Hello everyone, thanks for the invite to the group. I need some help with my pair. I bought them in 2021 and was hoping to pair them up this cong season. When I bought them from a local shop/breeder I was told the female is Hypo (Stillwater), Albino (Stillwater), het White side, het Axanthic. The male is a normal het albino (Stillwater), het white side, het axanthic. I want to make sure before I start breeding Bullsnakes that I label them correctly. After doing research I don’t see a Stillwater albino and don’t know what axanthic or white side. The shop said they get in contact with the breeder if they can and find out. Can anybody help me with this? Do the pictures help at all? Thanks, hate sounding misinformed but want to make sure I do it right.
Hi! And welcome.
Hypo stillwater is one of the two documented hypo genes in bullsnakes. It is called “stillwater” hypo because the first animal observed visually expressing the mutation was found near Stillwater, Oklahoma. The other hypo gene is trumbower hypo named after the gentleman that first produced hypo offspring with that gene in captivity. The gene was first observed in animals originating from Texas.
Both genes are recessive and not compatible with one another. Meaning if you paired an animal carrying the hypo stillwater gene with an animal carrying the hypo trumbower gene, you would get normal/wild phenotype offspring that would be heterozygous or possible heterozygous for each gene, not visual hypos. You have to pair stillwater to stillwater and trumbower to trumbower to produce homozygous (visual expression) offspring for either gene.
Albino is albino. Sometimes called albino trumbower for the same reason as the hypo gene of the same name. There is no albino stillwater.
There are two different axanthic genes commonly referred to as Ballam/Omaha and Miami respectively. Just like the two hypo genes, these are not compatible. If they can’t tell you what strain of axanthic they are carrying the only way to find out is test breeding with a known carrier for either gene from a trusted source.
Based on the pictures you shared and information you were given, I would say you have a normal/wild type het albino, axanthic, and het whiteside and a hypo (stillwater) albino (also called hybino) het axanthic and whitside.
There are also two different whiteside genes (stay with me here 
) that are recessive as well. However, these have been proven to be compatible and may be the same gene. There hasn’t been much (any?) resources dedicated to actually testing these in a lab environment like we’ve seen in the ball python world where they are beginning to discover a lot of genes that are actually the same thing with a variable visual expression.
Are you still reading?
If the information you were given is correct you would expect the offspring to be a mix of normals, albinos, albino whiteside, normal whiteside. If the axanthic gene they are carrying is the same, then you would potentially get axanthics, whiteside axanthic, and albino axanthic (also called snow) in that mix as well.
I hope this helps to clear things up and please feel free to ask more questions. There really isn’t a lot of documented information or resources available on bullsnake genetics and a lot of what I have learned is from word of mouth and engaging in various groups on social media. There is a thread on this site that attempts to document and explain all the bullsnake genetics but I think even that muddies the waters a bit and can add some confusion. I’ll share the link in a response below once I dig it up.
Here is the other thread I was talking about.
Thank you. I saw that thread and went over it. Hopefully I can get in touch with the breeder to confirm the axanthic and whiteside. I appreciate your help.