most versatile males

[pdrau]

I'm going to be limited in the number of snakes I can keep for brood stock due to lack of space, so I plan to obtain a diversity of females of different het/hom traits. I would like to keep the number of males I have to a minimum. Which types are the most versatile when crossed with a diversity of females?

I have a normal male which I intend to find out if he is het for anything. I may be obtaining a snow male from Neil. What other males would be a good overall choice? This is a general question. I know the possibilities are endless with Motley and Stripes and on and on. Hopefully, you get the idea of what I'm asking. I'm hoping to end up with 3 males and 9 females in my breeding group.

Hmmm...guess I should have asked this question. If you could have 3 males and 9 females in a breeding group, what would you choose? Hehe...well answer whichever or both. I can always sneak one or three more into the mix! I guess a 4 x 4 or 5 x 3 rack wouldn't take much more space than a 4 x 3 rack.

Peter

 

[gekko1]

I have a normal male which I intend to find out if he is het for anything. I may be obtaining a snow male from Neil. What other males would be a good overall choice? This is a general question. I know the possibilities are endless with Motley and Stripes and on and on. Hopefully, you get the idea of what I'm asking. I'm hoping to end up with 3 males and 9 females in my breeding group.

*what are you going for? do you just want to have clutchs that have different morphs in each? if so you'll want to get a breeding pair of a certain morph that are both het for the same thing or things.

Hmmm...guess I should have asked this question. If you could have 3 males and 9 females in a breeding group, what would you choose? Hehe...well answer whichever or both. I can always sneak one or three more into the mix! I guess a 4 x 4 or 5 x 3 rack wouldn't take much more space than a 4 x 3 rack.

*i would get a normal male het for snow and breed it with a snow, anery and an amel. all babies with be het for snow.
*an albino striped male and breed with another albino striped and also an amel. all babies will be het for striped and amel.
*i would also buy a nice hypo male for breeding stock.
*i've also been thinking of my breeding stock and know i will get the normal male het for snow to breed with the three females.



Peter

 

[Darin Chappell]

To my mind, the most diversity you can have in a limited amount of space can be achieved by getting a motley snow male to breed with amel, anery, and snow females (the F1s will be snows, amels (het anery), and anerys (het amel) all 100% het for motley); a butter male to breed to butter, amber, and caramel females (you'll get some of each in the F1 generation, with the ambers and caramels being het for butter); and a pewter male to breed with pewter, bloodred, and blizzard females (you should get pewters, bloodreds (het for pewter), and pewters (het for blizzard).

Compiling this mix might be a bit costly, but I think you would achieve the greatest diversity with the least amount of space, and continue to produce hatchlings that are relatively high on demand. I'm sure others will have differing lists, but if I was limited to just twelve snakes to start off with, these would be the ones!

Have fun! -- Darin

 

[pdrau]

Darin,

I've been looking at the possibilities with snows and butters and really like pewters, so I'm with you on your selections. Something to think about when making selections. I have access to a pewter male and no telling what else my friends have. Maybe I'll get 12 females and bum males from my friends when I am ready to breed them.

Peter

 

[jim]

peter and darin...

great choices except for the amber i think.... breeding the butter and amber won't get you any ambers, just caramels double het for amel and hypo. i especially like the snow motley idea but would get females at least het for motley to go with him. for diversity in a low male environment i'd go with all triple or double homozygous males- snow motley, ghost motley, butter motley, amel lavender or pewter... just my choices tho. have fun... ---jim

 

[pdrau]

I've seen some listings for "striped motley." How would this play into the mix. Would it be worthwhile or would there be too much variance in the pattern, so that you ended up with patterns that aren't truly motley nor truly striped?

 

[jim]

AFAIK... motley and stripe are codominant and will give you a mix of motleys, stripes, and mixtures of the two..... ---jim

 

[Serpwidgets]

Some thoughts...

What happens when one of your males is not fertile? You might not want to have such a small selection of males.

If you're going to produce a bunch of hets, you're going to have to go to the F2 to produce the really interesting stuff. This will require more than the 12, unless you plan to sell off the parents and only keep one generation at a time.

I'd also suggest getting whatever morph you really like and try to improve upon it.

 

[pdrau]

Serpwidgets,

That further refines my question. Without putting limits on number of adults, what combinations are going to produce F1s that are not just normals that are multi het?

The general idea is to breed 1 male (assuming he's fertile) to multiple females to get F1s that are homozygous for at least 1 mutation. The multi het part is there, but I want to focus on the homozygous part of the equation.

i.e. a butter motley male crossed

with a butter female het for striped
50% butter striped motley
50% butter het for motley

with a caramel female het for motley
50% caramel motley het for amel
50% caramel het for amel and motley

with what else?

It's 5 am, so I'm not sure this will make sense when anyone reads it! hehe

Peter

(predictions are from Mick's cornsnake progency predictor, so don't beat me up if they are innacurate )