Hypo truly is a four letter word

Some history:

Years ago, I bred a very large anery to a ghost het for amel. I hatched out 19 eggs. All the babies were typical aneries. Nothing hypo looking at all. No snows. And I decided to keep back a single female to breed back to the father.

I expected to get all aneries from the daughter's clutch of 13 eggs. So imagine my surprise/dismay/aggravation when out popped 3 hypo looking babies. And they don't look like your typical ghosts, being much 'cooler' in color, rather than the warmer brown/grays I'm used to.

Photos of the two females as compared to some normal anery siblings.













So. What sort of hypo am I faced with? It doesn't look like lava. It's definitely not sunkissed. That leaves basically dilute, right?

LOL!!!

Welcome to HYPO HELL!

Originally Posted by Rich Z

LOL!!!

Welcome to HYPO HELL!

Ugggggh. I tried so hard to just stick to hypo A, too! XD

When these things showed up my first thought was "Oh gods, Rich was RIGHT!"

Originally Posted by Shiari

Ugggggh. I tried so hard to just stick to hypo A, too! XD

When these things showed up my first thought was "Oh gods, Rich was RIGHT!"

Before I retired I was producing animals expressing three, and maybe four of the quasi-known hypo genes. I know I had two strains in my Crimson line that I never was able to figure out. And I still had some more that were popping out that just the time involved to prove them out as being unique was more than I was willing or able to put into it. Just the time and effort involved for me to prove out the Cinder/Ashy line was pretty taxing of my resources.

I can remember bagging up some of the last of the bulk corns to go out during my last year of breeding. I had two clutches that came from my original Motley line, and darn if there weren't some obviously and unusually light colored corns among the normals, quite different from any other hypos I have seen. I thought "OH NO!!". And into the bulk bags they went to be shipped out. Of course, all those lines are dispersed to the four winds now. The guy who bought them all was never really interested in the records I kept, so they eventually went out in the trash.

But thinking about it, wouldn't it have been a real hoot to be selling animals that were het for four or more hypo genes, and let everyone else get hauled off to the booby hatch when their eggs began hatching?

Originally Posted by Shiari

Ugggggh. I tried so hard to just stick to hypo A, too! XD

When these things showed up my first thought was "Oh gods, Rich was RIGHT!"

Oh, BTW, "Type A" Hypo was tainted a LONG time ago. I was producing the Crimson Corns (Hypomelanistic Miami Phase) for quite a long time that I was positive only had the Type A in them. But time and time again, I would breed Crimson to Crimson and get all normal colored animals hatching out of those eggs. The kicker was that I grew up several pairs of those offspring thinking I would get a double combo hypo to hatch out, or maybe even two different looking hypo looking corns but that never did happen. Never had a clue as to what was going on there. And I sold a LOT of Crimson corns over the years.

Honestly I am glad I am out of it. Things were getting enormously complicated even then about what the heck I was hatching out.

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Oh, BTW, "Type A" Hypo was tainted a LONG time ago. I was producing the Crimson Corns (Hypomelanistic Miami Phase) for quite a long time that I was positive only had the Type A in them. But time and time again, I would breed Crimson to Crimson and get all normal colored animals hatching out of those eggs.

Noooooooo

Well, "good news" for me is that so far most of my projects have been at least hypo-a compatible hypos if they are not all hypo a. My Bansidhe made all ghosts with the ghost granddam of these babies, and I know the hypo carried by my charcoal gal is compatible as well as her dad made hypo babies with that ghost.

Guess I'll have to see if I can find someone to borrow a dilute from in 3 or 4 years and if that pair produces normals I might just have to go cry in a corner forever.

But just think how boring it would be if every egg hatching produced something predictable. I've always told people that egg hatching season was, for me, just like Christmas morning. Every day I would check on the new hatchings and time and time again would see something new that probably had never been seen by human eyes before. There are few things in life you can do where you can get that sort of experience. Cherish the bright side of what you are going through now. Most people have nothing close to what you get to look forward to when the eggs are hatching.

And yes, I do miss that part of it since retiring. Sure there were headaches and heartbreaks, but heck, it if was all pink roses and silver unicorns, everyone would be doing it.

Wise words, Rich. I was very sad to lose my pewter from the sunkissed charcoal that I will probably not attempt to breed again. It took so much out of her this year. I'm left with a single male offspring from that clutch now.

It would probably be exciting to actually have a new hypo type pop up....after the panic XD

It all works out. Just a word of caution if you want to be selling any offspring: Print out a lot of labels that just have question marks on them for a genetic description. Honestly, I think a lot of people are selling animals that are a whole lot more questionable as to the true genetics than they realize. Take any one of the hypo genes and then throw some of the anerythristic cultivars into the mix and you have a real mess then.

But some things just can't be taken all that seriously when you are dealing with Mother Nature. Especially when you try to shove an analog world into digital cubbyholes for identification purposes. Most of what science "knows" is really mostly all theory anyway. So just enjoy the ride and don't be embarrassed to admit that you just don't know something. I worked with this stuff for 30 years and I didn't have a clue about a LOT of what I was doing. But it kept me off of the streets and out of trouble, so I can't complain.

I was thinking maybe dilute if you're sure they're not regular hypo.