The purchase of lone or extra females..

well said and that about sum up it ,for me too.
unless i win the lottto lol

Originally posted by Serpwidgets
.... I think that the planning is most of the fun, and keeps me into the breeding aspect of the hobby year-round.

.... I don't breed to make money, I breed so that I can produce stuff I really like, and hopefully push that particular look in the direction that suits my tastes. Whatever hatches hatches, and if there's something I really love, it's mine.

It doesn't pay the bills, so I don't have to get stressed or lose sleep over it.

My feelings exactly, Serp, every 1.1 het., or double-het. pair I buy is based on producing a look I like and want in my collection. Usually, it's because I don't have, or want to spend, the money it takes to get the morph I want (Although, I find I'll end up spending more money). Sometimes, it's because the look I want isn't available on anyone's 'For Sale' lists. It's a big gamble, I know, but the fun part is having my snakes to play with and watching them grow up into big babies.

As for making money, that's where my son comes in. If we are successful in producing baby snakes in the coming years, then he can take the ones we don't want and sell them off to his friends, or at wholesale to the local reptile stores.

I bought my two females, Beanie and Barbie from Rich, I wanted two ladies because I thought that would increase my being able to keep them together longer with-out conflicts, I was hoping they would get along and be happy. So far so good but they are still babies. Then I couldn't take it any more and ordered a male from Rich, Merlin. He has his own housing. My thought was a "just in case"..... in a couple of years,..... I wanted to breed them. My true feeling is to leave that to the professionals, but you never know, plus I don't think you can get snakes "fixed". What if my ladies really needed a "guy" I love Merlin, he is a Miami Phase with perfect markings.

Any how to get to the real point. They do the price difference with other pets, dogs, cats, you always pay more for the female. My female cat was twice as much as my male and my male dog was $300 less than the female. So, what are we saying here???? The women are worth more than men????, oh I mean, female pets vs. male pets, here we go again, girls are calmer, less aggessive (not at my house) boys are more protective......... stud fees bring in less money than new babies.

ok, I'm done~~~~~~~~~:~ Sam

You can get snakes fixed, any good reptile vet. can do it. Spaying or neutering a snake is no more difficult than any other animal. IMHO

/Have you tried ajusting the tempatures of the eggs? I
/heard from some animal show that alligators can decide
/the sex of their offspring by ajusting the tempature.

If I'm not mistaken, the reason this happens is that male and
female 'gators are not genetically different - the male doesn't
carry the reptile equivalent of a "y" chromosome, for instance.
But snakes do have genetically different males and females -
actually, it's the female that carries an X and a Y chromosome
(Though they might be called something different... X and Z?)
Anyway, that means that right from conception, the gender
is locked into a hatchling. Temperature shouldn't make a
difference -- I think.

Interestingly enough, because female snakes carry the odd-
chromosome pattern, they are the ones that "determine" the
gender of the offspring. In humans, it's the male's gamete which
determines gender - he either donates an "X", in which case you
get a female baby, or a "Y", in which case you get a male.
Snakes are just the exact opposite.

Err, more on topic, yep -- I would pay 10 to 20% more for a
lone female, and consider the surcharge quite fair. It's
a bigger hassle for the breeder to go back and pick out just
one animal of a sort, for one thing. And demand for females
is higher. Personally, I think I'd prefer two prices -- with just
one price, I'd feel like I was asking a major favor if I wanted or
needed a lone female. I don't think it's much of a contest --
add a surcharge!

Cheers,
TS

this is off topic, but TS - how do you know that about corn-snake chromosomes? Is it in a book somewhere? I'm not doubting you, it's just obvious that I need to add that book to my collection

^Curtis

Originally posted by tschofie
Anyway, that means that right from conception, the gender
is locked into a hatchling. Temperature shouldn't make a
difference -- I think.

It's not a 100% thing. In humans, there are also XY females and XX males. Hormones ultimately determine which genitalia will develop. AFAIK under normal circumstances the production (or non-production) of said hormones is under the control of the sex chromosomes, but obviously that can be overridden by certain circumstances.

I also see it being possible that the mechanisms present in the temp-gender-controlled ancestors have not been entirely eliminated in the evolution of snakes... You see where I'm going with this?

IMO the best way to find out (without mapping genomes) is to experiment with incubation temps and see what kind of statistical evidence can be gathered.

The reason for mamalian gender weirdness (like XY females) is actually largely genetic. The SRY gene is found only on the Y chromosome, and if for some reason it is not present or not functioning, then a "male" that carries it turns out female. (Not sure if she can still be fertile, though.) You're right, of course, hormones ultimately determine gender -- but with mammals, unless the genes that make those hormones are weird themselves, there's not much that can go wrong, perhaps excepting nasty environmental chemicals which tend to cause terminations anyway. And I still have no idea if an XY male snake (assuming XX is normal) or an XX female would be fertile -- just having the right equipment doesn't always cut it. (Do snakes have secondary sexual characteristics?)

Ah, good site for humans:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disease/SRY.html

No idea if female snakes carry a female reptile equivcalent of an SRY. Wish there were more snake research being done. Sigh.

Cheers,
TS

While not common, it is not so extremely rare for a person carrying XY chromosomes to appear female. There can be a couple of reasons for this, but the one I know most about is androgen insensitivity. Androgen is the hormone that comes into play to make a chromosomally XY fetus develop male sex organs. It's also the hormone that causes the changes boys experience at puberty. Occasionally, a fetus is insensitive to androgen - the body just doesn't respond to it at all. The baby is born looking female, and generally nothing is suspected until late in puberty, when the girl has never menstruated. These women(?) are not fertile. They do not have the necessary internal organs (ovaries, uterus, etc.) to reproduce as a female. One other thing that sets them apart from "normal" women is that they seem ultra-feminine. Normal women do have a certain level of androgen in their bodies which causes things like unwanted body or facial hair, etc. Androgen-insensitive people do not get any body or facial hair, nothing like that.

Now the really weird thing is what happens when people are partially androgen-insensitive. They are born looking female, but when the huge rush of androgen comes at puberty, their bodies grow the penis and testicles, etc... Usually a terrible, scarring experience for them (except in one society where for some reason, this is a relatively common experience).

In any case, if there is a similar phenomenon in snakes, I would assume that they are infertile like their mammalian counterparts.