BloodyBaroness
Captain Titsworth
That is ONLY if people use it.
Of the thousands on snakes bred each year, only a teeny tiny fraction are registered.
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Testing for Stargazing
- Thread starter nmoore601
- Start date
That is ONLY if people use it.
Of the thousands on snakes bred each year, only a teeny tiny fraction are registered.
JimGERcream
German efficiency
Really.
Nope, but here in Germany in many places the trend is towards not to raise up those "problem feeders", just the animals which don't make any problems. I also don't raise up any nonfeeders or tiny weak hatchlings. Not because I'm lazy or stuff like that, but for an better outcome, stronger hatchlings, a solid lineage, etc.
Nobody here in Germany says it's a rule to manage a breeding programm like that, of course, everybody can do whatever you want, BUT meanwhile more and more german breeders feel commited to test their lines against gazer, to label ultramels + offspring as hybrids and not to raise up EVERY tiny weak hatchling just because that little sweetheart looks soooo cute. Call it German efficiency, cruel attitude or whatever you want.
Excellent guess! I can't speak for all the breeders in EU, but atm afaik test-focus is on Sunkisseds and knowen Sunkissed related byproducts, I do believe in a couple of years SG will be very much more spreat in different lines which are not knowen Sunkissed related, e.g. plain old Okeetee's but also colour morphs which you've already stated. I do hope it won't be necessary, but time will tell. Most likely someday it will be necessary, not a desireable goal but most likely something we all have to deal with. :shrugs:
My animals are all the same lineage + 1 Tessera female. Matriarch and patriarch were both offspring from lineages which are here since late 1990's/early 2000's, they were imported as colour morphs, so I'm pretty sure they are most likely not infected with gazer. Would be cool if I could say that in the future too. At least one of my nonsunkissed f1 girls is tested negative. Yaay.
diamondlil
Mice! They taste so nice!
I'm also confident, as I said before, that my snakes are gazer-free. They have no SK lineage at all as I could never have afforded SK or SK hets or poss SK hets when it was a rare and sexy morph in the UK and no matter how many times people argue the case the defective gene did originate in SK lines. If I now bought in a new snake I'd want conclusive proof that it wasn't from any SK breeding project or that it was actually tested as gazer free
El Jefe
Mark 16:18
Ummm...No. Actually, although the chance is higher that sunkissed animals may have the SG it does not eliminate the chance that other snakes do no carry it.
For example:
I had het sunkissed lavenders and het sunkissed caramel motleys in my collection from Rich Z's adult sale that were early 2000 somethings (02/03 I believe but will have to dig up records.) Some of them were het gazer. Resultantly, any lavenders, caramels, or motleys produced by these snakes by Rich (or by me when I got them from his adult sale) had the chance of having the SG gene. That means lavenders, caramels and motleys (and combos of those like lavender motley) around mid/late 2000 that came from Rich and later some of those that came from me would be carriers of the SG gene. I caught it fairly early and most of my snakes were labled something as the knowledge of the SG gene was just being discovered but Rich did not have any such lables for his critters. In this thread it has been shared that a hypo sunkissed het blood is also a carrier. Add blood and hypo to that possible list now.
So, technically, there are many other morphs that could have the SG gene floating around out there. Got a mid/late 2000 lavender? Motley? Lavender motley? Serpenco bloodline? Serpenco wholesale to John Doe's Corns? Joe Doe bloodline? You might have SG in the mix.
The stargazing gene is beyond sunkissed and those who preach testing only sunkissed without advocating early/mid 2000 and later models of other morphs (especially Serpenco bloodline) are denying the true nature of the genetic beast.
Of course you did not bash me about my sunkissed animals and their SG status. ALL of my lines sold were sold with labels as either tested or untested; or untested but suspected clear due to several different breedings with SG popping up. For the last few years before I sold everything, all my Sunkissed and byproducts from sunkissed projects had labels on them indicating SG status.
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Why not go back to the VERY beginning of the Sunkissed and/or SG lineage in considering how far this SG gene might have been spread? First off, the SKs came from Kathy Love and were being sold as Hypo Okeetees, I believe in the early to mid 90s. From what I recollect, Kathy said this line came spontaneously from a line of Okeetees she was working with. Does anyone SERIOUSLY believe that the SK and the SG genetic traits BOTH spontaneously showed up as mutations within a single animal? Especially since it has been shown that SG is NOT tied to SK?
