Interesting dinker results

I paired a male with a really funky pattern and a female sibling that I thought also had an unusual pattern. The pattern anomalies were clearly inheritable and my best guess is that this one is a super form (only one like it in a clutch of 6). Just a teaser picture for now since he hasn’t shed yet, but if you look closely, you can also see a sibling in the neighboring tub that is a single gene…whatever this is.

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That’s a really cool pattern! Looking forward to seeing more. I feel like a lot of people have been playing with dinker projects this year. Myself included . Hahah

Good to see some neat results!

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Whoa. That’s cool. Would like to see that with some leopard added in.

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Wow, that looks super cool!

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Very nice!

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Holy cow that’s totally nuts! Can’t wait for updates! :+1::pray::clap:

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Here are some pictures of the father, a pastel orange dream.

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Very nice! :+1::blush:

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Two of the busy patterned clutchmates

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What is “dinker”? i dont know of many morphs, thats a term i havent heard yet…

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I have heard of it but I would like to know what it is myself! lol

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I’m not really sure who coined the term for ball pythons. Dinkering is a term for cutting scraps of leather. I feel like it’s a bit more like ‘tinkering’.
Dinkers are basically a breeder for a project that you’re not really sure what the results will be. It’s most commonly used in regards to wild caught or captive hatched from wild caught female animals. They tend to not look like a ‘normal’ so then you ‘dinker’ around with it to see if it’s genetic or not.

In the case for mine, I was told he was captive hatched when I got him as a baby. His colors are very rich and he has some nice reduced patterning. I finally decided to breed him this year after wondering back and forth if he is or isn’t carrying a gene. (He might. more tests needed. lol)

It’s also been used by some breeders when something just doesn’t turn out like it should… like say a pastel ended up somehow having a strange looking pattern. So someone may ‘dinker’ with that to see if maybe there was a gene that happened to be in there that was undisclosed.

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thank you! my immediate though was it just has some really off patern. like an “odball” is the term we use in the fish world

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Very nice! Would love to see pics of the mom as well!

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This is really interesting looking! I hope you can isolate the single gene & reproduce that as well to know exactly what that looks like without anything else involved. Would love to see a pic of mom. And, most importantly (in my opinion) this doesn’t immediately strike me as just another line of a gene we already have, which is rare nowadays. Very unique! I’ll follow along closely!

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Here’s mom, presumably a super orange dream, but pastel is making it hard for me to definitively confirm od in all the juveniles. She was labeled as a fire od as a juvenile, but looks much more like a super od to me. Guess I might as well add some more pictures of her in case it helps clear that up.

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I guess I’ve delayed clear pictures of the oddball long enough. Unfortunately he was the runt of the clutch and hatched with a lot of undigested yolk, which may be why he’s been so much slower to shed than the rest. Here are some early shots out of the incubator. Believe it or not, this is the first clutch of ball pythons I’ve ever hatched, so I was pleasantly surprised at the results.


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Except for the head it almost looks leopard, clown like! I can’t tell you if the mom is super or just regular od, but that wouldn’t explain this odd ball, or even the clutch mate with the busy pattern to me! Od, and especially super od usually reduce and band the side pattern out! No chance the mom locked with another male last season? Crazy, cool clutch either way-just trying to solve the mystery🤔

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Well @kevins for a first BP clutch you have definitely hit the jackpot! That baby is mind blowing!

Congratulations on an amazing job! :+1::clap::sunglasses::100:

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Both are first time breeders, so the female has definitely never been with a different male.

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