hey! i’m fairly new to breeding ball pythons, & my first clutch actually hatched this morning. i’m on vacay while my friend i breed with is home & sent me pictures of the hatchlings.
our female is a lesser for sure, not sure of any hets. & we paired her with 2 males hoping for a split clutch. one male was a mojave (not sure of any hets), the other is a butter fire (not sure of any hets).
we had 4 good eggs total for the clutch. we believed 2 of our babies were BELs, but when we had a closer look, one of the bels eyes are completely red. pictures will be below. can anyone give me info on what this may be or how this could have happened??
This isn’t correct bels will look like they have red pupils this does not always indicate they are albino. There is zero reason to believe they are “cherry bombs” which is visual albino not het and visual bel. Anyone who has hatched large numbers of bels can attest that it isn’t rare for a bel to have pupils that look red Travis @t_h_wyman has explained what causes it in the past I don’t know off hand lol. While it is possible both parents were unknown to be het albino the odds are definitely far far far from great.
Really? I don’t remember seeing that discussion. I definitely would want to know that as I haven’t seen anything that would say different. So does the red go away or does it stay like that?
Additionally, I was talking about the hatchlings being “cherry bombs” by definition, visual albino bels. I was saying at minimum the parents would have to be het bel gene and het albino. I wasn’t saying that the parents had to be cherry bombs.
Also @piperrhyne, I guess I was wrong to assume it a “cherry bomb type” as some normal bels can have completely red eyes.
If didn’t have an albino project to start with I wouldn’t worry about it personally. Why make a bunch of snakes trying to prove it out when you weren’t trying to make albinos to begin with.
That is what I was saying. It just doesn’t make sense to do that. Also sorry for saying they could be “cherry bombs”, I was unaware that straight bels could come out like that.
Im wrong all the time. I just give a honest assessment based on my experiences and things I’ve learned over the years.So this would be far from the first time I was wrong, I just honestly don’t think it’s a cherry bomb. Think there is another explanation. Also that snake has a “bead” eye. Don’t know if that’s the proper term it’s what I call them. Meaning it’s has a significantly smaller eye. Which tends to be incubation caused but it is a defect and I wouldn’t personally advocate breeding it. Just curious @piperrhyne where does the pied in the picture fit into the puzzle? You said the female was paired with a Mojave and a butter fire so not real sure where the pied comes in lol
Also is the other eye not red and normal size?
Amazing odds regardless to find albinos in this clutch.
Is there a chance the red eye BEL egg can be a partho baby?
If Mom was a lesser het albino, there’s a chance. Otherwise I definitely think the male is the butter fire for these two and he’d be carrying the het albino as well as the mom. The small eyes on the one has a higher chance of appearing in Super Lesser/Butters than in Mojave Lessers.
BELs can have red pupils, bit for the iris to be red like that, I think there’s an albino gene at play for sure. Here’s one of my own BEL hatchlings at 5days old, post shed. The Blacklight photos were to distinguish Pastel Lesser Mojave from the Pastel Lesser Specials:
They also appear in non bel clutches all the time when there is incubation errors. This is why I asked if both eyes were small and red. Plus the op never stated whether both eyes were this way might help to know that to figure out what’s going on