When I bought my pair of SKs from Kathy, they were to be used as a shortcut for my own Hypo Okeetee project. I had a bunch of het adults nearly ready to breed and figured this would multiply my chances of getting the results I was looking for. This proved to be a disappointment, as every one of my Okeetees het Hypo that I bred those animals to produced nothing but normal colored animals, with NO hypomelanism evident. How many of those animals labelled as "Okeetees" have found their way into the other peoples' breeding stock? How many Okeetees sold by Kathy from this same line that originated the SK and SG genes are floating around in collections? Heck, a couple of years after I got those "Hypo Okeetees" from Kathy, she asked me about them concerning the breeding I had done with them. When I told her that I was outcrossing them and never bred them together, she told me she was relieved to hear that because she noted problems with the strain when breeding them together. I believe that is the first inkling of this SG issue that I can recall, but I really didn't inquire about what exactly those "problems" were that Kathy mentioned.
Based on what I am hearing, likely one of the two Sunkisseds I bought from Kathy was carrying the SG gene. They were used in outcrossing to all of the other genetic lines I worked with to produce combinations with this new genetic trait. And even then, I was working with parallel groups of genetic stock so as to limit inbreeding as much as was possible to do. I would breed the male to a female, say Lavender, and the female with a male Lavender with the intention of breeding the two lines back together again instead of breeding direct siblings together from a single clutch. So you can see how if just one of the two were a carrier how my breeding regimen would have greatly reduced the chances of any deleterious gene showing up in later generations. I ALWAYS outcrossed as much as was possible.
My guess is that it would have had to be the female Sunkissed that was carrying the SG gene, just because of the low frequency of this trait actually showing up in later years, and the simple fact that the male was used MUCH more than the female in breedings. Which meant the male was the ancestor of a lot more animals than the female was. Personally, out of the thousands of animals I hatched out every year, I only saw maybe a half dozen animals that could have potentially been SGs, and that was not until the last couple of years before I retired. But the numbers were no more statistically significant than the number of kinked animals I got from Lavender related animals, and other abnormalities that will be seen in any large sampling of babies hatching out. And this SG trait is so similar to other abnormalities in baby corn snakes that can be caused by environmental factors, that it would have been impractical and premature to make a positive statement either way about it. Heck, I hatched out animals in the mid 80s from a line I was calling my "Milk Snake Phase" Miamis that just acted strange in that they didn't care whether they were right side up or upside down. Connie called them the "Pineapple Upside Down Snakes". I actually kept a pair and bred them together and the trait did not surface in their offspring. So what caused it? Who knows? Anyone who breeds substantial numbers of baby snakes is going to see all sorts of questionable and sometimes heartbreaking abnormalities. It's just the percentages at work and the nature of what we are doing. If you have one in a thousand chances of getting a problem show up, and you hatch out 6,000 babies, well, statistically you will get six (6) problems hatch out of that batch. Some years you will beat the odds, and some years the odds will beat you. You know it's going to happen, so you just make the best of it and move on.
So no, I did not KNOW I had SG in my stock from that original female animal I got from Kathy. I STILL don't know, and am merely speculating based on evidence only recently being presented. And quite honestly, since I was outcrossing everything, I really was not all that concerned about it being a possibility when it first started becoming common knowledge. At that time (nearly a decade after I started working with them) there was not even semi-concrete evidence that either of the two Sunkisseds I originally got carried SG. Which is why I looked askance at Joe's claim that EVERY line of SK is "50% possible het SG". That implies that HALF of all SK animals that exist today WILL be het for SG, which, quite frankly, is just a completely ridiculous statement for someone to make. The more you outcross any animal with any gene, the LESS the probability is that it will show up. I possibly had one original Sunkissed from Kathy het for SG in my collection and because I outcrossed the pair, the gene was so heavily diluted in my collection that it turned out to be extremely rare to have even suspicious animals manifest such a trait. If EVERY Sunkissed (and related progeny) were a "50% PH" then I would have been up to my eyeballs in them every year when the babies hatched.
