Rainbow Albino Ball Python?

Hey everyone, I have a question about the Rainbow gene. I just bought a female Chocolate GHI Mojave pos het Rainbow and even though I had heard of it before, I don’t know much about it. All I know is that it’s a type of Albino that isn’t compatible with regular Albino and it seems like not many people work with it. Do any of you work with it, and do you like it more or less than the more well-known types of Albino? I bought the female mostly because she is almost breeding size and because of the GHI and Chocolate genes, but I might try and prove out the Rainbow gene one day if I can find a good male for her. If anyone can give me any more information about the gene, then it would be appreciated.

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As far as I know only 2 sellers on MM work with it and it is also very new and was only discovered less than 10 years ago. I personally do not work with it but have read into it a bit and from what I gather it is a very exclusive and high end project and I have seen visuals going for at minimum 4k or more.

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Yeah, I noticed that they were pretty expensive lol. From what I could gather, the people that do work with it are still trying to learn more about it as well. I guess I will be holding back a bunch of her babies to see if any of them prove out. Thanks for the info!

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I believe the reason it is not terribly well known is because once people started seeing them as adults there was less motive behind working on them

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That could be a possibility, though wouldn’t the prices drop pretty quickly if that were the case? I know that it’s pretty new to the hobby, so that is probably why it’s still expensive, but it also means that there is still a lot to do with it to make the adults look better. Unless people just decided to go for the cheaper and more well-known albino morphs which I couldn’t blame them for if the Rainbow gene turned out to be a bust lol. Hopefully my girl will prove out and I can work with it myself in the future to know for sure. It’s kinda funny how I only bought her for the GHI and Chocolate in her and now I want to try and focus on the Rainbow gene lol, but I bet a GHI Mojave Rainbow would look awesome!

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I’ve been following the project for a while but because I have a rather large portion in the Candy/toffee project I haven’t bought into it…yet. I know the people working with it are still trying to figure it out most likely due to the variation in the adult colors. I like how everyone who did invest in the project kept their values high while still trying to figure things out though, definitely a plus! Actually I did start seeing :100:% hets going for under $1K I believe?.?. Either way, I like it probably due to it being different from the albino’s, Lav’s, etc…but still in the same area in terms of colors. Still think it’s a great project to look at if I didn’t also like the candies as adults, imo the best adult T-‘s!! Probably once figured out & if someone with good marketing skills gets into it “sky is the limit” possibly!!

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This is an adult Rainbow. I do not see it being anything close to the same area of colour as a Candy/Candino.

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Beautiful snake! I hope my girl proves out, but even if she doesn’t then at least I have a really nice Chocolate GHI Mojave to breed with in the future.



Here are some pics of her. She looks red in the second pic for some reason, but she doesn’t look like that in person. I have her settling in her new home so I can’t really get better pictures right now.

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It almost looks like a Monarch, which is really interesting. I believe that some Rainbows look pretty much like normal Albinos and some start to look like that as they get older. It’s an interesting gene for sure.

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That is an incredible transformation! I had no idea these colored up in such a way. I wouldn’t necessarily look at it as a bad thing personally since they appear so different from other T- options on the market.

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Definitely right there, I think at the time I wrote it I was more talking in terms of T-,+’s recessive arena…isn’t that also just “one of the looks” of the adult rainbows at the moment? I think there’s only about 4-5 adult rainbows I’ve ever seen posted to show the variation in them…still a great project imo

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The originator of the morph has had animals for going on a decade so I have to believe there are significantly more than 4-5 adults out there. The video I grabbed that still from, the breeder had, I think, four on his display table and all of them had that same basic colour (+/- given the other genes in the combos)

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I gotchya but like I said, I’ve only seen about 4-5 adults in pictures only (well a few more after this post)

and the one picture my memory is going off of is from OTB a while ago that I’ll post below/above, which shows more variation IMO, which now that I’m looking again is probably due to the other genes…I’m still having a hard time with the actual originator though only because of the “rainbow” that was created in Brad’s GHI clutch was what I thought was around the same time it was also found overseas. Again though, my main point is that I still feel it’s a great project for someone to dip into and explore whether I feel it looks similar or not to the Candy or any other T-,+’s out there…to each their own either way!!

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I’m just going to post a few visual Rainbows that I managed to find on Instagram, none of these are mine obviously but I wish they were lol.




They seem to have a lot of color variation, but I have no idea why some of otbreptiles’ Rainbows look more like Monarchs or Ultramels, maybe they have something else floating in their genetics?

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Does anyone know if the rainbow gene is essentially an expensive Candy/Toffee?

I’m looking at snakes available or sold Vs Candy/ Toffee and as juvenile and adults, I can’t see any difference?

They’re definitely nice in their own rights. I just can’t see the difference between them?

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It’s possible, but since it’s still pretty new and not many people work with it, it’s hard to know for sure. I feel like there is a slight color difference between them but they do look pretty similar, they might even be allelic. If you want to know more about it, I would send a message to Susquehanna Ectotherms, as they seem to be the ones that work with them the most in the US. Edit: After a bit of research, I learned that the Rainbow gene is not allelic with Albino, so it isn’t allelic with Toffee/Candy either, nor is it the same gene that ended up with a different name, like what happened with Candy and Toffee.

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If it’s not allelic with albino it can’t be alleic with candy/toffee has to be on a totally different locus.

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^^^
Correct

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I just started getting into the Rainbow Gene,
(Got A pair of Pastel Enchi Ghost 100% het Rainbow This year)

Honestly there is not just much I can add then what being said already.
So I’m sorry if I’m repeating stuff, :laughing:

Is it allelic to albino? :thinking:

While it has albino like features,
I think it has been proven not to be allelic or compatible with albino like how it is with Candino.

The breeder where I got my animals From indeed confirmed the big variety within the gene.
Stating his Rainbows look very different from a breeder in the US.
That’s nothing new as there are other morphs that have such a variety.
Pastel and Dessert Ghost come to mind.

When it come to availability and price…

I noticed availability is higher here in Europe.
And is probably increasing since a lot the bigger breeders here In Europe got into it this year.

The Price is still high but…
I have seen the price of hets slowly getting lower.
While the Visuals have been stable arround 4000€-5000€ for a while now.

But in my head I would not be surprised the next 4 years there is a price drop.
As availability and the amount of combos increases.
(I know a person that’s working towards Rainbow Pieds and a Person looking to bring Clown into his Rainbow projects)

When it comes to combos,
Its seems that Ghost and Enchi are the go to morphs to enhance the look of Rainbow.
But since not so many combos have been made yet.
There is a lot of room for experimentation.
And who knows what kind of unexpected results that it might bring in the future? :crossed_fingers::wink:

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@jdreptipets Candino is a combo of albino and candy. So if rainbow has been proven to not be Allelic with albino it is not possible for it to be allelic with candy/toffee. Candy is allelic with albino and when combined create candino which has a one copy of the albino gene and one copy of the candy gene.

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