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I bred my Mark Bell bloodline Pastel Jungle to 4 females this year....The breedings resulted in:

Clutch #1......6 eggs, 4 pastels(twins), 3 normals 0.7
Clutch #2......3 eggs, 1 pastel, 2 normals 0.3
Clutch #3......5 eggs, 4 pastels, 1 normal 1.4
Clutch #4......7 eggs, 5 pastels, 2 normals 1.6

Is there a possibility that this male is able to sire higher numbers of females and pastels in each clutch or did i just get INCREDIBLY lucky this year with him? I am going to breed the same male to different females and also more of them to see if the same thing possibly happens.......but i'll tell ya what....it would sure be nice if i knew that this male could produce mostly girls.....

What ya thihk?

Jared Horenstein

What are your opinions? Have you noticed anything similar in your past breeding?

We had a similar experience,

This year we produced three clutches of Pastels, we had similar results to you, with a total of 3.12 pastels (if I remember correctly), out of I believe 18 total eggs (also, if I remember correctly), leaving three normals, two of which were females.

So we are kinda wondering the same thing.

Regards,

-----
John Wisser
713.409.9668
Tropical Vision
http://www.tropicalvision.com

In snakes the mother determines the sex of the babies. Unlike in people where the male has the unmatched sex chromosomes and determines the sex it's the female with the unmatched pair in snakes. I think you where just lucky on both the high female and the high pastel. I've heard of people getting low yields of pastels also.

The only other possibility I can think of to explain the high pastel part of it is if your original male is double het for two different pastel like mutations. Maybe there is more than one strain and similar looking animals from two strains where bred together. If there was no linkage of the two mutations you might see about 3/4 of your offspring be one type or the other (or both). If they are different mutations there is no guarantee that the combination will make a super looking animal. You might check to see if your male has any “Pastel” X “Pastel” breedings in his background.

but...YES This year..you male produced sperm that made alot of girls..his female sperm is stronger than the male THIS year........

next year.........he may change...temps....lack of food as compared to this year.....more food as compared to this year.......

anything could change this........

my theory....

some people still believe that snakes sexes are temp related in the egg...........

I still think they are sexed at ovulation....................

some people will disagree........

you on the other hand will pray that this strong female sperm will continue........

I noticed that you had a good percentage of pastels too......

nice male........

JYReptiles..........

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The experts indicate that gender in snakes is determined by sex chromosomes and not incubation temperature as in some other reptiles. Of course there might be individual variation that biases toward the chromosomes which produce one gender or another but it's still chromosome determined.

The big difference from people is that the it is the mother's e egg and not the father's sperm which determines the gender of the offspring. Female snakes have WZ for sex chromosomes and males have ZZ. Therefore all sperm are Z chromosome and the gender of the baby is determined by the mother's contribution of either a W (female) egg or a Z (male) egg.
Check out the blue sidebar near the bottom

I still know guys tat think (they are possitive) tat sex in snakes is temp related......and they are "OldTimers" that been around.........

I have had clutches with like 1.9 ratio and 9.1 ratios all on the same shelf.....

have fun...........

good luck..............JY

Out of 21 babies (I'm counting the twins as one) you hatched 13 pastels and 8 normals. The expected ratio would have been 11/10 or 10/11 (you can't have half a baby). So 13/8 is lucky but not unheard of.

Regarding the number of females you produced--well, so far as I know, Randy is correct that in pythons it is the females that determine the sex of the offspring. So the male is not the common thread to the very high number of 19 females out of 21 (again, I'm assuming the twins are identical and counting them as one).

You certainly departed from the predicted 50/50 odds more with the male/female ratio than with the pastel/normal ratio. The departure from the sex ration might not just be luck. It does seem to Tracy and me that sometimes we have several clutches of eggs laid at the same time that hatch with a preponderance of one sex; a few weeks later another bunch of eggs will be predominantly the other sex. But at the end of the year, when we tally up all the hatchings, the sex ratio is usually very close to 50/50. We don't have good data on just what is happening yet, but it does seem that sometimes sex determination in a clutch isn't random.

I appreciate your input.

Jared H.

...back in 1985 when I first bred Indian pythons my first clutch was 16.2...that is 16 males and 2 females, which sucks big-time when you planned to sell pairs.
...Back to the pastels, however...perhaps you guys might consider reversing the pricing on males vs females!!!???lol
SJM