Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone here work with hybrids? I just saw some pictures of a ball x berm and started wondering how big they get. Plus I've known about the stp and blood x ball hybrids just thinging it'd be cool if the morphs could be bred into them. Lets say a pastel blood ball or a some of the others.
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

Don't kid yourself, hybrids are not cool

My thoughts too.Take it to the hybrid forum !

Why is there so much negative feedback on hybrids? I just don't get it, yes, me personally I don't see the appeal. I wouldn't own one. Guess what, that burger you just ate? Hybrid. A lot of the fruit you eat, hybrid. Your cat? Hybrid. Dog? Most likely hybrid. Your ferret, origin unknown but most likely.......yep you guessed it, hybrid. I see this all the time at the fish store, people get so upset when they see a Blood Parrot Cichlid, and then they walk over and buy a platy for their community tank. Guess what, HYBRID. Why are some hybrids ok and others not?
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3.2.0 Corn Snakes (Jareth, Morkai, Gunner, Selene, Angela)
1.1.0 Ball Pythons
1.0.0 Yorkshire Terrier (Ragnar)
0.1.0 Kenya Sand Boa het Snow (Moo)
0.1.0 Red Tail Boa(Annabelle)

Well I respect Terry on this forum more than anyone else on here so I'm going to say if he doesn't like them there is probably a good reason. I think the problem is they don't want the hybrid being bred back into the ball. I.E. you breed your hybrid lets say ball x berm and them you breed your hybrid back into your ball collection and eventually you make a ball that might top out at lets say 8-9 feet and you may call it a new morph and say you had the parent imported from Africa. Then, you get a ball that's a few feet longer and people have no idea whats happened because the animal might look just like a ball. Am I going in the right direction Terry?
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

No disrespect to Terry but its only an opinion if he doesnt like them that doesnt make it a good reason. Others thought it would be a good reason to mess around with breeding different type of dogs together to make the "pure breeds" that everyone loves today. On the other side of that coin scientist thought there was a good reason to split the atom and now look we live under the threat of nuclear war. So just because someone thinks its a good idea doesnt make it so. You said in your post that you thought it would be cool to see them crossed into ball morphs stand behind what you think and dont be so quick to follow others.
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

You said in your post that you thought it would be cool to see them crossed into ball morphs stand behind what you think and dont be so quick to follow others.

That was meant from a scientific standpoint as in genetics. The thing I was wondering about is this, we all know what a ball albino looks like right? Well I assume you know an albino stp looks alot different, well "if" you were to breed an albino ball to a normal or albino stp and then breed those babies back to each other....what in the world would they look like. I'm not turning tail, I just meant it from a genetic view that that'd be something to see.
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

Yes,There are plenty to do with the ball pythons without adding other pythons.I have been lucky enough to produce a new morph (First albino tricolor)and I think it is sad when someone would cross an albino gene just to make a morph.The aspidites ball python for example.The comment was made ,can,t wait to make an albino aspidites.The incident of occurance for albinism is once in 40,000.That could happen to any breeder.Look at the albino tricolor market now,low value,very few know the history of the true albinos.And if someone did hatch out an albino of some sort from pure stock who would believe them.

dogs and cats are not hybrids ? are they.....

mutations?......

......hybrid example would be a coydog...wolfdog....dingo dog...

/////.......just a thought.....

......but then again......I hate to think chihuahuas and huge mastiffs all came from the same mother gene....

imagine a caveman with a chihuahua hunting mastadons....

fetch boy, fetch,............

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LOL......

Well, dogs are just bred from someone liking certain traits they have like size, color, coat, etc. It's not like someones taking a house cat and breed it with a dog, lol.
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

Breeding it to a dog blah
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

right.....not a hybrid.....

hybrid cats they do make too......bobcat,African wildcat,lynx,cervils,etc ...they cross them all ways....even the tiger lions......wierd........

....coyote dogs and wolf dogs are made at times....coydogs usually in the wild and wolf dogs for pet trades.....

