Reptile & Amphibian Forums

are there any good articles out the about the genetics of brbs? I still hvae a few years before i will be able to breed most of mine, but want to try and get a good grasp of how it all works. I havent attempted breedings yet, and will plan for the end of the year with my 2 normal females if my boy get to size.

Few questions though, what weight and age have you guys found to be best for breeding. Males and females?

Also sperm plugs, what exactly do they mean? They do? And when are they seen?

Dave
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Dave

1.2 BRBs

On the way if all the shipping works
0.1 Anery BRB
1.0 66% poss het anery BRB
1,1 het hypo BRB

for your genetics question, there is no set genetics for a certain species of snake. for breeding the genetics is kinda like with humans, bring on the punnett squares!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the only mutations that were well understood in BRBs was Hypomelanism and Anerythristic, which were both simple recessive for this species. I'm pretty sure not much else has been worked with extensively enough to understand. Of course I'm new to breeding them as well, so I could very easily be incorrect. Hope this helps!

acutally found another artilce on the kingsnake morphs section, with exactly the same topic from 2007, that was a good read.

anyone be able to answer my other questions, about best results for breeding size and weight. Im in no hurry, i have set myself 10yrs to learn about it all, so better for them to be too big than too small!!

and the sperm plugs, bit confused about all that

cheers
dave

...Hypomelanistic has been proven simple recessive but that is the only one that has actually been proven out.

Anery's are regularly produced by at least one breeder but it's inheritance pattern has yet to be fully proven out. It might be a simple recessive or it might be something else.

There are several other morphs that are currently in the process of trial breedings to try and prove them out. This includes morph projects like amelanistic, calico, pearl, and of course the above mentioned anery. Time will tell with all these projects.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

How do you 'prove' a trait to be simple recessive or codominant etc? I know with a simple recessive you can outcross to a known wild type and have 100% hets, then if these are bred back to the animal showing the recessive phenotype half should be recessive and half should be 100% het. Is this what you mean?

To fully "prove" a trait, several breeding trials must be done....

Outcrossed to an unrelated for "hets"

het x het breeding for ~ 1/4 visuals
visual x het for ~ 1/2 visuals
visual x visual for all visuals (this one takes the longest as it's three "birth to parent" cycles typically. In BRB's that's 3 years minimal per cycle or 9 years.

(That's for simple recessive)

>>How do you 'prove' a trait to be simple recessive or codominant etc? I know with a simple recessive you can outcross to a known wild type and have 100% hets, then if these are bred back to the animal showing the recessive phenotype half should be recessive and half should be 100% het. Is this what you mean?
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Is there anything besides simple recessive, dominant and codominant?

Yes. It can get pretty confusing, because I think the term
"codominant" is thrown around pretty loosely and inaccurately at times. One relationship is "incomplete dominance", which means
that the phenotype of a het is some sort of blend between the
two homozygous types (ie, red x white flower produces a pink flower.) Then there is "codominant", where there is not a blend, but rather both alleles are fully expressed in the hets. Not sure if this is good example, but if color was codominant, a red x white flower would produce a red and white flower, not a pink flower.)

Fun stuff

Thanks,
Ed

>>Is there anything besides simple recessive, dominant and codominant?

I don't think the experts agree on Anerythrism, I'm not sure that mutation could be said to be well understood yet. I think the Hypo mutation has been convincingly proven to be simple recessive, though.

Good luck with your breeding, maybe you can help prove how the anery mutation works!

Thanks,
Ed

>>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the only mutations that were well understood in BRBs was Hypomelanism and Anerythristic, which were both simple recessive for this species. I'm pretty sure not much else has been worked with extensively enough to understand. Of course I'm new to breeding them as well, so I could very easily be incorrect. Hope this helps!

Some fundamentals can be found here:

Celebrity Geckos Genetics Explained

cheers, just trying to get my head around the basic things
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Dave

1.2 BRBs

On the way if all the shipping works
0.1 Anery BRB
1.0 66% poss het anery BRB
1,1 het hypo BRB

Dave,

"Sperm plugs" in BRBs are actually not sperm plugs at all. They are the shed epidermal layers of the hemipenes. I don't know their function but I have always associated them with the onset of the breeding season. In other words, I tend to see them just as males are becoming interested in females. Often I will find them floating in the wwater dishes of my animals.

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Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Minimal size and age for breeders. IMO 2 1/2 years and 1500 grams. Of course older and larger is not a bad thing.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats