Unhealthy genetic combinations ??

[Christopher Feenan]

I have always wondered why some morphs are rare when they are just double homozygous animals. Is there something else at work ? A genetic weakness that kicks in when the two alleles are combined ?

Why are Charcoal stripes unusual ? I would think they would be popping up all over from crosses that were intended to rpoduce other things year ago, like an amel stripe X charcoal cross that may have been used to produce Blizzards years ago.

I have really always wondered why blood lavs are still kind of high priced and rare. By now, lots of guys should be producing them, it's not that complicated. But they don't show up much on the lassifieds, and the price reflects a morph that is a bit scarce.

I have 2.2 double het blood lavs, and have produced only two plasmas in two years of breeding them. Of about 50 or 60 babies, the 1 in 16 odds are not that far out of whack, but both of my babies thrived for awhile, then died, for no reason that I could discern. Then I see few for sale, few adult pics shown off ( I think they are worth looking at !) and I wonder ...

 

[Shiari]

The reason why some are rare is that some genes are newer than others, some combinations hadn't occurred to people in general, murphy is a bastard, normals het whatever still need 3 years for females to mature, etc.

 

[airenlow]

Interesting question! I hadn't thought about lethal alleles in corns but I guess it's possible. Obviously not with Charcoal Stripes and Lav Bloods (as they have been produced), but it might pop up somewhere down the road. Brent (Drizzt80) has brought up the idea that Charcoal might not be a "very dominant gene" (for lack of a better term), but others disagreed. I think, so far, it's just been Murphy getting even for other projects that have gone right.

 

[Nanci]

I've thought about lavbloods, too. They had an extreme price drop over a couple years. I wonder if not so many are produced now because of that.

 

[crackerhead]

I've thought about lavbloods, too. They had an extreme price drop over a couple years. I wonder if not so many are produced now because of that.

I know from my own breeding projects any Lav Bloods, Charcoal stripes, Fire Motleys etc are being kept and raised for the addition of a third or fourth recessive gene in the future. For example Lav Bloods, to me, are not nearly as attractive as say Hypo Lav blood Stripes. So I keep what I produce and breed the additional morphs into the mix. As for charcoal, I just think it was overlooked for the more commonly found anery. They do look similar so people without the refined taste in black morphs chose the easy route. Much of what gets produced is driven by market demand. So if you don't see a lot of a given morph it most likely is because it is not wanted by the public or it is not the morph de jour. Interesting thoughts about genetically weak transfer rates. It would be fun project to statistically track some of those scarcer recessives out there and see if there is a link.
Terri

 

[Medevil_Nuke]

Well, I'm not sure as of how a genetic combination of traits only affecting an animals outside appearance could be considered unhealthy/damaging to the animals internal functions, but Charcoal Stripes are probably rarer and more expensive than other double recessives probably just due to the fact that either breeders don't find them that alluring to customers.
This of course is all based on logic and some assumptions please note.