And then there was a new morph?

[ConcinusMan]

Out of the six how many males/females? If the plan is to put the males back to the mother, would females when they're ready go back to the father, or is this never done and there will just be new plans for the girls? I know a good looking snake when I see one but getting a grip on how all this breeding and genetics stuff works is going to take some homework.

The problem with breeding a daughter back to the father is that they are snakes. Females take longer to mature sexually, and even longer to become big enough to become ideal size for gestating a litter. In the mean time, the father is getting old and larger. When breeding snakes you should choose a male that is smaller (or about same size) than the female so breeding daughter to father just isn't feasible. A male offspring will be ready to breed in about 2 years. Since you have his mother who is larger than him and a proven breeder, the choice is logical. you breed her to her young and smaller son. Trying to breed a small female that has only just matured, to a much larger male is rarely, if ever, successful.

[Dan72]

Okay, so the dads out, I understand why that won't work. What might some plans be for any females in this group of 6. If this is something newly discovered would females just be breed to a male to produce a litter of potential het positive males and then those males when old enough would be breed back to mom and hope for more??

[ConcinusMan]

What I would do is, while waiting for the females to grow up, mate their mother to a male that is not their father, (or mate their father to an unrelated female) creating (hopefully male) half-siblings that are a year younger. Those male half-siblings would be their future mates. That would ensure a good chance that the recessive gene is present in both of the half-siblings while still introducing new genes from an unrelated snake.

when outcrossing like this, i would prefer to use a WC snake so you know for sure there is no relation.

[reptileparadise]

Yup, thats a good choice...
What you (/we) can do is mate the males to their mother and (trusting they will prove themselves out) use the females to start other projects. For instance mating an albino male to one of the females, creating double hets that might one day become a beautiful new snow 'line'.

Or perhaps mate an known anery with one of these girls to create either double hets or to see wheter the lines are compatible.

So basically you can go for Concinnusmans options and focus on this particular morph, or spread out to ensure greater possibilities in the future....

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Someone on the dutch forums made an extremely simple, yet very good observation. On basis of simple recesive inheritance, there's a good chance that F1 (communal ancestor) was het. for this trait, and by accident, both our holdbacks where also carrying these genes (basically saying all F1's young are poss. hets and these two proved out to be true hets.)....
So simple, yet I think he might be on to something. Hoping to prove this in two years time....

[ConcinusMan]

Kudos to Steve for his work on many radix projects. he's doing an excellent job, taking the time, to preserve certain morphs without getting in a hurry to produce quantities of them. Lots of outcrossed hets. This is good.

[EasternGirl]

Congrats on the unexpected addition! As far as breeding parents and offspring...I have always been aware of the fact that my female eastern, Cee Cee, who just bred with my male eastern, Seeley, is most likely Seeley's mother. Cee Cee lived under my house for a few years before I found her and had babies that inhabited my yard...to my knowledge. I believe that Seeley was one of those babies that I found in my basement a couple of years ago.

[reptileparadise]

Well, not having sexed any of our Thamnophis this young before, it looks like we might have 2.4..... although two females are extremely obvious, so might be 4.2 as well.....

We'll know in a month or so when we usually sex them....

Plus, we noticed one is of an entirely different color then the rest....awesome! Pics will follow, along with some cool nestmates!

[reptileparadise]

Normal, with some crazy white spots behond the head. Only a few in the litter have these and to be honest, have not seen them on a lot of our offpring the past 8 years or so.... Good thing we're holding back the entire litter then....



Good color, even before the first few true sheds... (not the baby skin sheds...)


A LOT of variation between the mercury ones...

[chris-uk]

Thanks for these great pics Sjoerd. So, you're calling the new colour "mercury"?

[guidofatherof5]

Beautiful.
It will be interesting to see if the spots stay as they mature.