptoms from blood lines over the years that were never in any way related to the Sunkissed lines. From what I had seen, it was no more common than any other malady that might inflict itself upon your hopes during hatching season. Disappointing crap like kinks, still borns, etc., are just par for the course. You just shake your head, euthanize those animals that are not survivable, sellable, or destined for your own future products and move on. If you can't accept this reality, then breeding animals is DEFINITELY not the thing for you. If you do not have the resources to adapt a methodology that would reduce the RISKS of unwanted results due to inbreeding, then perhaps you need to review your goals and the roadmap you are using to get there.

BTW, there is a sticking point about all this that has bothered me for quite a while. What are the ODDS that Kathy would have hatched out a single animal that was carrying TWO spontaneously generated NEW mutations? One being "Sunkissed" and the other "Stargazing".

But when all is said and done in reference to the bad press that some are trying to foist on this issue, in my opinion, I guess that if someone (or someones) is trying to build their reputation around isolating the stargazing trait and trying to elevate their own status by knocking down others who do not share their enthusiasm for promoting and selectively breeding FOR animals exhibiting neurological deficiencies, well, we can see how this campaign needs to work for them. No one would like to think that their efforts to purposely PRODUCE such afflicted animals will have no financial reward for them. So obviously, you TRY to create a demand for your products.

"...What are the ODDS that Kathy would have hatched out a single animal that was carrying TWO spontaneously generated NEW mutations? One being "Sunkissed" and the other "Stargazing"..."

Yes, that always seemed a very strange coincidence to me, too. But the first 'gazers I saw were always sunkissed, although later I got just a few that were plain ol' okeetees from the same bloodline. At first I dismissed it as "just one of those things". But 'gazers only came from the same animals (which were pure okeetees) that produced sunkissed, and at a rate that suggested they were het for it. The first sunkissed produced was not necessarily a carrier, but its okeetee parents evidently carried both genes.

A few years ago, Connie went through my early records and did a statistical analysis on them, and what she found suggested a recessive gene. I had originally thought maybe it was somehow linked solely to the sunkissed gene, until I later saw 'gazers in other morphs that descended from sunkissed. Maybe the genes are somehow linked, or close together, or ???, so that when one gene was "damaged" in the original okeetee carrier, the other gene changed, too? Dunno - I am no geneticist or biologist. I only know what I see, lol!

Originally Posted by Drizzt80

There are all kinds available. For free even. People are breeding them on purpose in order to test and "clean" their lines. Of course that just creates more questionable, het and homo animals.

And of course once you've given someone else said animal, you have no control over what they do with it.

But yet, those not purposely testing their lines are bad and dishonest and just trying to make a quick buck. At least that's what others would have you believe.

D80

I have never seen a stargazer available free or otherwise. In a way I would like to test my snakes for it but then I do not know if I could put down the resulting hatchlings to keep them from being bred by someone wanting a quick buck.

I'm a little amazed that no one else has noticed that the second Punnett square is incorrect. It's impossible to get "SS" offspring if one parent is "ss"...

Originally Posted by gingercdn

I'm a little amazed that no one else has noticed that the second Punnett square is incorrect. It's impossible to get "SS" offspring if one parent is "ss"...

One parent had to be "SS" (homo stargazing) and not "ss" as noted .
So you can get SS with SS x Ss

... S / S
S SS SS
s Ss Ss

yes but in the second square, I think the parent says "ss" at the top and 50% of offspring are "SS"? or am I fully confused?