As for testing ONLY Sunkisseds for SG, seriously, if you are that concerned with getting the gene in your collection, then you need to test ALL genetic lines or simply get out of corn snakes completely. Kathy's Okeetees that she sold potentially carried that gene. Did she cross those "Hypo Okeetees" with anything else? Were the Okeetees themselves that were the founder stock of the SG gene outcrossed into anything else? Did anyone getting Okeetees from Kathy outcross THEM into anything else? SG and SK are two separate genes remember? The odds that SG was ONLY in the original SKs and STAYED within that line in the original founder stock would have to be EXTREMELY slim.
As for myself, I outcrossed the pair of Sunkisseds I got from Kathy with EVERY genetic strain I had at my facility (I doubt that anyone else would have done any differently getting a new genetic line in their hands) and certainly did NOT keep all of the offspring. Included in the culling were those full homozygous animals coming from the crosses that were not the combinations I was shooting for with Sunkissed. Not to mention thousands of normal colored, amelanistic, anerythristic, and hypomelanistic culls that went to wholesale brokers for resale over the years since I originally got that pair of Sunkisseds.
Nearly everyone claims that inbreeding is not a good idea for the corn snakes you work with anyway, so for crying out loud, just OUTCROSS them, and reduce the odds of ANY deleterious gene popping up. USE the odds to your advantage whenever you can.
When I bought my pair of SKs from Kathy, they were to be used as a shortcut for my own Hypo Okeetee project. I had a bunch of het adults nearly ready to breed and figured this would multiply my chances of getting the results I was looking for. This proved to be a disappointment, as every one of my Okeetees het Hypo that I bred those animals to produced nothing but normal colored animals, with NO hypomelanism evident. How many of those animals labelled as "Okeetees" have found their way into the other peoples' breeding stock? How many Okeetees sold by Kathy from this same line that originated the SK and SG genes are floating around in collections? Heck, a couple of years after I got those "Hypo Okeetees" from Kathy, she asked me about them concerning the breeding I had done with them. When I told her that I was outcrossing them and never bred them together, she told me she was relieved to hear that because she noted problems with the strain when breeding them together. I believe that is the first inkling of this SG issue that I can recall, but I really didn't inquire about what exactly those "problems" were that Kathy mentioned.
Based on what I am hearing, likely one of the two Sunkisseds I bought from Kathy was carrying the SG gene. They were used in outcrossing to all of the other genetic lines I worked with to produce combinations with this new genetic trait. And even then, I was working with parallel groups of genetic stock so as to limit inbreeding as much as was possible to do. I would breed the male to a female, say Lavender, and the female with a male Lavender with the intention of breeding the two lines back together again instead of breeding direct siblings together from a single clutch. So you can see how if just one of the two were a carrier how my breeding regimen would have greatly reduced the chances of any deleterious gene showing up in later generations. I ALWAYS outcrossed as much as was possible.
My guess is that it would have had to be the female Sunkissed that was carrying the SG gene, just because of the low frequency of this trait actually showing up in later years, and the simple fact that the male was used MUCH more than the female in breedings. Which meant the male was the ancestor of a lot more animals than the female was. Personally, out of the thousands of animals I hatched out every year, I only saw maybe a half dozen animals that could have potentially been SGs, and that was not until the last couple of years before I retired. But the numbers were no more statistically significant than the number of kinked animals I got from Lavender related animals, and other abnormalities that will be seen in any large sampling of babies hatching out. And this SG trait is so similar to other abnormalities in baby corn snakes that can be caused by environmental factors, that it would have been impractical and premature to make a positive statement either way about it. Heck, I hatched out animals in the mid 80s from a line I was calling my "Milk Snake Phase" Miamis that just acted strange in that they didn't care whether they were right side up or upside down. Connie called them the "Pineapple Upside Down Snakes". I actually kept a pair and bred them together and the trait did not surface in their offspring. So what caused it? Who knows? Anyone who breeds substantial numbers of baby snakes is going to see all sorts of questionable and sometimes heartbreaking abnormalities. It's just the percentages at work and the nature of what we are doing. If you have one in a thousand chances of getting a problem show up, and you hatch out 6,000 babies, well, statistically you will get six (6) problems hatch out of that batch. Some years you will beat the odds, and some years the odds will beat you. You know it's going to happen, so you just make the best of it and move on.
