Reptile & Amphibian Forums

about your vanilla/thunder question, i can give you something of an answer. i got my stock from tom carlton back in 2002 at a show in orlando. he was calling them hypo back then, and thought they were some sort of gold ghost. i bred them to ghost in 2004, and killed that theory. no ghosts. tom showed them to bob clark, they agreed they were probably fires, which was originally thought to be a codom hypo. when tom produced his super lightning in 2005, he thought he had something completely new. unfortunately for him, chris mcquade had been working with his vanilla line for some time. as far as markers, good question, and possibly one without an answer. in a clutch, they are very different, high gold, especially along the spine, rusty head, and a fairly clear belly. the pattern is completely variable, still, they are obvious next to their normal sibs, but nothing to say for sure different from lots of nice normals in a box of imports. the super is very unique, unlike any other ball in color, with a typical codom clear belly, and a head like a super pastel. i have seen all of tom's animals, lots of mcquade's, and even a couple bhb has had in daytona and chicago, and still shake my head as to what is definite. mine are right, i had a baby super this year, in addition to producing codoms since 2004, and i still have no foolproof answer to your question, and maybe there isn't one. i have quite a few 'normals' i'm going to breed to my male because i do think the only way to know for sure is to produce a super. kurt d.

I will add a little more to what was said. I have seen every super vanilla made by gulf coast and alot of the vanilla's they have produced. The vanilla's all have the pretty much the same appearance as far as color goes, a tan on the dorsal area that in some is very noticable and a basic ground color of brown that is a little darker than the dorsal area. The head spot is the primary marker that one would look for in a mixed clutch of normals and vanillas. Yes thousands of normals are brought in with a head spot but most if not all of them are not as bold as the vanilla's. The bellies are a little clearer than most normals but not completely clear. Gulf coast showed the world their first super vanilla in 04 at the tampa fall show but it was in shed. At the time they were going to call them buttercream but the butter morph came out and they changed the name to the more appropriate name vanilla/super vanilla. The only sure way to make sure you are getting the real deal is to buy from the very small handfull of people that have offspring from proven lines and not buy from these people that are trying to cash in on a morph they know very little about. We are sooo excited about this morph and should produce a couple crosses this year with the help of a couple breeder loans from Jesse Jeffcoat and some other cool stuff that we could be the first to cross this with. Of course Gulf Coast is years ahead on this project than anyone else and we will see quite a few killer crosses this year, I'M SURE!!!!!

Basically it boils down to one factor, if you want this gene (and everyone will after this year) you need to buy from a person that can supply you with it guarenteed, and not promise you a ch baby that might be. There's a reason that no super vanilla has been brought in from africa, THEY ARE RARE THERE AND RARE HERE IN CAPTIVITY.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

THANK YOU BOTH for the info! Good read and its getting rare at best around here........very good!

I do agree with that, there is very little helpfull threads going around now-a-days and that is what these forums should be about. Pic is striped vanilla male x female pastel (pastel owned by Jesse Jeffcoat) and yes I know the newspaper was dirty and was changed after the snakes were done breeding.

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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Josh, That's one awsome snake you got there. I love the stripe.
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Jesse Jeffcoat
Gopher Hill Herps
http://mysite.verizon.net/resuyda8/

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