Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A couple of years back I purchased an amel frost baby corn. He has turned into a beautiful adult and I would like to breed him. However, I can't find "frosts" of any type for sale now on line or at shows. Was there a problem with the genes breeding true or any other anomoly? Does anyone know where they are still available? I know I can breed to an Amel and then breed Daughter back to father, but I would rather work with a more distant gene pool if possible.

Thanks

Frosted corns are usually hybrids between gray rat snakes and corns. We used to breed them here at South Mountain in the colors; normal, amel, snow, anery, ghost. One reason you're not seeing too many of them out there is because they're not exactly politically correct in the hobby. Some turn out to look exactly like pure corns and that really throws a wrench in the works when people are expecting pure corns in their breeding projects. Some hatch out as odd-looking "normal" corns that are actually hybrids.

Now, there's a chance that the person that sold that to you was calling your's a frosted amel corn, when in actuality, it IS a frosted-looking pure corn snake. Some people call anything with a frosted look "frosted" corn, but the name applies only to hybrids, to prevent confusion.

Don
South Mountain Reptiles

Hey Don,
I had never heard that the frosted term came from hybrids. I was always with the understnanding that is was the frosted look of some amels. I had labelled (in my own collection) a couple of my amels as "frosted" due to the white frosted look. I guess I should re label them as something else, or would "frosted looking amel corns" or "frosted phase amel corns" or "frosted like" corns work?
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"I try to take one day at a time but sometimes several days attack me at once"

I suspect that people have been presuming that what you offered were hybrids. The first time we offered frosted creamsicles on our web site was 1999. Shortly after that, we featured frosted amels, frosted snows, frosted aneries, frosted ghosts and frosted normals. The name FROSTED has always been synonymous with hybrids of grey rats and corns. You'll see examples in our photo gallery under CORNS, then FROSTED.

Don
South Mountain Reptiles

I had never offered babies under the name frosted. I had just used the term in my own record keeping to describe the Look.
Thanks for the clarification, though. As always, you are very helpful
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"I try to take one day at a time but sometimes several days attack me at once"

Don,
It was sold as an Amel Frost. It doesn't seem to have any rat markers, the head is very corn snake. It does not look like the "frosted" corns on your website the white dotting is over all of the animal and not concentrated on the saddles as yours seem to be. I guess I/ll just breed him with an amel female and look at the results.
Keith

Would "Iced" or "Speckled" corns be a better description for the amels that kinda have the frosted look, but are pure corns?
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************SNEAKY SERPENTS****************

www.sneakyserpents.com

Elk Grove
California

I don't think "iced" would be good because there are already ice corns (lava aneries). Speckled would be bad because when someone comes up with a compltely speckled corn, they deserve that name, and there'll be a conflict. I haven't seen your's, but it could be a hybrid OR it may not be frosted enough to be worthy of a new name. Likewise, do you know if it's a heritable trait? It may not be. I recall a guy that named a line of corns because SOME of them had a black dot above the eyes. Needless to say, that morph didn't catch on. A guy in Vegas once named a corn "pie bald" because it hatched with a white patch on it about the size of a pea. He actually took deposits for its future babies. Even though the snake had a kinked spine right where the white spot was and it died before it was even six months old. It's not wise to name any morph until you have a few generations to see what their potential is.

Don
South Mountain Reptiles

Again, I am not trying to make a new label, or claim that I have a new morph. I was just wanting some way of describing the look of my amels that look different, as a note to myself, for my own reference. I guess I will just stick with amels, since it will prevent any confussion.
thanks for your time and responses.
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************SNEAKY SERPENTS****************

www.sneakyserpents.com

Elk Grove
California