>>>>QUOTE
JOE PIERCE
"The difference of opinions about whether or not Gray Rat blood is in the Ultra line, is due to how much credibility some people put on the evidence that has been discovered over the years and/or how willing they are to put their heads under the sand and ignore what is right in front of their face. Some people would like to discard all evidence, that does not have DNA backing. This is the complete opposite position, they would take to prove a Creamcicle is a hybrid. Are Creamcicles considered a pure Corn Snake, until somebody does a DNA test on them to prove they in fact have emoryi blood in them? NO! The level of proof should be the same shouldn’t it?
When I began looking into the history of the Ultra gene, it was simply to find out as much about them as possible, for the Hypo Test Breeding Project. You would be surprised at how much investigating you can do, if you just take the initiative to send somebody an email and do a few searches on the internet. Mike Falcon is considered to be the originator of the Ultra gene. I was able to find his email address and Mike Shivers (Mike’s Motley) email address as well. Shivers is credited with creating the “Goldust” genotype, even though he thought they were a bright Amber Motley.
At first Falcon and Shivers acted as if they were pure Corn, but when questions were raised, Falcon changed his position from Pure Corn to “The original Ultra was bred to “Pure” Corns and to Gray Rats. His opinion about the original carrier of the Ultra gene is that it was a Hybrid of some kind. I can tell you that an Ultra Corn does not look like a hybrid, so why did Falcon come to this opinion? It is my believe that it looked like one. Falcon doesn’t even know if the original was homo for Ultra or het, and I am not even sure if it was a carrier or not if this years Gray Rat X Amel crosses produce Ultramels.
Falcon believes that he bred the Hybrid Ultra carrier to Corns and Gray Rats. Falcon’s pardoner in crime at the time, was Andy Barr. Barr is well know for producing Hybrids, and most if not all “Frosteds”, from Gray Rat X Corn Crosses can be traced back to him. Very few have known lines that can be traced at all. That is the thing with Hybrids, the information gets lost as people come and go in this hobby, and they all get mixed into the pot. According to Falcon, Barr bred a “Graysnow” (Snow Gray Rat X Corn) X Original Ultra. For all we know, Barr may have created the Ultra line and not Falcon. Falcon did tell me that White Oak Gray Rats were used, and some people believe that the White Oak Phase of Gray Rats may be caused by a hypo gene, which is the only reason at all that we suspect that Gray Rats may in fact be the Ultra carrier. We may find out that this is not the case at all.
Shivers had gotten completely out of snakes and was very willing to tell me his stories about the “Ultra Amber Motleys” that everybody was all excited about. After numerous emails that established trust with Shivers, in came the big email. Shivers said, I wonder if everybody would be so excited about the “Ultra Amber Motleys” if they knew they had Gray Rat in them. In addition to Shivers and Falcon both stating that the Ultra line has had Gray Rat bred into it, I found several old threads on other sites that talked about the Ultra line having Gray Rat in them. This is not a new story, but one that has held on. If Falcon and Shivers had gotten out of snakes, and I did not look into the history of the Ultra gene, Carol and everybody else would consider Ultras as pure as all other mutant Corn Snake genes. We would most likely see a Peppermint X Ultramel breeding on her list this year and we would all be happy with our pure Ultra Corns. At one time, I took all of Shivers emails to me about how he developed the “Ultra Amber Motleys” and based upon the generations he had bred them back to Corns, we were sitting at about 97% Corn Snake two years ago.
I am absolutely astonished at most peoples position, that if they don’t have knowledge about hybrid blood being in their Corns, then they consider them to be pure or at least purer than Ultras. The fact is that hybrids have always gotten a bad rap, and their identity is either purposely kept secrete, or is lost when people get out of snakes altogether. We can talk about how credible some evidence is, but there is a ton of evidence that most Corn Snake Mutants have hybrid blood in them. Any show that you go to, has a ton of evidence that this must be happening year after year. I have seen wholesalers put a shipment of Creamcicles in a bin with Amels, because they didn’t look Cream enough. I saw this with my owe eyes. Is that not one drop of paint? There has been gallons of paint poured into all Snakes gene pools since the beginning of time. Kings and Gophers have all been crossed to get the Amel gene into different subspecies for over 20 years, and Corn Snake hybrids have existed just as long. You have to look at the entire hobby as a whole, and as a whole, hybrid blood has been getting mixed into our Corns for over 20 years, but where is it? The Ultras have been getting mixed into Corns for 15 years, and Creams as well. These two sources alone, after 15 years of mixing is enough for me know, that the likely hood of a single Amel out their that is not of mixed blood, is extremely unlikely, and of course Amels has been bred into everything.
The only difference between the purity of Ultras and Amel today, is that I happen to catch Falcon and Shivers, and everybody’s Amels are “pure as far as they know“, but they are not really telling you what they really know, but what the breeder of their Amels told them. Pure Corn Snakes MUST have lineage records, or they are just as un-pure as the rest of our Mutants, Ultras, Amels and the entire lot."
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes
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