Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After the thread below I thought I would get some opinions on a male het Ivory I bought Captive bred from a "reputable breeder.
Tthe first pic is shortly after I bought him. The second and third are today. He's going into shed, but let me know what you think.

Jeff

that is a truely cool snake and a very unique belly. But it does not fall into the classic yellowbelly definition. I would certainly be taking this up with the breeder if I were you. Or at the very least getting the exact back story of the animal.

Personally if I'm told that a yellowbelly line is proven, that means that an ivory has been produced by the line.

Justin

a yellow belly is a yellow belly is a yellowbelly...all will produce Ivories...that is obviously not a YB or at the very leat like you said...not a very good representation...I would not have bought that as a YB. I have a YB male that i have PROVEN the last 2 years and will prove again this year...next year 1 or 2 of his daughters will be big enough to make me an Ivory.
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Michael Enriquez

Not realy even close nice snake but No YB

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Vince Pramuk

Sorry But this Big name breeder took your money and gave you a nice fancy ball.... I have seen many variances on the trait... But there is no way on that one....
Neat snake however.
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Michael Cole
Ballroom Pythons South
863-439-3015
WWW.BallroomPythonsSouth.com

Thank you everyone for your opinions. I will let you know how things go after I have breed him a time or two.

Jeff

Don't just bend over and take getting ripped off. Why waste good females and breeding seasons for nothing? Aside from the fact, you didn't get what you paid for.

I thought I would stop on in to the Ball Python forum and post a few pics...maybe get to know all the guys and gals...lol...
I actually feel like I crossed into the wrong side of town...lol...
I mean, this is one bad neiborhood...lol...
Take care people!

Life ain't as bad as you people make it...really!

Andy
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Cool that you would make that reference. I totally understand what you mean, but at the same time, don't let someone get away with ripping you off without at least letting them know you figured it out. I didn't mean like get a group of your largest friends together and start buying plane tickets.

First off there is no tracking anyone down. I am not going to accuse someone of something without proof just because there are opinions to the contrary. Second, if I got ripped off then its my bad for buying something I did not fully understand. I just won't deal with that person again. And since when is it a waste of a female?

Jeff

it's true a female is never wasted, especially a cool one like yours. Best of luck with that one.

It's the waste of the opportunity to breed your female to a proven morph rather than the dubious yellow belly male. For what you probably paid for this male you could have picked several other types of males (pastel, het pied, maybe even albino or mojave).

Sort of a shame but as proven morphs get cheaper it will be harder and harder to justify risking females on unproven males now that most can afford the proven males. Maybe some new morphs will be passed over that would have been bred out a few years ago.

He was never the focus of any breeding project. My plan was to breed him and a Mojave to a couple of Pastel females, which I later decided against. He was represented as from a proven line but who knows for sure.

Jeff

That does bring up a couple of good question as to proven lines.

1. By "proven" does the breeder mean having produced an Ivory?

2. How foolproof is the process of picking the yellow bellies from the non yellowbellies in a clutch even with a proven line?

I got to help sex a clutch from yellow belly X yellow belly that included an Ivory last summer. There was one ivory and some really nice yellow belies in the clutch in addition to normal. But there was one that had some but not all of the yellow belly traits. Was it just a normal for the yellow belly gene that just happened to have some yellow belly like characteristics or was it a genetic yellow belly that just happened to be to the normal end of the yellow belly appearance spectrum? I was really tempted to make an offer on it because I thought it probably was a genetic yellow belly but if I where the seller I would be afraid to sell it as such just in case it was a normal.

Randy - I had a similar thought earlier - would it be possible for the YB phenotype to be passed on without the het genes? A few years ago there was a huge arguement that a YB couldn't be called a YB until it produced and Ivory or came from an Ivory producing line - but I wonder if it's possible we are missing something - there certainly are a lot of YBs but not that many Irovies.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

To my way of thinking either they get the single yellow belly gene or they don't, and only the ones that get it could produce ivory. It's just that some of the het ivory may not always do a good job of showing it.

I feel pretty confident that there are some "recessive" mutations with co-dominant tendencies - labyrinth and granite in Burmese pythons and piebald in ball pythons. Some hets look perfectly normal but some seem to show an intermediate appearance between normal and the homozygous. I don't know what controls when the hets show and when they don't.

Similarly, there may be some "co-dominant" mutations with recessive tendencies. Perhaps some small percentage of genetic yellow bellies don't show all they classic traits.

Such a situation would be inconvenient and confusing but nature doesn't owe us nice easy cut and dry situations where every mutation fits into the textbook definition 100% of the time.

Has anyone produced classic yellow belies from the really questionable looking offspring of a yellow belly? Such a case would tend to support het ivories not always showing all the characteristics. However, it would take a long time without such a case to feel pretty confident that all het ivories show the full classic trait combination of a yellow belly.

Randy, hopefully I will be able to shed some light on this in the future. I talked to the breeder last night and he reaffirmed that the sire was indeed from a proven line that has produced Ivories. In the clutch he produced there were three hatchlings that looked identical to the sire and the rest appeared normal. I think he relied more on the overall appearance of the animal as opposed to any particular marker. After looking at the pics I posted he agreed that he is probably not a yellowbelly. He has agreed to cover the cost of the animal plus let me keep the male, so i will still try to prove him out. I still think he is a great looking animal with some interesting traits so we shall see.

Jeff

P.S. I dont think the breeder ever intended to rip anyone off
and I would feel more then comfortable about doing business with him again.

Not a classic example off a yellow belly but I would say yes it is a yellow belly and possible het. for something ells . David of DS Reptile Rescue

I was going to reply you me and the breeder are the only ones but then I saw Bens reply. I posted the original pics I bought him from in a reply to Bens post, looked yellow to me. He was bought on a whim which may or may not have been a mistake. My original plan was to double him and a mojave male up on some Pastel females, but later change my mind. I was hoping to pick up a couple of YB females from Neil Golli in july and try for an Ivory. Now that my male is in question I will definately work towards those females and try and prove him out.

Jeff

Like I said I can see it as a yellow belly , I have seen them that only have faint traces of a YB and every one said no way and they proved out , so it is one of those things that can be hard to see in a pic. But with a trained eye you can tell and tell even better in person . So go for it man !! PS. I got a YB for 15 $ that every one said was a normal but I knew better . Remember just because they don’t fit the stereotype doesn’t mean they aren’t . GOOD LUCK !! David of DS Reptile Rescue

hard to say with it in shed, but kind of does have some of the side marker traits of a yb, and i have also seen yellow bellies born with lots of black crossovers on the belly. Really hard to say--it is a very variable trait. I have two adult female yellow bellies--both have produced ivories--one looks like a yb and no one thought the other one was except me, and then it produced 2 ivories 2 years ago, so go figure. I am not a betting man, but if i was, i would guess that it is one albeit not a great one. I guess it really depends on the breeder.
Ben

These are the pics I was sent from the breeder when I bought him. He was sired by a male from Tony Hurts proven line, or so thats what I was told.

Jeff

I sent a link to this thread to the breeder I bought the animal from. I will see if he has any comments to the replies that have been posted. I will let everyone know what his reply if any is.

Jeff

based on the pics in this last post, i would lean more towards not a yb although it is still possible-i have seen a few bad ones produced before. Ben