....zebra horses, donkey horses, buffalo cows, ........

some have a reason....some don't......
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LOL......

To me the problem is that as soon as the first hybrid was created the decision was made for future keepers of both species that they could no longer be sure of what they have. Sure the captive version of the species will drift over time from the wild version anyway and we are concentrating all sorts of mutations gathered from nature but we are still working with ball pythons. If it hasn't happened already very soon someone will loose track of some of the decedents of these hybrids and then shortly after that someone will hold one up as a new morph. However the new appearance might not be easy to reproduce and the hybrid line might have health and reproductive problems but those will only come out after years and $ of work with the new "morph" that could have been spent with a genuine ball python morph.

You have got to be kidding me Randy ball python breeders worried about health problems.

I dont know a ton about ball morphs but still know the Spiders, Super Cinnys, and Caramels are predisposed to some pretty bad genetics just to name a few. Pieds and Albinos have been known to have some genetic problems including poor breeding and slow growth not to mention the occasional eye problem or altogether lack there of. I dont see the so called responsible breeders not producing them anymore.

If anything a crossbreeding between a ball and a burm would make the gene pool more diverse and make for stronger animals instead of inbreeding your animals just to make the next morph faster.

With that said I thing theres room for all flavors normals, morphs, and cross breeds alike. Breed what you like and document your breedings well.

P.S. stop calling them Hybrids they are all Pythons. Be creative breed a Python to a Monitor and make a real hybrid lol.

I don't think any of the ball python problems you mentioned are from inbreeding. IMHO those problems are side effects of each mutation. It's certainly a valid argument as to if we should be reproducing them or not but we do because they are interesting animals and the worst of the problems aren't always seen.

So have the python crosses shown hybrid vigor or are they prone to problems like say the tiger lion crosses? Do they breed easily and have good egg fertility?

I wish I could remember where I saw the ad but someone was selling hybrid pythons and while they still knew they where hybrids had already lost the info on the exact ancestry. I don't see how it's not going to end up like corn snakes where any new morph might have some Emory influence pretty soon. And those two are much more similar than say a Burmese and ball python.

Randy,

You made my argument for it being ok to hyridize balls and burms and all but one other species of python. The fact that the two species are soooo far apart, it would be very very very hard to ever breed out the burmese or ball out of the hybrid and be able to pass it off as one of the founding species like you can with corns. We must realize that we are already breeding genetic traits that would not occur in the wild due to survivability reasons. We are creating PETS afterall. The only hybrid that I think is dangerous to the ball market is the angolan x ball hybrid. These two animals are so similar in build that I could see some of the not so quite honest breeders trying to pass off a 25% angolan as a new ball python morph (think of the people selling indian x burm crosses as co-dom hypo burms that will produce lucy's). It boils down to responsibility and documentation. As long as the people doing the crosses are responsible and know what they are producing, in my opinion go for it. We can never have too many pretty or interesting snakes.

PS. I have no hybrids nor will I produce any, but it is ok for others to if they want to, lol.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Tell you what, find me a zoo somewhere in the world that displays a hybrid and i'll then give it to you that a god damn hybrid is cool

Well get ready to eat crow because heres a link to some hybrids in zoos its a leopon leopard X lion in a zoo somewhere in Japan
http://madfoolish.blogspot.com/2007/09/top-10-hybrid-animals.html
And hybids do happen in the wild such as the domestic pig and wild boar, grizzly and polar bears. Dogs and wolves also coyote and dogs cross breed quite often. I dont plan on producing any hybid pythons but its going to happen whether people like it or not.
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

you know the funny thing is that people state that zoos don't like hybrids and use that as an example, but these same people must realize that zoos also don't think us hobbyists should be keeping these animals as pets anyway. That we are not capable to provide these animals with the proper husbandry and care they need. And god forbid you bring up keeping venmous in the private sector to anyone who is high up in the Zoo community. OMG only properly trained zoological staff can safely care for a venomous or large species of constrictor.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

