Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is anyone currently working with 'Big Hill' alterna? I've been trying to locate a male for some time and have been unsuccesful. From my understanding the Big Hill is kindof a locality within a locality being within the 'River Road'... so would a River Road male to a Big Hill female be considered "locality pure"? The pair I have I believe to be realted, although the guy didn't come right out and say it. The last two years babies have had a high percentage of kinked spines and I'm assuming this can be attributed to inbreeding. I'm going to try a new male (if I can ever find one) and see if that changes my breeding success at least as far as the health of the offspring are concerned.

Kinked spines could also be environmental, temps, moisture, nutrition... There was a huge debate here on all that not long ago.

If you breed a big hill to a river road you will make river roads and they would be considered locality, but they will not be "big hill"

Lance

I am presently working with this locality. I bought out several alterna from John Cherry about three years ago. I should be producing some very nice "BIG HILL animals next season.

Wayne H.

just to put it in perspective, Prime hunting areas are beteween the Big hill on the east and the wind mill 12 miles or so to the west. The river runs along the south side of the road and the habitat runs all along the river for the stretch. If you breed "Big hills" that is great, But only if you can trace 100% back to w.c. parents from the big hill. If you can not trace back to w.c., you are just as well to find an attractive pure "River road" male and go with it to produce "river roads".

But then would you not have to be able to trace the river roads back to 100% pure wild caught river roads? My point is this; Unless you yourself caught the snakes in the wild from a paricular locality and bread them, you're really just taking someone's word for the particular locality. I purchased my Big Hill alterna from a well known locality alterna breeder (I won't mention names), and from my experience, most of you locality type breeders seem to be very honest and particular on the locality issue. I guess this only makes sense, because if the breeders lie or stretch the locality and sell the offspring falsely is would essentially pollute the bloodlines. They would in the future have to question any CB animal from that locality themselves because they polluted the lines. I'm not sure why, but it seems to me that the river road locality is sometimes misapplied to an animal with a busy pattern. This is only my opinion, but is it possible that breeders/distributers with less knowledge or concern for locality apply a locality to an animal with a certain look to it either out of ignorance or to make a couple extra bucks? I think it might be. To me, it's not the locaily of the snake that matters as much as how much you trust the individual that you are purchasing your snakes from.

I think it does all come down to honesty, and there is nothing wrong with that. I believe if someone is selling something as specific as big hill river roads, it only makes sense that they can prove it back to the original snakes from the big hill. If they cannot be traced back to the originals, the term big hill is still subject to interpretation, and I would not recommend you breed and sell the babies as "Big Hill".

If you have, say "river road locality" snakes based on someones word only that is fine by me too. I have seen generic snakes labeled "River road type" and that is quite misleading wether intentional or not.

I have an example of loma alta area snake I have owned for about 7 years, I bought a female Gas station locality female and raised her up, she produced a nice group of offspring this year, and after digging into it I was able to get pictures of her f1 parents which were produced from wild caught parents one was found at the gas station and one was actually just to the south a mile or two. Personally I would have called them 277 or loma alta alterna, not specifically "gas station", but because everyone in was honest about it, I am glad to have better and accurate info and a nice locality snake also.

It is always good to not go more specific about locality than you can verify 100%, Honesty is most important, but also keep in mind that memories fade, and details blur with time (for some people)and peoples various opinions and communication abilities also factor in.

Jim

I agree, I would never purchase any locality snake from someone who was not well known in the locality breeders community, and could not trace the animals back with pictures and/or records of the original wild caught adults. But, to me, even those are a matter of trust. How can you prove that the pictures are of the parents of a particular hatchling? Or that the parents are from a specific locality? Eventually, you have to take someones word for it, and that's where trust and credibility are of the utmost importance. The Big Hill alterna that I keep and breed are fully documented animals from well known breeders in this comminuty. I have now located another male Big Hill alterna from Vivid Reptiles and will contiune to breed this specific locality. Hopefully getting some new blood into my breeding program will decrease the incidence of kinked spines in the hatchlings. I'll also take into account the possibility of environmental factors of incubation as a potential cause. Thanks to all for your input.

By the way, here's a link to the Big Hill male I purchased from Vivid Reptiles: http://vividreptiles.com/psj/jpgs/available/laM5626.jpg
Let me know what you think!

As stated a very busily patterned snake, very nice!
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Todd Hughes

I questioned a guy at a show one time in N.Y. about some alterna he had on the table as to the locality. I mentioned they looked like animals from the x-mas mts. I had seen on the alterna page. His response was "yea , thats what I'm sellin them as" The point is ... I don't trust any locality information unless it comes from someone in this community or if the info can be traced back to and vouched for by someone from this community. (Tom)

Sometimes though it is not even honesty, it is perception. That guy probably knew exactly what he was doing, but some people could possibly think that it is simply by "looks" that one assigns a locality.

That guy selling the christmas mtns. really should have called them "western type alterna" if anything since he felt the need to assign a name to them.

We need a pedigree system for Alterna. No, I am not talking about the Alterna police, but a general pedigree system that shows lineage etc... Something we can refer back to when purchasing Alterna.

Just A Thought...

Best Wishes,

SXO792

ps.. Jim, that guy should have just called them Generic Alterna
or NON Locality Alterna.

I agree with the pedigree system, although I'm not sure how it would work... Maybe something along the likes that they use with the AKC for canines. Possibly all purchased pure locality alterna should come with offical registered paperwork. I'm not sure how realistic that would be though. Let's hear some suggestions from the breeders themselves!
I also agree with the generic or Non-locality terms. I don't think you can even use western/eastern "types". If you don't know exactly, you don't know at all. Even though I really have a hard time hearing stories of people selling generic alterna as locality pure or locality type, it at least makes me feel that my paranoia it not completely unfounded. What it "locality type"? Isn't that an oxymoron? Don't let these people pollute your pure blood lines! Buyer beware!!!

If you can't trace the lieage back to w.c. parents, then it is not really 100% verifiable locality data.

Pictures of the parents should be proof enough we don't need to certify the locality that just seems silly, no offense.

The next level down is to trust someones word and have specifics - this is ok too.

As far as saying east type or west type, that is legit, it describes how it looks and if western type confuses anyone or seems misleading as to locality data they are just a dum bass anyway.

>>Pictures of the parents should be proof enough we don't need to certify the locality that just seems silly, no offense.
>>

Jim, I personally don't feel pictures of the parents are any proof of locality unless the person selling such animals is credible. The reason for this is we both know you can breed two blairs morphs together and get nothing but alterna morphs ect..

>>The next level down is to trust someones word and have specifics - this is ok too.
>>

This is the only way for me.

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Steve W.

I guess I am still even giving benefit of the doubt to someone with pictures. - honesty it is.

Jim

Is a dum bass a really stupid fish??? LOL BA