Picking a Lavender Baby

Hi all!

I've last written on this forum in the snakes wanted section, looking for a retired adult snake to keep as a pet. Well, after searching for that so long to no avail and missing out on so many potential snakes, I decided to get a baby and be in it for the long haul after all.

So, of course I want the snake I couldn't afford 19 years ago when I first got into corn snakes: a lavender! But this morph has come a long way since then. I really love that purple cast, and lighter coloring rather than the darker, more grey-like coloring.

So, my questions:

• Can I judge the baby snakes I'm seeing to guess at how they may change by the time they're an adult?
• If so, will darker saddles mean darker adults, whiter backgrounds mean greys will be prominant, or is that not a good measure?
• Will hets indicate any visible phenotype (for example, lavender het strawberry making for a very slightly pinkish lavender even though it's not a hypo?)
• Will images of the parents really indicate strongly what the hatchling will grow up to be? Or is that not very reliable?

I figure the answer could be that I can't tell and that's the fun of the lavender gene, but I also know that of all the places, this is the community to ask.

I'm looking on Morph Market and definitely open to breeders here, and found a few--they are both a darker mocha-brown from the images with very light/white-looking backgrounds, and I'm unsure if that is going to be more what I'm looking for, or less.

Thank you for any insight! And while I am looking for a snake now and open to any that may be available here, if you want to convince me to wait with your own stock or project plans, I'm open to that too

The best you can do to try to predict what a hatchling lavender corn snake would trend to as a mature snake is to look at both parents (assuming both parent are lavenders and not a multi-morph lavender morph, I.e. Opal, etc.). But if both lavender parents are on the opposite ends of the lavender spectrum (one very contrasty and the other unicolor) then good luck as it could turn out either way or anywhere in between. If the parents are very similar then you can assume you will have a good chance the hatchling will look similar but not always.
Heck, when Serpenco hatch the first known lavender they gave it the name mocha based on the coloration not knowing at the time that adult lavenders would never be mistaken for a mocha color.
Good luck!

I remember learning of that! So basically, if a lavender's parents were both het pairings, there's probably no good way to know. You need two lav parents. Interesting! It's really wild, the variation I've seen in images so far.

Often male lavenders have richer coloration than females. See if you can contact Ryan Ferrell. I haven't purchased from him personally, but he produces some killer lavender corns.

Originally Posted by hypnoctopus

Often male lavenders have richer coloration than females. See if you can contact Ryan Ferrell. I haven't purchased from him personally, but he produces some killer lavender corns.

Thank you for the tip! That was one of the people I was talking to about his lavenders--he had no visual parents to show me, though, since they were both hets, which made me wonder if I was gambling. But I'm intrigued that his might be the way to go of the options I saw on MM. I was hoping to find examples of his lavenders elsewhere but had no luck. If you know of any, I would love to see!

Given my Love/Hate relationship with the gene, I have been working for years on getting a kink-free line of Lavenders that are also robust eaters. I presently have Lavender Motleys Het for Amel from that project that have been kink-free for 7 years of breeding trials. I'm adding genes to the test colony but it's a slow process. If you are looking for the peachy/pink washed Lavenders then definitely get a male AND something with the Peach gene, either Het or Homo, would add a lot.
Looking at the parents is good advice as to what the hatchlings will look like as an adult.
Good Luck,
Terri

Originally Posted by ronlina

Thank you for the tip! That was one of the people I was talking to about his lavenders--he had no visual parents to show me, though, since they were both hets, which made me wonder if I was gambling. But I'm intrigued that his might be the way to go of the options I saw on MM. I was hoping to find examples of his lavenders elsewhere but had no luck. If you know of any, I would love to see!

He posts his lavender projects on Facebook relatively often. Most of his lavender stuff also includes other genes, like sunkissed, but here's one that's just lavender:
https://m.facebook.com/groups/442262...n=mo&ref=share

Originally Posted by crackerhead

Given my Love/Hate relationship with the gene, I have been working for years on getting a kink-free line of Lavenders that are also robust eaters. I presently have Lavender Motleys Het for Amel from that project that have been kink-free for 7 years of breeding trials. I'm adding genes to the test colony but it's a slow process. If you are looking for the peachy/pink washed Lavenders then definitely get a male AND something with the Peach gene, either Het or Homo, would add a lot.
Looking at the parents is good advice as to what the hatchlings will look like as an adult.
Good Luck,
Terri

That's really cool that you're working on that project! I've always admired the lavender gene from a distance, but I only recently picked up my first lavenders. I'm really hoping they produce healthy babies! I would love to see pictures of yours!

Here's a pic of my male lavender motley. I haven't photographed the female yet, but she's not nearly as colorful as him.

Originally Posted by hypnoctopus

He posts his lavender projects on Facebook relatively often. Most of his lavender stuff also includes other genes, like sunkissed, but here's one that's just lavender:
https://m.facebook.com/groups/442262...n=mo&ref=share

Thank you for this! I had been unable to find his facebook page. I'll ask him for more photos too; I'm assuming he is reputable since he is being mentioned on here, but since I've been majorly out of the loop, I wasn't sure.