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Has anyone bred a white oak phase to a leucistic texas rat? I have a pair of nice leucistics but they are related and I'm reluctant to breed them. Just curious as to what this combo might look like.

nm

They will all look like a normal cross of a Gray Rat and a Texas Rat. The leucistic trait must be homo to be expressed. If you want to breed leucistic snakes, get another leucistic Texas Rat and don't start breeding mutts.

BTW: That is a nice looking Gray Rat.

but don't tell me what to do.

The only thing I disagree with as far as what you've said here is that that's a nice looking grey--It's beautiful! If the guy was actually open to suggestions, I'd tell him to get a suitable grey to breed that one to. Oh well.

As his reason for breeding these was not stated we assume they will somehow end up in someone else’s collection but responsibility falls on the individual. I experiment all the time in the name of science and find nothing wrong with it, again responsibility fall on the individual.

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

when you assume. You'll have to reference an old odd couple re-run for further details.

I was not pointing a finger at you I was defending you...Bill

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

There is a good market for mutts as feeder snakes. Indigo, King Cobra and the like need feeder snakes and that cross sounds tasty to me!

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

can we get a full body shot ?

I understand your point, but there's also another way to look at this issue. The thing is that the leucistic Texas Ratsnakes must be one of the most inbred strains of snake morphs worldwide, with all the problems that come along with that. We all know the bug eye problem, but there's also vertebral deformities, reduced growth rate, reduced viability, and so on. What I'm trying to say here, is that outbreeding the leucistic Texas Rat may not be such a bad idea. Sure, you don't need another 'subspecies' to that, but would it hurt?

Personally, if I had to choose between a 'pure' leucistic Texas Ratsnake or a leucistic Ratsnake mutt, I'd take the mutt.

You could "outbreed" leucistics to normal Texas rats. That would solve the inbreeding problem. It's been done with bloodred corns (breeding them to unrelated normal corns). No mutts required.

Tim

Third Eye

True, but I already said so. Which brings me to another point I'd like to make. There are no true subspecies in Pantherophis obsoletus. A Texas Rat from Louisiana is about as much related to a Texas Rat from southwest Texas, as it is to a Grey Rat from northwest Florida. Therefore, breeding 'pure' leucistic Texas Ratsnakes is meaningless, unless you breed on locality.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with crossbreeding recessive mutant morphs like the leucistic Texas Ratsnake with other geographical races of the same species. Since these morphs don't have any chance of survival in the wild, they cannot be considered as representatives of a species, or subspecies, or poupulation for that matter (except for that one population of albino Japanese Ratsnakes). These snakes wouldn't even exist if we didn't breed them in captivity. These morphs are our creations, and IMHO we can do with them as we please.

Every time you breed animals that are related in the first degree, like brother to sister or father to daughter, you loose about 25% percent of your genetic diversity. So when you line breed animals from a certain locale, you eventually will end up with something very different from the original strain. It may still look like the same snake, but it certainly is not. Consider the fact that chimpansee DNA resembles human DNA for 98%...

So unless your genepool is sufficiently large to ensure genetic diversity for many generations to come, breeding locality pure animals is a pointless enterprise as well. Outbreeding your stock to WC animals of a different geographical race might actually be a better way to accomplish genetic resemblance to the original strain, than inbreeding them over and over again.

It sounds like you are confusing your opinions with scientific fact.

Anyhow, breeding a lucy Texas rat to an unrelated Texas rat is no more or less likely to cause defects than breeding it to a Grey rat snake.

There are many healthy generations of amel corns that have been kept "pure," by outbreeding them to unrelated corns - and the same thing could happen for lucy Texas rats.

Tim

I guess you have to be careful of how you word things around here. If I ever breed my male grey, it's gonna be to a real nice female if I ever come accross one. I was just playing around with the concept a a really whitish washed out snake, a "super white oak phase" if you will. On another note I saw an exceptionally orange normal texas at the last show I went to. I was tempted but the reality is I don't need anymore snakes right now. Have a good day and thanks for at least avoiding a nasty answer to my question.

...tempting. Nice grey, btw. Duffy

This IS a forum, right? People usually discuss issues on forums, right? It's not our problem that some people out there confuse genetics and taxonomy with nazi science, LOL.

As for that beautiful White Oak of yours, I have a suggestion. I think Tim Spuckler is right about one thing, there would hardly be any demand for such Grey x Texas intergrades. Not because most hobbyists are purists, I think they're not, but because these would propabely turn out as rather drab snakes. If you want to create a snake with a 'washed out' look, then breed it to a Everglades Rat. I have seen some examples of this, and I think these look very nice. Lemon, with silver blotches. Now imagine a hypomelanistic specimen. Do I need to say more?

