So I know there aren’t any known/proven issues with Mahogany like duckbilling, but as I was perusing MM I noticed some Mahogany combos that looked like they had the duckbilling. I know bps have slightly different head shapes, but I’m seeing duckbilling almost like the original Panda Pieds. Could there be an issue? Can someone who works with Mahogany combos weigh in?
I respect the experts on the gene and in no way trying to stir up controversy, just to be clear. Mahogany is one of my top 3 favorites. It’s likely I’m imagining things, plus incubation complications can cause problems with any morph, so I figured I’d pose the question. I won’t be offended if you call me crazy or tell me that I’m seeing things 
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I’m very early in my mahogany projects so don’t have much to add but am very interested in the answer. Will get some headshots later of my basic combos but I haven’t noticed anything.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens. When a gene gets especially popular like mahogany has in a short amount of time there can be a lot of issues with linebreeding. That could potentially cause issues like this to pop up since it’s keeping the genetics in a small pool.
Someone buys a mahogany at a good price, breeds it, breeds it to the offspring to get suma. Sells the other hatchlings and someone else does the same thing.
Are the combos you noticed also carrying Blk pastel or cinny? Are they sumas?
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Actually yes, cinnamon was very common in the ones I noticed, some suma pied, some sumas, and surprisingly clowns (that one I don’t understand for sure).
I do want to add that I just read some comments mentioning the head shape can change or “fill out” as the snake ages. I didn’t know that before I made my post.
Do deformities such as duckbilling or minor kinking cause quality of life issues down the road?
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If you feel comfortable sharing what combos you’re making or end goals, I’d love to hear. I’d wanted to produce just one clutch of suma and/or suma pieds to keep. Abyss and stranger/mahogany combos would be a dream to have as a keeper but forever out of my price range lol
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Cinnamon or Blk pastel in a single gene can still occasionally cause the billing. I also find that sometimes it’s harder to judge the nose with some colors. So maybe that’s the issue with the clown?
Duckbilling itself shouldn’t cause many issues in quality of life. The problem is if there’s a cleft lip or sharkmouth cause that can cause issues with feeding
I actually have a boy with a pretty noticable kink as a baby, as he got older it’s become a bit less noticable, but it’s in his neck. So I just had to really be careful on what size meals he was getting. So far he’s doing great and he’s 2 now.
The breeder I adopted him from however had a female albino he hatched with some major kinks and they were all towards the back end. Not a caramel albino either. Just an unfortunate incubator failure. We both decided that even though she did eat and poop, that the risks of her ovulating and potentially egg binding would just be too risky and she should be euthanized.
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All these 2023 holdbacks head shapes look normal to me but I’m not the most observant.
Mahogany
GHI mahogany
GHI mahogany pastel
Cinnamon GHI mahogany
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I would look specifically at combos that do not include cinnamon (or black pastel). I have noticed that many single-gene cinnamon animals have an abnormal head shape and narrowed snout, not duckbilled but definitely leaning toward it. I have seen it very occasionally with single gene black pastel, but cinnamon seems to be the primary culprit. So I agree that I have seen some of the darker combo mahogany animals with what looks like some snout defect, but I suspect this is due entirely to cinnamon included in the combo rather than mahogany itself. Do some MM searches for mahogany combos with cinnamon and then a search for mahogany combos barring cinnamon or black pastel. I’d make an educated guess you would no longer see the narrowed snout in the second search, or at least significantly less of it.
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