3rd litter born today- 25 big healthy babies

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Congrats on the nice litter! Don't worry about all the crap jeff you keep doing what your doing! I am so thankful for guys like you and scott and all the other breeders that dedicate all your time to breeding these awesome snakes! I think if you keep and breed as many garters or snakes in general as you do you will have a few bad litters here and there so keep up the good work and don't let nobody get to you! Thanks!!!

[Jeff B]

Nice explanation.
So anerythristic and axanthic are both recessive, and when both genes are present it is the axanthic trait that is expressed.

We know anerythristic is a simple recessive, that has been well characterized. Which means that one copy of the anerythristic gene is dominated by the wild type counterpart or respective wild type allele. It appears that anerythristic and the axanthic gene are co-dominant to each other which when one copy of each are present it creates a 3rd phenotype, which we call blue axanthic. It is likely that the axanthic gene is recessive as well, but does it produce a distinguishable phenotype on its own without a copy of anerythristic being present is the question. I think some of Scotts past breedings says it can't, but I am not completely certain that anerythistic has ever been completely taken out of the equation, but it is and het axanthic x het axanthic produces all normals in large sample size with no axanthic phenotype expressed, then the question becomes does xx just look normal or is it lethal?

[Jeff B]

Congrats on the nice litter! Don't worry about all the crap jeff you keep doing what your doing! I am so thankful for guys like you and scott and all the other breeders that dedicate all your time to breeding these awesome snakes! I think if you keep and breed as many garters or snakes in general as you do you will have a few bad litters here and there so keep up the good work and don't let nobody get to you! Thanks!!!

I appreciate that, thanks.

[Scott F]

Jeff,

Congrats on your litters, you are starting out great this year !

Scott

[Jeff B]

Thanks Scott, hope it stays that way, and I hope you have a great baby season too. I know any day now you will start cranking them out too. Cheers

[chris-uk]

It is likely that the axanthic gene is recessive as well, but does it produce a distinguishable phenotype on its own without a copy of anerythristic being present is the question. I think some of Scotts past breedings says it can't, but I am not completely certain that anerythistic has ever been completely taken out of the equation, but it is and het axanthic x het axanthic produces all normals in large sample size with no axanthic phenotype expressed, then the question becomes does xx just look normal or is it lethal?

That is probably impossible to answer without genetic sequencing of all offspring from a het axanthic x het axanthic pairing, and testing of any stillborns and slugs (I'm assuming a slug can be an undeveloped fertilised egg).
I suspect that if that pairing has consistently produced normal offspring that two axanthic genes are incompatible with life.

[CrazyHedgehog]

why can't you live nearer me sigh..

[Steveo]

That is probably impossible to answer without genetic sequencing of all offspring from a het axanthic x het axanthic pairing, and testing of any stillborns and slugs (I'm assuming a slug can be an undeveloped fertilised egg).
I suspect that if that pairing has consistently produced normal offspring that two axanthic genes are incompatible with life.

You wouldn't necessarily have to test any of the nonviable pairings - just check the parents vs. the living offspring and see if the ratios line up i.e. if Yy x Yy doesn't ever produce yy, there's something wrong with the yy pairing.

Some lethal gene pairings are lethal from the start so you'd never see anything from them. In that situation, humans tend to spontaneously abort so early that the woman never even knows about it. I'm not sure how it works in herps but I would suspect it's something similar, possibly a very small ovum excreted with normal digestive waste.

It's possible a lethal gene could be located near the gene in question and so they tend to travel together... but to tease that out using mendelian methods could require a tremendous sample size.

[Jeff B]

You wouldn't necessarily have to test any of the nonviable pairings - just check the parents vs. the living offspring and see if the ratios line up i.e. if Yy x Yy doesn't ever produce yy, there's something wrong with the yy pairing

The problem with that is if xx is not phenotypically discernable from normal (wild type) phenotype.

[BUSHSNAKE]

nice litter of "blues" Jeff, i like this morph cuz of where its from and who found it