On the Roswell Laddertail morphpedia page, it says they have issues due to a high death rate at birth. How much of a problem is this? Is the death rate slightly higher or is it much higher and ideally avoided? Also, how is it that a morph affects the likelihood of drowning? Is there some kind of bodily function in boas that prevents drowning which is missing in Laddertails?
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I feel like Steve at BoaMorph would be a great source to reach out to. He works with the gene and has even created Roswell’s (super form) that were healthy and successfully gave birth/bred. I purchased a RLT from him in person. Lineage and everything was very well documented so he’d know, very knowledgeable and trustworthy in my opinion.
I was surprised to read that information on the morphmedia page as well. I’d never really heard of those issues prior to that.
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Just my nickel opinion on this particular morph since I’m pretty leveraged into it but it applies to any breeding project- don’t buy your pairs from the same breeder and certainly not from the same litter. I’ve gone so far as to make hybrids with other subspecies of boa as an example of my approach. Admittedly, because I didn’t, and still do not for that matter, have the cash to “buy in” on a new/popular morph. Took a lot longer but I’m satisfied with the boas I have now because of the above statement. When I started building my collection, I bought from several respected high end boa folks for the morphs I wanted and not just the most popular or whatever and built from what I already had.
I was a little shocked to see this on morphpedia but when I thought about it, feels like it is a technique/strategy problem and not a morph problem.
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