"i understand that breeding the two togther the first time you would only get hets."

I wasn't assuming that. It could have turned out that lavender and caramel where alleles - different mutations of the same gene - and rather than double hets the initial cross might have produced some sort of albino or other not normal animal. The only recessive example I can think of is stripe and motley in corn snakes. But a co-dominant example is Mojave and Lesser.

But RDR (and perhaps also others) has proven that lavender and caramel are mutations of different genes by getting normal looking double hets from the initial cross.

I believe but wish I could find confirmation that the same test has been done for lavender and regular albino to confirm that they produce the expected normal looking double hets.

Until someone comes forward and reports crossing regular albino and caramel it's still possible that those two mutations will prove compatible by producing some sort of albino looking babies. It's probably more likely they will produce the normal looking double hets everyone expects but if it did turn out that caramel and albino are alleles it would totally explain an old case of confusion with expected caramel hets.

"but has anybody bred past that? like his dreamsicles."

I haven't looked close at RDR's yet to hatch 2008 breeding records. Check it out and see if his 05 double het lavender and caramel female has a clutch in there. There could be others by now but then again no one seems to be in a hurry to breed albino to caramel so maybe RDR is the only one working on the lavender and caramel combo.

"a mix of the two morphs? how would they not be compatiable. cant you mix any morph?"

I was talking about being combatable to produce a morph at the initial cross like stripe and motley in corn snakes but you bring up some interesting questions about combos.

Could we ever run into a combo where both morphs are viable by them selves but the two together are fatal?

If two mutations where of genes that where very close together on the same chromosome it could take a long time to get the right crossover to make anything more than double hets.

There is also the scenario where one morph covers over and hides the expression of the other. For example how would you know if a leucistic was also axanthic? You could still have the genetic combo and use it for breeding purposes but it might turn out that the double homozygous lavender and caramel (assuming they are different genes) would look just like one or the other. I believe this is the main reason that no one wants to try breeding albino to caramel. The general assumption is that they will not be compatible at the initial cross and that the next generation combo will look like regular albino so not worth all the trouble.

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