Reptile & Amphibian Forums

............opinions needed & appreciated. I have 3 mature bulls that I plan to cool/breed this upcoming spring. A pair of patternless and an adult male stillwater hypo. I could breed the patternless together,but does the pit community really have a need/desire for more normal patternless bulls? I could breed the stillwater hypo male with the patternless female and create double hets that would eventually lead to a cleaner looking, brighter yellow patternless. What do you guys think?

-----
Derek Moynihan
Fat, Flat Lizard Ranch

I personally would breed the stillwater with the patternless. Hypo stillwater patternless bulls should be amazing. It will take longer to see the results, but in my opinion should be worth the wait. I have sort of the same dilemma for next year. I have a pair of reds het stillwater hypo and an albino patternless male bull. I was debating on whether to breed the reds together to produce hypo reds or to breed the albino patternless male with the red het hypo. I think that I will go with the red x albino patternless male. I think that red patternless and red albino patternless should be pretty amazing.

Ian Latella
Pituophian Reptiles

That combination would be interesting, but they wouldn't be " Stillwater" patternless since they lost the locality part of it when bred to another snake that is not a Stillwater. Localities can't be a " het " trait, thus there can not be " het Stillwater " babies. The hypo gene may be there, which is cool, but the Stillwater locality part is lost with the first non-Stillwater bull breeding. Same with Kingsville reds.

This does not take away from the snakes that are hatched from these breedings, nor does it make them any less special. There are locality snake keepers out there that would not like any snake that is non locale, which I disagree with. I just bring this up from a proper labeling standpoint.

Take care!
Billy

-----
Genesis 1:1

I agree with you as far as labeling them, by stillwater I meant the stillwater hypo line, as opposed to the generic hypo.

Ian

I agree!

Billy
-----
Genesis 1:1

That Bull is gorgeous! Is it a Red? I love it.

Thanks, yea, it is my Kingsville red.
-----
Genesis 1:1

Isn't the Stillwater hypo trait a genetic trait? If you don't call it a Stillwater hypo then how would one label it to differentiate it from the other hypo line? This is necessary because apparently the two lines are not compatible. So calling it a hypo would not be accurate and calling it a Stillwater hypo would not be accurate. It seems to me that naming the Stillwater hypo morph after a place was a mistake and is going to lead to many disagreements as to how future offspring are to be labeled. I see that many are labeling outcrosses as Stillwater outcrosses and others are just going with Stillwater hypos. Once we produce snakes that have more than one genetic combination things will be even more confusing. I guess we have two options 1) focus on the fact that the Stillwater hypo trait is a genetic morph more than it is a locality and label all animals with the genetic trait Stillwater hypos [I like this because I think that worrying about having "pure" Stillwaters is a marketing ploy at best] or 2) start throwing in the word outcross at the end of every new Stillwater double and triple morph that is created. Anyone else have other ideas, comments, or suggestions?

-----
Jared Douglas

The hypo gene from the Stillwater line may be genetic, but the locality it is named after is not genetic, neither is any locality genetic. The label " hypo " would be perfect to label it as it would be hypo, but then would have lost the locality aspect of it. Like for instance, I have seen an ad where someone outbred a Tx bull to a Stillwater hypo, then bred a pair of babies back together, and then called any hypo baby in that clutch a Stillwater hypo, which they looked vastly different than normal Stillwaters but still very pretty, and then any other baby that was normal looking a Texas het. So that is saying that a clutch of babies can be het for two localities? That does not make sense. And what sucks about it is that the buyer is then misinformed cause the breeder chose to do it that way and sell the offspring labeled as such.

Even the person who brough the Stillwaters to our hobby, John Ginter, will say the same thing, as he and I have had many discussions about this very topic. The Stillwater hypos are a locality morph, and again, snakes can't be het Stillwater or het Kingsville red, etc. The outcross label is what is best to label, IMO.

-----
Genesis 1:1

I agree that adding the term outcross is the best way to label first generation outcrosses to non-Stillwater bulls.

I don't think that calling outcrosses just "hypo" would be accurate because this would not differentiate this line of hypo morph from the other line of hypo morphs.

It would be great if the hypo trait was labeled as one thing, say "Ginter Hypo". So a Stillwater hypo would be a Stillwater Ginter Hypo and an outcross to a Lubbock TX Red would be a Lubbock TX Red X Stillwater Ginter Hypo. Unfortunately I did not discover the morph and the original name must be recognized and respected.

Incidentally I have a Stillwater Hypo x Lubbock TX Red outcross and a pure Stillwater Hypo. So when I breed these I will probably call the offspring 25% Lubbock TX Red 75% Stillwater Hypos.

2006 Stillwater Hypo

-----
Jared Douglas

That is cool as long as they are properly labeled. Very nice bull there!
Billy
-----
Genesis 1:1

Ok, so I guess if I bred my Stillwater hypo to the patternless and got double het babies, then bred two of them together, the offspring that were homzygous for both traits I would call patternless hypos (of the Stillwater type).
-----
Derek Moynihan
Fat, Flat Lizard Ranch

I guess you could call them that...either that or outcrosses. They just would not be pure Stillwater locality hypo bulls.
-----
Genesis 1:1

That snake in the top photo is gorgeous! I've never seen anything like it. That's why this hobby & the snake keeper community is so great --- seems like there's always something new, cool or interesting to learn or see.

reako45