Keys corns

[Hurley]

I don't know much about these guys, can someone help me out?

*cut and pasted from the bloodred thread*

re:Keys corns. I don't claim any expertise in this realm at all, but I'll throw this out there for someone to educate me on the subject:

The Keys corns have blank bellies, do they not? Or most do at any rate, at least to my understanding.

(from Rich's description: The Upper Keys Corn is kind of hard to describe. In some instances it looks like something inbetween a hypomelanistic corn and a regular Miami Phase corn. There is usually very little contrast between the blotches and ground color. And often the abdomen can be pretty much patternless.)

If you breed a Keys corn with a bloodred, what do you get?

In the F2?

If you breed a Keys to an Okeetee, what do you get (belly pattern-wise and 'other-wises')?

In the F2?

Has it been proven, or are we sure that the Keys corns aren't carrying the pattern trait of bloodreds (in the het or homo form)?

I ask because I don't know. To me in the pictures, they look like not-very-red bloodreds. :shrugs:

 

[Simon]

Hurley,

Ha!
I was thinking of exactly the same thing!
I was thinking weather or not these upper keys are carrying any of those bloodred trait.

I currently have 1.4 adult upper keys (one of my males died last year...sigh..so only 1.4 left..)

Anyway I had a clutch of 13 last year and all hatched out. They do have plain belly pattern. They're weird little ones. At the same time their size compared to the 'normal corn snakes' that we see around is smaller than the others that I have around here.

Anyway to go back to your question, I am testing out to breed those upper keys to other snakes.

I put my male bloodred with the upper keys, silver queen x upper keys, amel x upper keys, and then just the upper key x upper key combo.

Now I know for sure that Rich and the others have already tried these combos but I haven't heard of anything from them. I think that I have seen a hypo x upper keys result (if I remember correctly..it was from Rich...but don't blame me cause I have bad memories..lol)

So I guess once my little project starts laying we'll start the little timer and soon hopefully I will be able to answer some of your questions.

Oh yeah..
one more thing.
Last year when I got these upper key's clutch to hatch it...man it was hark making them each.
They prefer lizard to start off. Then I had to switch them to lizard scented mice. It wasn't fun at all. I hate feeding lizards. So this is another reason why I wanted to add the 'normal corn snake blood' into the gene pool to see if it's possible for me 'change' them into eating pinkies once hatched~~

But somehow I think that the upper keys is actually a different sub species of rat snakes and not really a corn snake. Different location, different size, and different eating habbits....but this is just me~~

 

[carol]

Just for fun...
Here is a belly pic of two hypo corns that are 1/4 Keys corn (mom was 1/2) I bred these two together this year and have about 14 eggs. It will be interesting to see what I get althought if the belly pattern is simple recessive they each only have a 50/50 chance of being het. I will bred the 1/2 keys mother to a full keys as soon as my male is big enough!

 

[carol]

I know this pic really doesn't go here, but here is another non-motley milksnake phase belly. Again what you see is all of the checkering. I currently don't have any at the moment that are 100 % clear....oops I forgot, I do have one that is clear but does not appear to be motley but I don't think I have pics. Hmm, one to work on.

One other note about keys corns, my hatchlings also had grey heads...

 

[carol]

Duh...

 

[Edmund]

Check out Don's website to see an Upper Keys and Bloodred cross. He calls it a Rosy corn. Very pretty.