I have that alot from zoo people as well. My girlfriend works at a zoo and their animal currator as said flat out that she doesnt believe in buying herps from breeders because breeders are just in it for the money and don't take care of their animals, so instead they bought a bunch of weird amphibians from some pet store/importer down in Texas and most of them are dead from a supposed fungal infection. I have noticed this sentiment mostly from the fuzzy mammal people. At the other end of the spectrum though, when I took a herpetology course as an undergrad, we got a behind the scenes tour of the Philly Zoos reptile house and all the keepers there keep reptiles on their own and the guy giving the tour basically told us that if a herp's numbers are dwindling, they would be better off going to the private sector because hobbysts are often light years ahead of zoos when it comes to reptiles breeding. What about those hybrids again...lol

Dude, we are talking reptiles here, which International zoo displays hybrid reptiles.

And by the way, you should research the difference between an Intergrade which does happen in the wild versus Hydrids that do not happen in the wild.

Introduced species such as pigs doesn't realy count in the good ole hybrid debate

hybrids do happen in the wild
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Intergrades happen in the wild, which endemic reptile hybridizes?

we were talking all critters not just reptile

depends on hybrid defintion....as we all know we all don't agree

...only thought was the stuff found that might be like a bullsnake x texas ratsnake cross (that noone actually ever proves what they are) and stuff like that...

but the trouble we have...IF you say by breeding a black rat and an everglades we don't have a hybrid...we just have an integrade or morph.....then all snakes almost...at least egg laying colubridae in the Americas...are all related and can be interbred....as in all Lampropeltus,Getulus,Pituophis,and all speies and subspecies therein.......they can all possibly be interbred and have fertile offspring, therefore they are all actually related enough to be the same thing in the discussion...probably having all coming from the same loooong ago species of snake (or lizard?) in the Americas....

....wanna know sumpin........I like hybrids actually at times and don't really give a squat what people breed for $$$....

....imagine....a pink and yellow albino ball (retic XX) that is 8 foot long and acts like a ball...and lays 22 eggs average.....pink and yellow....mmmmmmmm...makes me hungry thinking about it........

....an albino ball (Malaysian blood xx) that is 7 foot long, lays 20 eggs, huge babies and they are screaming ,I mean screaming bright red as adults !....(but they bite like all Hail and don't let go....) (that might be good...keeps away the 12 year olds...?...yea....right....they'd buy twice as many )....Duh...

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......dumbest thing ever created...
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NO, not a hybrid....well....it is becoming one....
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as I was typing....Jeopardy had a category HYBRIDS going on...(Greek Mythology stuff types not balls)...LOL...

......wierd I thunk.......

.....Harpes...we need Harpes in here...........

.....mmmmmm
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......dumbest thing ever created...
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NO, not a hybrid....well....it is becoming one....
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Why dont they count? Because it helps the hybrid argument and not yours????
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

There's a big difference between breeding different breeds of the same species and breeding to completely different species from different continents that diverged thousands upon thousands of years ago.

I couldn't agree more. The thing i think most people loose is that when you breed dogs together, even if its a toy poodle to an english mastiff, they are still the same species, C. lupis familiaris (sp). Even wolf/dog "hybrids" are the same species, just that dogs are a subspecies of wolves. Balls and Burms, while in the same genus, are totally different species. Balls and Womas aren't even in the same genus and only share the same family. The fifferences between dogs and wolves is maybe in the tens of thousands of years, while speciation between balls and burms probably occured tens of million of years ago. I guess it just rubs me the wrong way when people start throwing all these wierd combos together just make a "cool looking" animal or to make extra money off of the freak value of the animal. Just my $0.2

Very well put !

I know exactly what you mean, that last quadruple combo morph imported from africa was awesome. Wait, there hasn't been one. So I guess all these combo morphs that we strive to produce are man made with the intention of making a buck off of.