So no, I did not KNOW I had SG in my stock from that original female animal I got from Kathy. I STILL don't know, and am merely speculating based on evidence only recently being presented. And quite honestly, since I was outcrossing everything, I really was not all that concerned about it being a possibility when it first started becoming common knowledge. At that time (nearly a decade after I started working with them) there was not even semi-concrete evidence that either of the two Sunkisseds I originally got carried SG. Which is why I looked askance at Joe's claim that EVERY line of SK is "50% possible het SG". That implies that HALF of all SK animals that exist today WILL be het for SG, which, quite frankly, is just a completely ridiculous statement for someone to make. The more you outcross any animal with any gene, the LESS the probability is that it will show up. I possibly had one original Sunkissed from Kathy het for SG in my collection and because I outcrossed the pair, the gene was so heavily diluted in my collection that it turned out to be extremely rare to have even suspicious animals manifest such a trait. If EVERY Sunkissed (and related progeny) were a "50% PH" then I would have been up to my eyeballs in them every year when the babies hatched.
As for testing ONLY Sunkisseds for SG, seriously, if you are that concerned with getting the gene in your collection, then you need to test ALL genetic lines or simply get out of corn snakes completely. Kathy's Okeetees that she sold potentially carried that gene. Did she cross those "Hypo Okeetees" with anything else? Were the Okeetees themselves that were the founder stock of the SG gene outcrossed into anything else? Did anyone getting Okeetees from Kathy outcross THEM into anything else? SG and SK are two separate genes remember? The odds that SG was ONLY in the original SKs and STAYED within that line in the original founder stock would have to be EXTREMELY slim.
As for myself, I outcrossed the pair of Sunkisseds I got from Kathy with EVERY genetic strain I had at my facility (I doubt that anyone else would have done any differently getting a new genetic line in their hands) and certainly did NOT keep all of the offspring. Included in the culling were those full homozygous animals coming from the crosses that were not the combinations I was shooting for with Sunkissed. Not to mention thousands of normal colored, amelanistic, anerythristic, and hypomelanistic culls that went to wholesale brokers for resale over the years since I originally got that pair of Sunkisseds.
Nearly everyone claims that inbreeding is not a good idea for the corn snakes you work with anyway, so for crying out loud, just OUTCROSS them, and reduce the odds of ANY deleterious gene popping up. USE the odds to your advantage whenever you can.
nmoore601
Cloud 9 Corns
Nothing I bought was labeled tested or untested. The invoice from do not mention anything about tested or untested. Y'all are right it's going be popping up in all sorts of morphs. I will use ACR and my snakes are registered. Babies sold will be registered. Anything SK or has sunkissed is or has been tested. In the future I feel this will determine who a person buys from. By no means am I saying anyone is wrong or telling them how to manage there collections. I was just throwing out what practice is carried out at Cloud 9 Corns.
Jeff
I bought awesome animals from you wouldn't do anything different. This is a discussion or debate. I hope nobody takes this personally. Jeff you were highly recommended to me by my friend Joni Garcia. I have respect for what you have done for the cornsnake. I may have contradicted myself in a earlier post. There is and always will be the chance SG pops up on other morphs. But it came from SK. Folks new it and sold them. Now it's in a lot of morphs. Also when I apologized a few days ago, I wanted to say I didn't mean others had no part in lava creations, that came out wrong.
I hope this becomes a great thread to read and not a battle.
Jeff
I bought awesome animals from you wouldn't do anything different. This is a discussion or debate. I hope nobody takes this personally. Jeff you were highly recommended to me by my friend Joni Garcia. I have respect for what you have done for the cornsnake. I may have contradicted myself in a earlier post. There is and always will be the chance SG pops up on other morphs. But it came from SK. Folks new it and sold them. Now it's in a lot of morphs. Also when I apologized a few days ago, I wanted to say I didn't mean others had no part in lava creations, that came out wrong.
I hope this becomes a great thread to read and not a battle.
iculatr
NO...WIRE...HANGERS!!!
EXACTLY! Completely agree!
iculatr
NO...WIRE...HANGERS!!!
And what happens if stargazer shows up later in a supposedly 'tested' line? Should people now question your whole stock and wonder if it is really "free" of stargazer? As already mentioned, the ACR is only as truthful as the person utilizing it.
Reptileman81
Future professional
Wow this post has gotten long in a short amount of time. Took me that last 2 days to read it all. So if you will please excuse my long post because after catching up I have alot to add and recap. Been taking alot of notes lol.
