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Riddle me this Batman...
How does the whole tangerine and tricolor thing work? Will tangerines always produce tangerines? Will tricolors produce tricolors? Is the tangerine phase linked to a simple recessive gene or is it more complicated than that? I have a pair of het albino hondos. One is tricolor, the other is tangerine. Of the albinos produced, what should I expect? Tangerines, bi's or both?

hi,
have only limited expierence, but based on 7 clutches I think
that Albino Bicolor x Tangerine produces: Tangerines, Bicolors and intermediates - in my Albino Tangerine x Albino Tangerine only Tangerine hatched.
A normal "Albino" which is as juvenile snake white - yellow -red,
producing also only white - yellow -red ones. When they grow up the yellow becomes paller and the red - white is only to see.

On the picture

o.k. Robin,
if you have one of each then you will most likely get bith types of offspring and probably even the third of which is a intermidiate or (peach)albino.
Now depending on what the adults looked like that produced your tri-color and depending on what the adults looked like that produced your tangerine can also determine the ratio on your offspring.
I have tons of examples but one is a particular tri-color hypo I have that was produced from two great looking tangerines.He throws a very low number of tri-colors and even when bred to another tri-color I get mostly tangerines from him cause he has a strong tangerine background.
tangerine and tri-color has no bearing on recessive genes.

Shannon

Hey Shannon,

How goes it? I saw your posting of your first batch of hondo eggs for the year (several postings below) and you mentioned something about having 25 slugs from 3 females before that. I was just wondering since you as everyone knows is pretty much an expert in snake breeding, what would be the cause of those slugs? Last year, I had 3 females that laid slugs and I just attributed it to having a really young male (about 19 months old at that time last year when mating occurred). So, I guess my question is, if there's any other explanations of such a large occurence of slugs assuming that temps are fine and animals are not exposed to stress or being disturbed except feeding times.

Thanks,

Ray

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RAY - "Laziness is nothing more than a habit of resting before getting tired!"

Well,
All I can really say is that all the slugs are from the same father. I really was betting the farm (per say) this year on one male because of genetics.I could have backed him up and probably got good clutches but I need to know without any doubt on who is the father.
So far I have had 5 clutches of slugs out of the six females I bred him to.The sixth is due to lay in a couple days.I will be really suprised if she lays good eggs.
Terry Dunham always tried to get me to scope the sperm but I just never have done that.I guess I should I just always figured if they are good they are good.
I have other good clutches cooking right now and several others to lay still but from other males.He was just shooting blanks I guess. I will try him again on some double clutches (same females) and I have in the past seen good results from this.

on a side note, a few years back I had a really good ghost male that I bred to seven females here and then sent him to Terry Dunham on loan and Terry got him to breed three females also.
There is no reason a good male can't breed 5-7 females in a season.
b.t.w when terry send him back he bred another two females here for there double clutches.

so to answer your question, I just think he is shooting blanks right now and nothing more.I have tons of other colubrids laying good clutches and other hiondos laying good eggs so its a shame (I now have 41 slugs from him in 5 clutches)but thats what happens when you only have one male with those kinds of genes. Next year of coarse I will have a couple more genetically diverse males on line.

Shannon

Thanks Shannon. The slugs that happened to me last year were 3 females from one lone male. That lone male as I mentioned earlier was just 19 months old and was probably shooting blanks as you surmised in your case. However, this same male is bred again this year to just one female and that was the female albino het anery I posted above. And she has 8 really good large eggs. So I think maybe the age came into play here.

Still crossing my fingers that these eggs will hatch. You know what they say, you can't count the chicks until they are hatched...in this case, counting hondo hatchlings...hehehe...

Anyway, thanks for taking the time answering my question.

Ray

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RAY - "Laziness is nothing more than a habit of resting before getting tired!"

Very interesting comments guys ... I had a young male who was very ambitious to breed and so far 1 clutch of slugs. Now at least I managed to get a backup male breeding the second female he bred. Hopefully he got in there in time. Needless to say the younger male is riding the "pines" for the rest of the season and not any more females!

this backups up what I was attributing my slugs to at least. Sorry about your luck Shannon .. I am guessing it was that extreme tricolor? Mine was a tricolour from extreme lines.

Nope, the extreme tri-color has two females knocked up and they are in the blue.He has one other to do still.Time wil tell with him.
The male was a four year old proven hypo het anery and amel.Weird.I only bred him to one female last year but got good eggs.

Shannon

Were your temps any different on him this past winter?

Nope, kept the same as all my snakes. Funny thing is I just got a good clutch from the last female he had bred.Go figure.
Shannon

Thanks guys.
BTW Shannon, I've also got a nice male anery I bought from you back in January. He's doing great and I have a female anery to pair up with him when they're grown.