You can't have it both ways. You can't say hybrids are wrong because they would never happen in the wild and then say combo morphs are ok. Usually neither would happen in the wild. Yes hybrids are known to occur naturally at times. And yes combo morphs have been known to happen (the original platty is the only time I can think of) but that is rare not the rule. It boils down to this, all the morphs that we breed are done for profit one way or another. Either to gain money or other snakes in trade. Hybrids are done for the same reason. Hybrids aren't for everyone and neither are morphs. There are some actual people that think morphs are ugly and prefer wild type animals. Are they more right than you or I? Absolutely not. We are dealing with PETS not animals that are being studied with intentions of reintroducing to the wild, as that will never happen since the scientific community frowns upon releasing captive animals from hobbyists back into wild populations (again since they think we are all incompitant). There is a niche for everyone and there is no reason for us to fight about it. We are allowed to have opinions and preferences. God knows there are enough people out there that want us to no longer be allowed to keep any animals. Concentrate your fighting on them.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Very well put, and true on all points
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

Yep you're right, there definetely aren't any infernos crawling around Africa somewhere and that combos are most certainly a product of man's selective breeding of the species. However, there is certainly a zero possibility of burm ball hybrids crawling around somewhere in the wild or bateaters etc. I guess it just comes down to how much degree of man's influence one is willing to accept. Morphs don't bother me because to me because they are just mutations in the genome of the animal. To me, speciation occured for a reason and I don't really see any good scientific reasoning for the hybridization of the species we are talking about, but hey, thats just me. Everyone is entitled to do what they will with their animals, I just hope that the people who do decide to breed hybrids do so responsibly and make sure they educate the public about what they are producing.

yea man you opened a can of worms here. I personally like them but alot of others dont they act like someone slapped their mother when this topic is brought up. But I think the burm ball is my favorite of the hybrids
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

I was just asking from the scientific aspect of it. Like size, length, temperment, etc. I'm not planning to buy or make one.
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

Again, take it to the forum that likes them instead of here where many do not.

are meant to be pure.......

.....hybrids are ok with some stuff ,but the big stuff can be really screwed up by crossing it....

20 foot burm and 5 foot balls aren't that close in body sizes....

just to start....

.....enough ball colors and patterns , enough burm color and patterns and enough retic...etc etc etc

we can all own 1000 snakes and not have 2 the same....why hybridize?...

oh yea...money.....LOL.....

.......amel Malaysian blood color ,and amel retic yellow color, , all visual in the same 3 way ball cross...along with clown gene and pastel too???......would it be yellow ,red or a neat orange?......hope we don't find out???

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LOL......

Sorry I think it would be cool to find out not trying to get into a pissing match but to each their own
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

In case you havent noticed nobodys getting rich off of cross breeds. Theres alot more bad breedings going on to produce morphs than there are for cross breeds. Just look at some of the other traits associated with some of the ball morphs out there, and you call a cross breeder greedy hahaha.....

They might not be getting rich off of hybrids, but I have definetely seen them for sale here on the classifieds and other places, so they are doing this for reasons other then making a new pet ie making a few grand on a worthless animal (harsh i know). Some breeders might be responsible with lineage data, but once they sell the snakes its pretty much out of their hands what happens with the snake, and I for one would hate to see what happened with cornsnake happen with ball pythons.

chondros were down to $175, capets like $75...carpondros didn't sell for 125 when they first came out did they?......Nope..

$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$all this is......

people doing this for fun have a couple display animals in display tanks in the living area of the house....

no racks no snake rooms...

other people doing this for fun have a few locality critters....maybe in a rack....maybe breed and give away babies...

classifieds does not have a section for free locality snakes for people who don't do this for $$$$$$$$$$$$
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WOW I have never heard it put any better, very nice
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

very well put, I'm trying to get back into keeping small colonies of multiple species. You would not believe how hard it is to find central louisianna local speckled kingsnakes, lol.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

try looking in central Louisiana???

or the milkssnake forum....

either one would be a good bet to start with......

...are they the fully cleanly one speckle per scale ones?...all clean dots...???......hard to find them.....