First I would love to know just how many people out there in the last year or even 5 years even have had SG pop up in there collection without testing? I am sure the number is very small. When you figure in the 100's of 1000's maybe even millions of corn snakes hatched out every year how many came up SG that were not being tested for? I know this is a big issue and the last thing I would want is for it to pop up in my collection or even someone that bought a snake from me and then have it pop up in there collection. Just as Rich is and has been trying to say OUT CROSS. With any morph or recessive trait if you are out crossing you will eventually breed the trait out. Say I have a Normal het Caramel and I breed it to a Blood the clutch will only be 50%ph for Caramel. Then one of those F1's to a Lavender now that clutch is only 25%ph for Caramel and so on.
What I am saying is I agree with Rich, Stephen and others. You can test your collection all you want. Yes I am saying collection everything that you own. SG is not just in SK lines. There are so many corn snakes that are sold everyday that are from a SK line somewhere in there heritage and not labeled a het. You by corns from most pet shops they dont know or even label any known hets why because the average everyday snake owner does not care about that. Ok so you say that you only buy from trusted breeders. Thats great!!! But where did that trusted breeder get his/her original stock from and there stock from and so on. You just dont know.
Here it is straight from the Calculator
Male: Snow ( Amel, Anery ) het Stargazer
Female: Snow ( Amel, Anery )
Phenotype:
1 / 1 Snow ( Amel, Anery ) 50% poss het. Stargazer
Genotype:
1 / 2 Amel, Anery
1 / 2 Amel, Anery het Stargazer
The output contains corns that carry the Stargazer gene.
This badly affects the motor function of the animal and is not to be taken lightly.
Putting in 2 snow animals one being het SG still gives you some het SG with out putting in anything to do with SK. Now how did the one Snow become het for SG well lets see:
Male: Sunkissed het Stargazer
Female: Snow ( Amel, Anery )
Phenotype:
1 / 1 Normal het Anery, Amel, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
Genotype:
1 / 2 Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed
1 / 2 Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed, Stargazer
Thats the F1's. Now F2's
Male: Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed, Stargazer
Female: Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed
Phenotype:
9 / 64 Sunkissed 66% poss het. Anery, Amel 50% poss het. Stargazer
9 / 64 Amel 66% poss het. Anery, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
27 / 64 Normal 66% poss het. Anery, Amel, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
9 / 64 Anery 66% poss het. Amel, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
3 / 64 Snow ( Amel, Anery ) 66% poss het. Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer3 / 64 Sunkissed Amel ( Amel, Sunkissed ) 66% poss het. Anery 50% poss het. Stargazer
3 / 64 Sunkissed Anery ( Anery, Sunkissed ) 66% poss het. Amel 50% poss het. Stargazer
1 / 64 Sunkissed Snow ( Amel, Anery, Sunkissed ) 50% poss het. Stargazer
Then F3's and F4's until there is not point of mentioning that there grandfather great grandfather or whoever was a Sunkissed and that these say F5's could be het sunkissed. So they are no longer listed as phet Sk.
Every other by product from that line could be a carrier. So lets say you didnt know that the original Sunkissed was phet SG. You then sell off the lesser animals to break even on your feeding, cleaning, electric and caging cost and maybe make a buck. Now just one person that bought one of those animals plan to breed it to something else. Maybe that something else is also phet SG maybe not. Down the road though something else that is a by product of some sunkissed breedings he/she has is phet SG. Nick to say that SG is only in SK lines is not true.
Now am I saying that it is pointless to test your stock NO it is not pointless. To really be sure though you would need to test for a few seasons. Now I dont know about most of you but I support my corn collection with selling off my hatchlings. If I was to now test everything for a few years I would go broke very quickly without viable babies to sell off.