I don't normally get into this type of discussion, but the way some people attack others over the issue of "mutts" is ridiculous, in my opinion. If a person wants to produce snakes from a cross breeding: different subspecies or species, that is their business. There is a market for mutts, btw. Creamsicle, cinnamon and rootbeer corns are crosses using guttatus and emoryi, and emoryi is regarded as a separate species from guttatus by taxonomists now, so this would make them hybrids. I have made this cross with emoryi meahllmorum and guttatus, myself, and the babies will be labled as hybrids. There are some species crosses and inter-generic crosses that I personally don't like, but I don't feel that this entitles me to publicly ream the people producing these animals. As long as the breeder is honest about the animals being "mutts", there is no problem. I agree with what another poster said about this not being Nazi science. I'm certainly not trying to produce aryan snakes! LOL!

The gray x Texas cross sounds interesting, to me, btw.

-Toby

Some of you guys get exposed to too many harmful emf's or something. I have no real desire to breed my texas rats or my grey (unless I could find one that looks as nice). I already have to many snakes and not enough room and it's more work than it's worth. Same for alot of my kings. I would like to breed spilotes and my peruvian boas but mostly I have these animals because I just like them. I originally asked the question because I was thinking how I've read some posts that het hypo hondurans sometimes come out real clean and almost hypo-ish. I wasn't sure if maybe similar traits might be expressed in a "het" grey. Just curious fellows. Don't fret elaphefan, the world is not in any eminent danger.
I have a suggestion for some of you. Get away from your computers, go outside and get some sunlight. It's mood enhancing.

And after that, I just might visit one of those Ebony sites. This whole outbreeding thing has got me going, LOL.

Best regards,

Herman.

I have no interest in selling rat snakes. I make a good living. Snakes are a hobby. And If I were to breed "mutts" and sell them they would be sold as mutts. Or maybe as sighthunter mentioned I could sell them to him for his baby coachwhips. However, if the genetics were such that you could develop a "super washed out white oak" it might be interesting. I'd still rather just find a real nice female grey and I just don't have interest in breeding my pair of texans or purchasing more texans.

Now about calling me stupid, ignorant and lazy, well that's not very nice. I wonder if you would have the guts to do that to my face?

Lastly I'm a busy guy. I have my own business and a part time job teaching college anatomy and physiology. Forums are an ideal venue to pose a quick question and maybe have an opportunity to see what advice people give a day or so later.

...to many people getting worked up and exagerating and not even in the correct forum

Seriously though I don't think elaphefan was trying to boss anyone arround but merely discourage people from irresponsibly hybridizing(key word irresponsibly). It is fine to hybridize if you are responsible about it(ie full disclosure, etc...) but many try to do it as a novelty.

Also taxonomy has never and never will be a science or even a discipline where anything can be "prooved" in the rigorous sense. It is merely the way we choose to, at this moment, group things and categorize them. This changes completely as we find knew info to categorize based on and re-evaluate how we prioritize those differences.

Basically the current taxo at any time is the scientific comunities current conventions as to what things are the same type. This directly ties in to the requirement of full disclosure when hybridizing.

Genetic diversity and genetic integrity are both real issues but also easily solved without hybridizing and it's complications. All that is required is to not inbreed and when possible use as unrelated(or WC) stock as possible. This is why I dislike the old practice of selling pairs priority over lone animals because even in the best situations you'll end up with some sibling pairs.

The main worry in general with hybrids is that while there is a market for them they sell much slower generally and if they get sold as something other then a hybrid they can work back into the non hybrid breeding stock and thereby introduce a whole knew gene set which may no longer correspond to what people expect when buying a specific type of snake.(sorry for the run on lol)

Lastly, if you want to debate the intricacies of hybridizing we have a whole forum devoted to it. Hypocrisy noted

PS donv if you do the cross please post pics in the hybrid forum so we can see em and please maintain full disclosure and good luck.

Sean.

This is not meant to be confrontational, but rather an honest question: "what would I have after I bred the hets and obtained a Tex/Gray leucistic?"
Yet another all white snake, albeit beautiful as leucies are, but no more?

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Regards, Bill McGighan

Actually, I really was just curious if the het greys would maybe pick up some of the leucistic infleunce and look more washed out. I really wouldn't have any desire to breed two hets. And I think your right about no need to breed two hets just to get a pure white snake as the texas leucistics are downright impressive as is.

Are there any cases other then BP's where het leucy has a visible expression?

Just curious as the only co-dom or partial-dom traits I'm familiar with in the colubrids I've dealt with is the ultra amel co-dom in corn snakes.

Anyways thanks for any info.

Sean.

If I'm not mistaken the "rusty" black rat is the visible expression of the heterozygous leucistic black rat.

If thats the case then it's good to know and neat.

I'm mostly used to hetrozygous expression in boa's and python's so I get a kick outa finding it elsewhere.

Thanks again,

Sean.