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They are usually very clean one central scale dot, no banding or rosettes. I'm actually planning to take a trip hopefully this year and be able to get some good locality specific animals. It's been 15 years since I did any field herping there but hopefully things haven't changed too much, lol.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

They put big prices on those mutts,but you are right I dont know anyone buying them.

Sure in the beginning the chondro carpet crosses were fetching some good money, but I think it was deserving assuming how hard it was to achieve, the lack of numbers of them available, and they are pretty awesome looking. Why does it have to be greed just because the price is high. If I chose to breed only "insert high dollar morph here" because I really loved the look of them and sold some of them off would you say thats just about greed? Just like anything else if the demand is high and the supply is low the price will be high dont blame the breeder for that.

One of the biggest questions asked on this forum is what morphs should I invest in, and the answer very often given is breed what you like and dont worry about the money. So why should the answer change if I like ball blood burm woma jcp gtp retic crosses.

I think it all basically comes down to the fact that some people, myself included, just are uneasy about mixing different species together. You are right when you say people should breed what they like, and if you like hybrids go ahead and make a burmball or a wall or whatever it is you call woma/balls, and keep it as a display animal. The problem comes when you have these breeders that are making these animals just to sell. Once the snake is sold who knows what the third, fourth, fifth....party is going to do with the snake. Several generations down the line when morphs start getting crossed into the hybrid, who's to say that person won't advertise the animal as some knew crazy ball combo and sell it for a lot and maybe neglect to mention that oh yea, that animal has some blood python in it. I can go to petco and see creamsicle corns being sold. Too bad they are not really corns, and yet for someone not familiar with them, will buy and potentially breed them as corn snakes. Maybe i'm a little distrustfull of people and how responsible they can be, but come on, not everyone is responsible with their animals and their record keeping, especially when a decent some of money is involved. If you want to breed hybrids, I say go for it, but treat them almost like you would a kinked caramel, keep it as something pretty to look at, but keep its flawed genes out of the gene pool.

So what about Kevin and Kara from NERD breeding bateaters into retics and burms again??? Oh wait its ok for one of the people you guys look up to but for one of us peeons you look down your nose?? Get outta here with that BS logic
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com

LOL i dont think I ever said it was ok for the nerd guys to make hybrids...i personally dont like hybrids and dont really care who makes them, if they don't occur in the wild I don't see a reason to make them in captivity, but thats just my opinion.

ok, again bumblebees don't occur in nature but we sure play with genetics to make them and man are they pretty. I love that argument there are sooo many holes in it. There are sooo many things that we as humans do daily that is against nature it's funny and most people don't blink an eye because of them.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Theoretically, a "bumblebee" COULD naturally happen in the wild! Afterall, it IS all Ball Python! But because of predation, the odds of one naturally occuring is dismal at best! Now, you can be assured you'd NEVER find a "Wall" or "Superball" in the wild!

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Just like all snakes come from lizards.

Good One.......

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......poor coyotes.........no history........?....

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Remeber natural selection, well thats bull crap. The truth is ACME is killing the coyote by selling those bombs, traps, and etc items. These poor animals have no chance to live and eat a roadrunner!
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

those birds eat snakes and lizards..!

kill them all......

they are responsible for the decline of grey bands in Texas!....

I bet Rt 277 has a bar full of drunken roadrunners all planning on snakeicide right now......

God bless the Coyote.....Acme must be stopped....it's products are inferior and coyotes are suffering....

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why am I here..........oh yea...it's like 18 degrees and the rodents are all fed, half in brumation and the other half fed....clean enough for me, wash done,dinner made eaten and dishes done twice....Oxycodone taken.....glasses...where the glasses...I can't see straight......

......on topic...(what forum is this?)....ball...ok.......

.....trying pastel everything....hoping for alot of pastel ghosts....I love them things .....(got three this year and kept them all of course...1.2 ).......bees, spinner, blasts,pastaves,,,,all the normal crap that everyone has already....LOL..... ridleyi doing ok......amel houses layed again yesterday, ...other batch didn';t hatch...might go bad...why not...they always do at the last minute....they suck...going out the door soon.........

have fun Yall.
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