Now this can also get some attention from anyone that doesnt think reptiles should be kept. What if it got out to someone important that we as a Nation of herpers/hobbiest are breeding animals only to destroy the living creatures they produce? We already have enough bad rep and I am sure this would not help our fight. So if you dont destroy these phet SG that you got from testing then what do you do with them? Lets say you loan/sell them out for others to test. Ok well that gets rid of what a handful of the babies. What about the other 100, 1000, 10000 you produced to test your lines. Do you sell them as pets only? That doesnt make sense because down the road that PET is now in the hands of a pet shop/breeder because the person could not care for it anymore for whatever reason. This said person forgets to mention that it should be for a pet only because the breeder he/she got it from says it is a carrier for SG (if said person even knows what that is) Then you buy it from that pet shop/breeder unknowingly that it came from your own test breedings. So now what do you do test that snake too, but its just a normal Snow Corn you picked up from the local pet shop/breeder. So you test it and the process starts all over again. My point is blasting that these test animals are being destroyed is not a good idea nor is selling them off to ANYONE. Which is why Rich is so right. You must OUT CROSS your collection. If more people did that A. the SG trait would someday be gone B. so would excessive nonfeeder issues C. as well as kink issues (both which were mentioned in this thread) which as far as we can guess both come from inbreeding after inbreeding to get that next great morph faster then the next guy. OUT CROSSING is the only sure fire way to get this trait out.
Now here is a real question that I am wondering if and when I test my own collection.
Also lets say you test your collection and you find that you do have some het SG. That said SG has produced endless amount of clutches for you and so have the snakes from those clutches. Do you now locate everyone that you ever sold a snake to from that line and tell them "hey that snake might be a carrier for SG"? Well if you have the records to find all of those people and that info you have for them is still accurate then sure that could be a good thing to do. Now some of them maybe understanding, others may not care because they dont breed anyways, but some will not be happy. So then what do you offer to buy the snakes back? Do you offer refunds? If so how many seasons of eggs are you willing to do this for?
Again I apologize for such a long post I had to recap from the whole thread that I caught up on.
First I would love to know just how many people out there in the last year or even 5 years even have had SG pop up in there collection without testing? I am sure the number is very small. When you figure in the 100's of 1000's maybe even millions of corn snakes hatched out every year how many came up SG that were not being tested for? I know this is a big issue and the last thing I would want is for it to pop up in my collection or even someone that bought a snake from me and then have it pop up in there collection. Just as Rich is and has been trying to say OUT CROSS. With any morph or recessive trait if you are out crossing you will eventually breed the trait out. Say I have a Normal het Caramel and I breed it to a Blood the clutch will only be 50%ph for Caramel. Then one of those F1's to a Lavender now that clutch is only 25%ph for Caramel and so on.
What I am saying is I agree with Rich, Stephen and others. You can test your collection all you want. Yes I am saying collection everything that you own. SG is not just in SK lines. There are so many corn snakes that are sold everyday that are from a SK line somewhere in there heritage and not labeled a het. You by corns from most pet shops they dont know or even label any known hets why because the average everyday snake owner does not care about that. Ok so you say that you only buy from trusted breeders. Thats great!!! But where did that trusted breeder get his/her original stock from and there stock from and so on. You just dont know.
Here it is straight from the Calculator
Male: Snow ( Amel, Anery ) het Stargazer
Female: Snow ( Amel, Anery )
Phenotype:
1 / 1 Snow ( Amel, Anery ) 50% poss het. Stargazer
Genotype:
1 / 2 Amel, Anery
1 / 2 Amel, Anery het Stargazer
The output contains corns that carry the Stargazer gene.
This badly affects the motor function of the animal and is not to be taken lightly.
Putting in 2 snow animals one being het SG still gives you some het SG with out putting in anything to do with SK. Now how did the one Snow become het for SG well lets see:
Male: Sunkissed het Stargazer
Female: Snow ( Amel, Anery )
Phenotype:
1 / 1 Normal het Anery, Amel, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
Genotype:
1 / 2 Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed
1 / 2 Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed, Stargazer
Thats the F1's. Now F2's
Male: Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed, Stargazer
Female: Normal het Amel, Anery, Sunkissed
Phenotype:
9 / 64 Sunkissed 66% poss het. Anery, Amel 50% poss het. Stargazer
9 / 64 Amel 66% poss het. Anery, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
27 / 64 Normal 66% poss het. Anery, Amel, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
9 / 64 Anery 66% poss het. Amel, Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer
3 / 64 Snow ( Amel, Anery ) 66% poss het. Sunkissed 50% poss het. Stargazer3 / 64 Sunkissed Amel ( Amel, Sunkissed ) 66% poss het. Anery 50% poss het. Stargazer
3 / 64 Sunkissed Anery ( Anery, Sunkissed ) 66% poss het. Amel 50% poss het. Stargazer
1 / 64 Sunkissed Snow ( Amel, Anery, Sunkissed ) 50% poss het. Stargazer
Then F3's and F4's until there is not point of mentioning that there grandfather great grandfather or whoever was a Sunkissed and that these say F5's could be het sunkissed. So they are no longer listed as phet Sk.
