Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've asked this on another forum, but haven't got much of a response, so here goes.

I'm a sucker for white snakes...just love 'em! With 2 morphs that definitely have Leucistic Balls as the super form, as well as a couple others that may (not sure, but I've heard rumors), why are Leucy's still so hard to find, and so pricey? This seems odd considering how fast the co-dom morphs that produced them have come down in price.

To get down to the heart of the matter, I would think that in the years since the first Leucy was produced, there has been enough of an incentive to do a Leucy x Leucy pairing, in order to create a clutch of all Leucy's. I haven't seen that happening...at least, I haven't seen any evidence of it happening.

To put this in recessive terms, it takes a relatively short time for a recessive morph to start being produced and seen in greater numbers once the visual form is produced. If Mojaves and Fires are just visual hets for Leucistic, can someone tell me if anyone has done a homozygous pairing? If so, what have the results been, and why is it such a seemingly rare occurence?

Any input is appreciated.
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin

I heard most leucys have neuro issues and die off or are still born.
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Well their price hasn't gone down due to the fact if you breed a leucy to a normal you get all Codoms whatever type of leucy you have.. Plus they are power packed when it comes to breeding.The reason you are not seeing many if any leucy X leucy breedings is because its going to make all leucy. What is so exciting about keep ball pythons is mixing and makeing new things. Its more exciting then breeding and knowing exactly what the clutch will be.. I haven't heard of any real health problems with Leucys.
Just my 2 cents..

Brought me to think just now if you breed a super pastel to a mojave leucy would you get all pastaves??

Goodluck to all.
Jbugg

Yes that pairing would produce all Pastaves....
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

I've heard that reasoning before, and to me it doesn't hold water. There are some breeders out there who are very $$ motivated. A clutch of all Leucy's would be boring, but profitable.

I pose the question again...has anyone done this pairing? If so, what was the outcome? With the amount of people into breeding balls, I keep on hearing why nobody would do it, but by the same logic, why would anyone do an albino x albino pairing, or a pied x pied pairing....it just produces more of the same morph, but it is being done.
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin

But how many albino X albino and pied X pied breedings do you hear about? I did see a pied X pied breeding posted here and I believe the original breeding to prove the morph was pied X pied but it was years and years before I finally saw a post of a pied female on eggs. And pied was proven long before leucistic.

I think a number of things are going against this:

1. It takes a long time to grow a female ball up to produce eggs. Sure some people have managed to do it quickly but it might be more typical for a female to be 3 or even 4 years old before producing the first time. Leucistics haven't been around all that long, I would expect there to be very few breeder sized females already.

2. The few people who might have adult female leucistics (believe RDR's first few where males) are the big breeders who aren't likely to post every clutch.

3. I think there really is an attraction to crosses to produce the next big thing rather than more predictable breedings. Even albino X albino doesn't seem to happen as much as you would expect for such a long established morph where there should be a lot of adult female albinos out there. Often it seems the morph females are used for some sort of cross.

As far as there being anything wrong with them, I doubt it. A few years ago I would have said absolutely not, we would have heard about it by now. But after spider and caramel problems went so long before going public I suppose anything is possible but hopefully someone will soon have a leucitic X leucistic clutch to post and put this to rest.

I agree with you 100% Randy. There probably aren't a lot of breedable female leucistics out there, and breeding something like a killer bee, spinner blast, etc... male to a female leucistic seems a lot more fun to me. Besides, you can still create more leucistics with the original parents.
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-Jeff
http://jefflumanreptiles.com

Jack, your info is wrong.

I have wondered if there isn't something noone's talking about, but do you have any proof of this?
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin

I'm going to have to disagree with you, JackJebus. I hatched some leucistics this year, and they don't have any sort of problems.

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-Jeff
http://jefflumanreptiles.com

Cool, Jeff! What was the pairing? Please give details!!!
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin

These were from lesser x mojave. There was 1.1 leucistics, 2.0 mojaves, and 1.0 lesser.

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-Jeff
http://jefflumanreptiles.com

Not to beat a dead horse, but that's 2 Leucy's out of one clutch. It may take 3-4 years to get them to breeding size if fed and maintained at reasonable pace. Having said that, would you say it is more or less likely for someone with a high $$ morph to powerfeed their animals to bring upon sexual maturity earlier than what is "normal"?

I guess time will tell, but I'm just a little skeptical considering the amount of morph related issues that have been kept quiet over the years.
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin

he could get three variations of BEL's

lesser/lesser BEL
mojave/mojave BEL
lesser/mojave BEL

you will be able to tell the mojave/lesser BL from the rest as they have a dusty head

not to sure about telling the lesser/lesser BEL apart from the lesser/mojave as they are pretty clean white snakes, some do have a yellow dorsal stripe though

Pitoon

Whats the problem with caramels?

Apparently they are likely to have spinal kinks.
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"He who would stifle debate rather than engage in it, does so at the expense of his integrity and credibility"

Mike Curtin