Can someone point me in the right direction for figuring out the % for dwarf and super dwarf. I don’t have plans on breeding dwarf or super dwarf anytime soon. But I’m doing my research before i purchase a super dwarf at some point.
I already own bi boa, emerald tree boas, and green tree pythons. Always wanted a retic but the size and space kept me away from the mainland ones.
For the percentage you just need to know the parents type(locale) and percentage of d/sd. Example: male 50% jampea dwarf x female 100% (pure) kalatoa super dwarf this would result in the offspring being 25% jamp dwarf and 50% kalatoa super dwarf and 25% mainland(regular)
Another example: male 75% jamp dwarf 25% madu super dwarf x female 50% jamp dwarf 50% mainland(regular) would give you 62.5% jamp dwarf 12.5% madu super dwarf and 25% mainland.
To figure the % of bloodlines it’s just math, not like morphs which depend on the way they are expressed such as recessive or co-dominate. Some advice if you are concerned about size, get accurate estimates on the parents; especially the female. Also size is affected by your feeding schedule, I have seen 14’ jampea dwarfs and 12’ mainland females. It takes a lot of food, fed very often to get 20+ footers! Retics are awesome!
Thanks! This was extremely helpful.
I’m only concerned with size, because it’s just me working with one. The space needed for a mainland is another. But the closest friend i have to help me work with one is close to three hours away.
I will add a very strong note of caution that the percentage is NOT a guarantee of actual final adult size of the animal and it is entirely possible to end up with “Dwarfs” or “SuperDwarfs” that approach mainland size
I can spell out the really long explanation for why if anyone needs it
Honestly, if you have time for the explanation, I for one would love to hear it. I have no idea what’s going on with mainland, dwarf, and SD other than knowing that the smaller varieties tend to be island localities. I’d love to know more, but if you are busy no worries!
Understood. That is the most common worry I see with regards to retics. As @t_h_wyman adamantly stated the percentage is not always a guarantee of the size they can become. So let’s go over some basic, but not always obvious points to consider.
-Males are usually smaller then females this is true in a lot of snake species.
-The predictive size of the offspring is usually more on par with the mom not dad.
-Not all super dwarfs species are tiny. (Kayuadi can routinely get over 10’. Probably the smallest is the karompa but they are also the rarest, so kalatoa is usually the smallest most people can get. Females can still get 8-9 feet, my male 87.5% kalatoa is just over 6’ at 6 years old but super slender.)
-I feed 1 approximately slightly bigger then the thickest part of their body prey item weekly until they are around 2 years old then use 1 bigger prey item every 3-4 weeks on average, some people feed babies only once every 10-14 days as well with good results. Food directly impacts the size as well.
My advice is to get a pure or high percentage kalatoa male and feed like I have stated if you are most concerned with size. Always buy from a reputable breeder that has info on both parents and produced the offspring themselves, no middle man type sellers, for the best possible outcome.
If you don’t mind that be great. In all honesty i love the species but am still doing my research on all the fine details.
I appreciate it. Ya size has been the main deterrent from me getting a retic. Then i learned about super dwarfs. But this was also back when you couldn’t really trust the term super dwarf. Now that the community kind of set the guidelines/rules. My interest in them has came back. I wish i had someone closer that could help out. But my friend that has mainland is roughly three hours away.
Fair enough… Let me dust off the keyboard LOL
Bane hit some of it, especially the parts about feeding and size being somewhat dependent on the mom.
I will focus in a bit on those and also discuss a different side that is often overlooked
With regard to the mom playing a part in size, this is basically a physiological feedback system. A smaller female will, naturally, only be able to contain smaller eggs in her body. If the embryos were to grow to a size that jeopardized the female then she would die and so they would die as well. As such, there are embryogenesis controls that regulate embryo size and also, consequently, effect eventual adult size. However, those controls are not as strict on the size regulation once the animal hatches, which is why the feeding can result in a larger than anticipated animal.
The other factor that is frequently overlooked is that the way the retic breeders calculate these percentages are, to some respects, totally irrelevant.
Obviously a Mainland x SuperDwarf would be labeled as 50% SuperDwarf. But a 50% SuperDwarf x 50% SuperDwarf would also be labeled as “50% SuperDwarf”. Likewise a “50% SuperDwarf” from a 50% SuperDwarf x 50% SuperDwarf bred to another “50% SuperDwarf” from a 50% SuperDwarf x 50% SuperDwarf would also be labeled as “50% SuperDwarf”
The realist however, it that those latter pairings are more likely to produce larger animals
Let me explain
There are multiple genes responsible for determining size. For simplicity sake here, I am going to reassign our values from Mainland and SuperDwarf to “Red” and “Yellow”. And also for simplicity sake, we are just going to pretend that there are only two genes involved R1 or Y1 and R2 or Y2
When you make the initial breeding, your animal genotype is very simple:
R1Y1 = Orange
R2Y2 = Orange
But if you breed two of the 50% animals together, your genotypes are more varied:
R1R1 = Red
R2Y2 = Orange
R1R1 = Red
R2R2 = Red
R1Y1 = Orange
R2Y2 = Orange
Y1Y1 = Yellow
R2Y2 = Orange
R1Y1 = Orange
Y2Y2 = Yellow
Y1Y1 = Yellow
Y2Y2 = Yellow
Now grab any two of those at random and breed again. If you grab the “wrong” two, you have now biased the next generation toward one or the other outcomes. Repeat it again and your deviation becomes even more extreme. And given the breeder is selecting their holdbacks first, the likelihood is that, whether accidentally or intentionally, they have pulled the favourable genotype (e.g., the smaller animals) first so the buyers end up picking the less desirable of the options (e.g., the larger animals)
Make sense?
That makes a lot of sense thank you!
I didn’t consider the holdback component of things at all, so that clears some things up.
Really appreciate you taking the time to help educate us!
This actually makes perfect sense to me. I actually like to analyze things like this.
Sorry for the late reply been busy with doctors appointments and VA stuff.
This thread answered some questions I was about to ask - thanks! Retics are so cool but I would not feel safe with a full size one as a fairly small person (with no upper-body strength haha).
I suppose I’ll keep an eye on Super Dwarfs and then in 5 or 10 years when I have a bigger house pull the trigger. They’re gorgeous snakes.