Every other by product from that line could be a carrier. So lets say you didnt know that the original Sunkissed was phet SG. You then sell off the lesser animals to break even on your feeding, cleaning, electric and caging cost and maybe make a buck. Now just one person that bought one of those animals plan to breed it to something else. Maybe that something else is also phet SG maybe not. Down the road though something else that is a by product of some sunkissed breedings he/she has is phet SG. Nick to say that SG is only in SK lines is not true.
Now am I saying that it is pointless to test your stock NO it is not pointless. To really be sure though you would need to test for a few seasons. Now I dont know about most of you but I support my corn collection with selling off my hatchlings. If I was to now test everything for a few years I would go broke very quickly without viable babies to sell off.
Now this can also get some attention from anyone that doesnt think reptiles should be kept. What if it got out to someone important that we as a Nation of herpers/hobbiest are breeding animals only to destroy the living creatures they produce? We already have enough bad rep and I am sure this would not help our fight. So if you dont destroy these phet SG that you got from testing then what do you do with them? Lets say you loan/sell them out for others to test. Ok well that gets rid of what a handful of the babies. What about the other 100, 1000, 10000 you produced to test your lines. Do you sell them as pets only? That doesnt make sense because down the road that PET is now in the hands of a pet shop/breeder because the person could not care for it anymore for whatever reason. This said person forgets to mention that it should be for a pet only because the breeder he/she got it from says it is a carrier for SG (if said person even knows what that is) Then you buy it from that pet shop/breeder unknowingly that it came from your own test breedings. So now what do you do test that snake too, but its just a normal Snow Corn you picked up from the local pet shop/breeder. So you test it and the process starts all over again. My point is blasting that these test animals are being destroyed is not a good idea nor is selling them off to ANYONE. Which is why Rich is so right. You must OUT CROSS your collection. If more people did that A. the SG trait would someday be gone B. so would excessive nonfeeder issues C. as well as kink issues (both which were mentioned in this thread) which as far as we can guess both come from inbreeding after inbreeding to get that next great morph faster then the next guy. OUT CROSSING is the only sure fire way to get this trait out.
Now here is a real question that I am wondering if and when I test my own collection.
Also lets say you test your collection and you find that you do have some het SG. That said SG has produced endless amount of clutches for you and so have the snakes from those clutches. Do you now locate everyone that you ever sold a snake to from that line and tell them "hey that snake might be a carrier for SG"? Well if you have the records to find all of those people and that info you have for them is still accurate then sure that could be a good thing to do. Now some of them maybe understanding, others may not care because they dont breed anyways, but some will not be happy. So then what do you offer to buy the snakes back? Do you offer refunds? If so how many seasons of eggs are you willing to do this for?
Again I apologize for such a long post I had to recap from the whole thread that I caught up on.
Reptileman81
Future professional
How are your odds increased? You are still only trying to see if each female is a carrier for SG not as a whole unless you are testing the male with several Homo SG female.
Shiari
Blutterer
That's not how that works at all. You can't have a clutch that is only 25% p/h for a gene. Your options are either 100%, 66%, or 50%. The p/h caramel parent either is, or isn't, het.
If you took one of those 50% p/h offspring... and got one with caramel, well now you have another clutch that has half the offspring het for caramel. And take one of those, and you've got the potential for *another* generation that has half the animals carrying caramel.
You're not necessarily diluting it at all. People have had caramel 'unexpectedly' pop up in clutches. You haven't removed the frequency of the gene itself at all... you've just hidden it more effectively. Only now it's everywhere and so will rear its ugly head in more places.
Reptileman81
Future professional
In a sense yes you are right Shiari. I should of been a little more explanatory just that post was getting seriously long.
