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Wanting to Start breeding and need some advice

D

Danie Burger

New member
Hi Guys

I am brand spanking new on the forum and this is my 1st post, so please excuse me if I post in the wrong thread.

I would like to start breeding, but I am still a total novice when it comes to breeding, unfortunately I have to start ordering my snakes as breeding season is going to start in the next few months and if I do not place my order very soon I will have to wait another year before I can start.

I have 2 questions, but 1st I need to tell you what snakes I have (no idea if these are male or female and also no idea of their bloodlines):
1 x Silver Motley
1 x Snow Motley
1 x Normal Motley
1 x Sun-glow Motley
1 x Miami
1 x Candy-Cane
1 x Albino

My 1st Question
Taking the above in consideration and without knowing their bloodlines and sex, what 13 morphs would you get or recommend (and their sexes) and how would you pair them.

2nd Question
Is there any type of formula to work out how many female mice a person must have per snake, to produce enough offspring to feed them?
At the moment I have 5 Tubs with 5 females in each and 4 male mice that I alternate between the tubs, I also have 2 big tubs to put all the "food" in until I need them.

Thank you in advance for your advice, opinion or just for reading my post.
Danie Burger
 
I'd say you need to get your snakes sexed before you can start planning. I know from experience that a mis-sexed female can wreck carefully planned out breeding projects. Without knowing what you've got already you could be wasting money and time in raising new snakes without suitable mates for them
 
Welcome aboard! My first advice would be to study the local market, and be sure you can find homes for everything you hatch. Here in the US, that can be a bear!

Next step would be sexing the snakes you have, and looking at their genetic mutations and how they match up. I'll copy your list and make notes:

1 x Silver Motley -anery with motley pattern
1 x Snow Motley -amel + anery with motley pattern
1 x Normal Motley -motley pattern
1 x Sun-glow Motley -amel with motley pattern
1 x Miami -normal
1 x Candy-Cane -amel
1 x Albino -amel

In those 7 snakes, you have 3 recessive mutations, anery, amel, and motley.

Several of these would make "like" babies, and depending on hidden genes (hets), others may. Here in the US, none of these cultivars would have much monetary value, but markets vary by location.

As for mice, I wouldn't rotate males. I find keeping an intact harem is MUCH safer, moving a new male in can cause him to be castrated, mothers to eat their litters, etc. I don't know why they do it, but they sure will. Whenever I lost a male of a colony, I just put down all the females too and started over.
 
Hi Guys

Ok, I have had my corns sexed and the outcome was as follows:

Males:
1 x Silver Motley -anery with motley pattern
1 x Albino -ame

Females:
1 x Snow Motley -amel + anery with motley pattern
1 x Normal Motley -motley pattern
1 x Sun-glow Motley -amel with motley pattern
1 x Miami -normal
1 x Candy-Cane -amel

So coming back to my original question:

Taking the above in consideration and without knowing their bloodlines, what morphs would you get or recommend (and their sexes) and how would you pair them.
 
My personal recommendation would be to read a book, or study more about the morphs before you dive headfirst into a breeding venture. Knowledge is a breeder's most powerful weapon. Arm yourself with that.

One of the tools I like is the Corn Morph Calculator . It can help you out a LOT if you're still new to genetics.
 
Yeah, tried reading a couple and some internet articles as well.
Never had biology in school and English is not my 1st language,
so I need someone to explain to me in lay-mans terms.
All the biological names etc goes right over my head and I do not have anyone here that can really explain to me.

The one breeder that I got my snakes from told me that he just mix & match his males and females and when the little ones hatch it's like a lucky packet.

I will tell you what I have learned so far, correct me if I am wrong please:
- Any pair up with any normal will produce only normal looking babies
- If I match up a color with another color (no underlying hets & things) I will get a mixed batch, unless one is a normal, which will then only give normal offspring
- If I want something like stripes both parents must be stripes, or at least have the stripe gene if they are not physically looking like a stripe (in this case babies will be mixed)
- Same goes with Diffused etc
- Any Special breed like Candy Cane or Abbotts Okeetee you have to breed with the same kind, otherwise you will not get the desired results

In a nutshell this is what I understand from my research, I do not understand hets and all these other fancy names etc.

I really would not have asked advise if I was to lazy to learn in the 1st place.
 
I am by no means an expert on genetics, but I think I can answer some of these.


Danie Burger said:
- Any pair up with any normal will produce only normal looking babiesresults
Click to expand...

Not quite. If the normals are het (meaning heterozygous) for a certain gene, then they can produce those offspring when combined with another that has that gene. Basically, het means the animal has a gene which is not expressed (there are very few exceptions).

Danie Burger said:
- If I match up a color with another color (no underlying hets & things) I will get a mixed batch, unless one is a normal, which will then only give normal offspring
Click to expand...
Again, the morphs have to be the same, otherwise you'd only get normals. Like if I were to breed an amel (albino) to a lavender and neither of them had any hidden genes, all the babies would be normal. If the amel were to be het lavender, and the lavender het amel, then you would get a mix of amels, lavenders, and opals.

Danie Burger said:
- If I want something like stripes both parents must be stripes, or at least have the stripe gene if they are not physically looking like a stripe (in this case babies will be mixed)
- Same goes with Diffused etc
- Any Special breed like Candy Cane or Abbotts Okeetee you have to breed with the same kind, otherwise you will not get the desired results
Click to expand...

Yes on the rest.
 
If you breed your silver motley to the motley females, you'll get motley hatchlings. This would also test if he carries the amel gene.
Pairing him with your snow motley will give you the chance of silver and normal motleys if he doesn't, adding the chance of snow and amel motleys if he does
 
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