A number of years ago I bred two normal Columbians and produced a beautiful litter of really nice boas that were incredibly pink, except for 2. Those 2 were dark and aberrant with what some would call a ladder tail. They were totally different looking animals. I kept the 2 aberrant girls and several of the pinkest girls. The girls that were pink we started referring to as the “PC” girls. A number of years ago, when Mike from Basically Boas was helping me with my photos I gave him one of the aberrant girls. He named her Aby, and I may add that he has developed that look referred to as the “Abby group” into the Salmon line and produced some of the most beautiful boas I have seen. I bred the “PC” girls into the Salmon line and they produced some very beautiful boas that we refer to as “PC” Salmons.

Wanting to fine tune this look, last year I took a very nice “PC” Salmon male and bred him back to one of the original sisters (a “PC” girl- littermate to Mikes “Aby”) thinking that we would just get a better, pinker Salmon! We were very surprised that almost exactly 25% of the babies show the aberrant look, some normals and some Salmons. 75% were again just very nice “PC” Salmons and normals. Maybe I was mistaken for calling the aberrant animals Aby’s. I realize that the “Aby” look/ trait, is the name we all use to refer to the animals Mike has produced developing this look, but when we had babies born, 25% suggesting that the parents were heterozygous for this look/ trait, we referred to them as “Aby’s”. I was wrong! I should have called them “PC Aby’s” so they would not be confused with the animals Mike produced.

Genetics is a very complex thing! We feel that because there were 2 girls from the first litter and offspring from their sisters showed the look without any out breeding, they are carrying this aberrant trait.

Again I must say that the animals that Mike is sharing photos of in this post are incredible! If I am not mistaken, the Salmon male that is the father of these Salmon Aby’s is an animal that Mike purchased from me and came from a litter that was a breeding of a Jungle (another aberrant trait) to a Salmon. This male Salmon with a Jungle father and a Salmon mother had the appearance of a Salmon and really did not look a lot like a Jungle. I remember how excited Mike was when he called me after the litter was born. I know this just complicates things. Like I said before, genetics is very complex. Maybe some of these beautiful boas in Mikes post are “Salmon Jungle Aby’s”???

Until more breeding and work is done with the animals that show this aberrant look and only have the genetics from the original group, and do not have the possible Jungle influence or other out-bred influences, will we know the true genetics of this project. This year we are breeding the PC male that fathered last year’s aberrant babies to its PC mother. Also, we are breeding a 2002’ PC female that shows no aberrancies to a 2003’ PC male that also shows no aberrancies. This will help determine what is going on with the aberrant look that I should refer to as the “PC Aby’s”.

These are just the facts as we know them. We are very excited about the future of this project and what it might bring to the boa world.

Thanks
Rich Ihle,
SALMONBOA.COM

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