When you keep out crossing said line with new lines that do not carry the same traits you will eventually breed out said trait. Now I was using Caramel as a example. Of course you would not want to breed out such a beautiful trait, but SG you do. So unless you are testing for SG when you breed a unknown or even known carrier for SG to another animal and you do not breed those F1's back to a parent or sibling but to a different line "out cross" you can breed out said trait I.E. SG. Now is this a sure fire way NO!!! But neither is test breeding. However out crossing and good record keeping is the more humane thing to do in my opinion. What if you were told that your new born child had some disorder passed on from you so the child had to be put down/euthinized/DESTROYED. First would you allow that to happen and second if so would you try to have a child again or would you just stop breeding. (when I say you in this I am not referring to anyone just in general to clear that up. I do not want to insult anyone)
You can not get a 100% for sure said snake is not a carrier for SG or any other morph or trait that we know of. I am not a mathematician but I am sure someone could come up with a formula to figure out this equation. Just how many generations would it take to breed out a trait to 99% sure it is gone using different lines to breed these generations? Would it take 5 years/breeding season, 10, 20? What if you were introducing wild stock into your collection to rethicken your bloodlines? This was something that many breeders did many years ago. This though has faded away, again to try and breed the next best morph before the other guy can. Most of us are guilty of this at one time or another. Breeding animals that dont quite meet the rule of 3 "3 years old, 3 feet long, 300grams. The breeding of F1's back to the parents or siblings, then doing the same with the F2's. Just to increase that 1/256 chance. This is why in the past 10-15 years the amount of morphs in all reptiles have just exploded. Yes it is also because our hobby has grown so much in this time as well. But it is also us the next generations of breeders that are doing out part in weakening the genes of these beautiful creatures.
And yes I know the next question what about all of those babies produced in the mean time. Those babies become someone else's "out crossings". Just like test breeding, out crossing can only work if everyone was on board. Well that will never happen. Just like getting rid of SG will never happen. It is only a means of control.
This is why record keeping is so important. I do not use ACR at this time but I do plan to in the very near future. Just as stated though that is only accurate and truthful as the person putting the info in. If true accurate records are recorded either through ACR or on your own when SG does pop up in your collection you know where to trace it back to and can cut those animals from the breeding pool.
When you keep out crossing said line with new lines that do not carry the same traits you will eventually breed out said trait. Now I was using Caramel as a example. Of course you would not want to breed out such a beautiful trait, but SG you do. So unless you are testing for SG when you breed a unknown or even known carrier for SG to another animal and you do not breed those F1's back to a parent or sibling but to a different line "out cross" you can breed out said trait I.E. SG. Now is this a sure fire way NO!!! But neither is test breeding. However out crossing and good record keeping is the more humane thing to do in my opinion. What if you were told that your new born child had some disorder passed on from you so the child had to be put down/euthinized/DESTROYED. First would you allow that to happen and second if so would you try to have a child again or would you just stop breeding. (when I say you in this I am not referring to anyone just in general to clear that up. I do not want to insult anyone)
You can not get a 100% for sure said snake is not a carrier for SG or any other morph or trait that we know of. I am not a mathematician but I am sure someone could come up with a formula to figure out this equation. Just how many generations would it take to breed out a trait to 99% sure it is gone using different lines to breed these generations? Would it take 5 years/breeding season, 10, 20? What if you were introducing wild stock into your collection to rethicken your bloodlines? This was something that many breeders did many years ago. This though has faded away, again to try and breed the next best morph before the other guy can. Most of us are guilty of this at one time or another. Breeding animals that dont quite meet the rule of 3 "3 years old, 3 feet long, 300grams. The breeding of F1's back to the parents or siblings, then doing the same with the F2's. Just to increase that 1/256 chance. This is why in the past 10-15 years the amount of morphs in all reptiles have just exploded. Yes it is also because our hobby has grown so much in this time as well. But it is also us the next generations of breeders that are doing out part in weakening the genes of these beautiful creatures.
And yes I know the next question what about all of those babies produced in the mean time. Those babies become someone else's "out crossings". Just like test breeding, out crossing can only work if everyone was on board. Well that will never happen. Just like getting rid of SG will never happen. It is only a means of control.
This is why record keeping is so important. I do not use ACR at this time but I do plan to in the very near future. Just as stated though that is only accurate and truthful as the person putting the info in. If true accurate records are recorded either through ACR or on your own when SG does pop up in your collection you know where to trace it back to and can cut those animals from the breeding pool.
Shiari
Blutterer
The homozygous animals used for testing usually are the results of finding out for certain that someone has animals carrying the SG gene. That's why I asked both Walter and Russel if they would have a pair of homozygous animals that I could raise up for testing. Once my testing is done, I would offer them up to someone else.
That is how most people seem to go about doing it. Giving away the gazers for just the cost of shipping.
