I’ve been a little absent and will probably be so for a bit longer. I’ve had 21 Cal Kings hatch and 7 more will any day now, 18 baby Red Spotted Garters born and a Boa that should pop soon. I’ve got a Ball Python doing MI as well but that usually takes an extra couple weeks so I won’t have to worry about that till mid August.
Between the reptile show grind and establishing babies I’ve been super busy. I’m making this post to force myself to start the unpleasant task of taking photos of baby colubrids
They’re a lot of fun. I think they’re honestly the reptile pet most casual reptile people would like best. You can keep them in groups, they’re adorable, they eat constantly, and they’re always curious what you’re up to lol.
Thanks Jess! Ironically some of the kingsnakes are who’s holding out. Like dude, have you checked with your people, this isn’t a thing lampropeltis do
You aren’t kidding. I’m 7 reptile shows in with 6 more to go this year. Ranging from Seattle to Los Angeles no less. My wife shows standard poodles and we’ll have 5 or 6 of those shows in by the end of the year. The economy is heating back up and my insulation company is buried. And that’s not even all of it!
Beautiful babies, Don. Can’t think why you haven’t taken the time for individual photo sessions with every single wriggly, musking, escape-minded noodlette. Sounds like you should have so very much free time!
There are some oddities to Cal King genetics that I’m still trying to work through. Being able to have Albino and Lavender Albino in the same snake creates some confusion and Hypermel doesn’t work exactly as you’d expect it would either. I’m not sure how you can breed 2 snakes that are both homozygous Albino, Lavender Albino, and Hypermel and get a mix of morphs
It’s really variable. Generally it looks like a washed out version of one or the other albino. Since they aren’t allelic and one is T- and one is T+ I can see how that would work but I can’t think of any other species off the top of my head that work that way.
I’ll probably need to try and summon our resident wizard @t_h_wyman and get some schooling on the way gene interactions went on these pairings. I just need to wrap my head around it a little better.
Hypermel is incomplete dominant from what I’ve seen through breeding but having homozygous hypermel on both sides I got a couple that are just het hypermel
When I paired triple homozygous animals to each other, I got some triple homozygous animals and some that were not visual for the normal Albino.
The snakes I bred that are stumping are solid white, and they come from an old school breeder (Nokturnal Tom) who added a lot of secret sauce in the 30 years he was breeding them. It’s also possible that the animals are het for a second incompatible type of Lavender Albino.
So… The most immediate thought I would have is that the original animal were most likely misidentified
As for the next most immediate thoughts… Epistasis… Partial penetrance…
But most importantly, I caveat all of the above with the qualifier that I know next to nothing about CalKing morphs/genetics because I have not really worked with them (and the things I do know are things that seem to make a lot of people very angry when I repeat them LOL)
I too am not that well received in some corners of the kingsnake world. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone once I figured out my cool patternless hypermel Cal Kings were Baja king hybrids lol.
My suspicions align with yours. I could see missed ID on one of the triple homo animals since a triple is all white but an Albino Hyper Het Lav would probably look exactly the same. I used two different males and got inconsistent results with both though so perhaps epistasis or partial penetrance would explain that as well. In talking to Mutton that was his thought but he hasn’t really worked with them either.
Hopefully all goes well and no one gives you too much trouble.
