Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is there any problems with the Caramel? There was someone taking about the problematic naturally of some recessive ball mutations and he say that (caramel is the only one I can think of). I'm thinking about getting a female HET and would like to know if there is anything to it?

caramels are known to hatch out with bad kinks.

go to youtube and look at one of Ralph Davis' videos of caramel albino. He explains it pretty well and shows an example of one with the kink.

far more caramels are hatched every year without kinks than those with. i PERSONALLY believe that it was inbreeding to produce the trait quickly than it is a flaw in the mutation. you can find kink free caramels with ease.

Do you have some percentages of kinked vs unkinked caramels from big producers and confirmation that it's getting better over time? Just as you pointed out that you can find unkinked caramels now someone pointed out that you can find super cinnamon/black pastels without the platypus nose (or kinks). However, in both cases I wonder if the percentages are actually getting better or if it's just that more are being produced now so that there are more perfect ones available along with more problem ones that never get shown on the Internet. The only percentage I’ve ever heard for either of these problems was that about half of the imported caramels where kinked.

I wouldn't be so sure of that -- seems like they've hit the price where everyone can afford to work with them so you see more of them -- but I'm betting there is still the same percentage of kinked ones hitting the freezers.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Randy and Tosha -- I will be hopefully getting as many as 9 Het X Het clutches (SK and NERD)-- if everything goes perfectly -- which is not likely!!! However it turns out, I will be posting detailed and HONEST results. I realize it will not be a big enough sample to mean much.

I am making some Upscale codom Hets with my Caramel male as well. I plan to work the Upscale line in with the sk and NERD next season. Upscales have had a good buzz thus far with regards to kinking. I try not to think about the kinking as much much as I am able. Do you think that will help my outcome this season? lol
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Bill Buchman

We are working with the Upscale line also. I've heard that the Upscale line doesn't have a kinking problem. I'd like to know if anyone has had kinks in the Upscale line. We will hopefully get 3 clutches from NERD line hets to our Upscale male.
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Randy and Michelle
Art In Scales
(719) 439-4199
info@artinscales.com

Now i have to think if i'm going to pick one female het this coming show or pass on it and get something else? The thing is that i stikk like their look.

to have a caramel you have to buy them or make them...
there is potential for kinks in all
there is potential for kinks in all baby snakes...

buy the het female......get a good ,big one that had no kinked relatives...then buy an unrelated het male or caramel male...

...keep them as unrelated as possible....
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.....................................
....dumbest thing ever created...
NO, not a hybrid....well....it is becoming one....

This was my first year producing caramels. Using a het x het breeding with 9 eggs I hatched out 2 caramels. One had just the tip of her tail kinked while the other has 2 nasty kinks along her spine.
Next was a caramel x pastel het caramel. I hatched a pastel caramel in this clutch that had a couple of kinks down it's back which resulted in its death once it emerged out of the egg.
As far a I know all of my hets' are from the upscale line and my caramel male is from NERD's line.
I have talked with a few breeders and they all say the same thing: one year you might hatch 50 caramels with 45 having kinks, and the next year you will hatch more caramels with only 5 having kinks.
However I have heard of a new african line that is pretty much GUARANTEEING no kinked babies. But those are still very young animals. Hope this helped.

I think kinking is the cost of working with a spectacular morph. Some keepers will choose not to work with them -- and I respect that decision. However, I also believe that perfect, healthy Caramels should (and will in my collection) be valued at HIGH premium. Just my 2 cents.
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Bill Buchman

But at the same time the high chance of kinks could drop the price. Because even a healthy looking caramel will throw kinked off spring. And unless this is a trait that can be bred out of the morph more and more people will probably stop working with them instead of just creating freezer babies.
just my 2 cents.

Reticbreeder, thanks so much for the info. I think sharing info on this problem is an important step toward finding a solution.

The report of the kinking percentage varying from year to year (presumably the same animals) is very interesting. Of course it could just be random variation but it makes me wonder more than ever if there couldn't be an environmental factor that helps reduce a genetic tendency to kink. If we could just find out what that factor is perhaps we could virtually eliminate the problem. I'm wondering if there is some vitamin that caramels can't make and maybe by supplementing your rats with folic acid or something like that you could increase your odds of healthy babies.

There is also the angle of the new line(s). I've heard of Crider and a line that is being captive bred in Africa and I'm not sure if those are both the same or not but understand that neither is compatible with caramel so technically shouldn't be called caramels even though they look very similar. The big advantage of finding a solution to the kinking in the caramel line over just replacing it with new similar looking morphs without kinking is that there are way more caramel gene animals already in collections. Hopefully a solution can be found to leverage that existing investment of time, money, and labor.

Good posts everyone. I personally like the look of spiders, caramels, and black pastels(personal note: I did get a pair of ch black pastels really cheap so that is my exception) but have decided to wait on purchasing them for some years for other people to breed and find out if the problems related to those morphs are genetic, environmental incubation, or what ever other possiblility. It would be wonderful if it is not genetic but they all seem like they are going to be that way. I tend to doubt the possiblilty of inbreeding especialy in the codoms since you out breed and first gen you get the morph. As far as the recessive I doubt inbreeding too I mean look at hamsters. How long have hamsters been in cativity? Most hamsters came from a single pair and lots of inbreeding went on there. Hamsters do not have genetic defects from years of inbreeding. So why would caramel balls have such defect so early on in the inbreeding process? Another example is the leopard gecko. Those have been inbreed for over twenty years now with no ill effects so far. I am not trying to promote inbreeding but I do agree some of it does need to be done to further morphs. My point is that inbreeding is less likly to be the cause for these defects we see in a few morphs.

I am going to say one thing about the geckos. Yes alot of people line breed there geckos to get certain traits.
But one thing that does pop up in leapord geckos from in breeding is a Kinked tail. And that is usualy when the breeder stops the breeding of what ever sex caused it. It can be very easy to tell if its the mail cause we usualy breed one mail to multiple females. And usualy the kink tail will show in a couple of the clutches.
The big difference is most gecko breeders would stop the lizard from ever breeding again. Where in ball pythons its just to expensive to stop that caramel from breeding since they cost so much. It very well could be a in breeding thing, diet or possibly a temp issue that happens inside incubation.

I never heard of the tail kink prob on leopard geckos. I have seen a few babies with kink tails over the years but always assumed it was just an occasional defect. I guess if the gecko lost it's tail it would still grow back kinked or does it come back normal? Thanks for the post on it.

There from time to time is a tail kink problem in leapord geckos. But you dont hear about it so much cause most of the breeders just stop breeding them.
But I sometimes hear of talk of the dishonest breeders clipping the tails of the gecko and then selling the babies off as geckos who had regrown tails and not as actual tail kinks.

has anyone bred from a kinked caramel yet?? and what where the results? does the kinking automatically move on thru the generations??

cheers
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Dave

10.14 brbs

Hamsters do not have genetic defects from years of inbreeding.

Never heard of eyeless white? Breed two roans and you get an eyeless white hamster. If memory serves it also lacks teeth!

The comparison of hamster to ball python is not a fair one. We are really just getting started with ball pythons but hamsters have 50 years of history. Back in the early days there were plenty of genetic problems. They were sorted out thru careful breeding and culling of the mutants and the heterozygote parents. Sadly, a $5000 snake is very hard to cull. BUT, it simply must be done. At the very least one must be willing to isolate the mutant and/or heterozygote specimen reproductively from the population.

The fact is 50 years and many generations of breeding and brutal culling is exactly the reason there are few problems remiaing in the population.

The hamster made it over the hump, with enough un-affected (or un-effected I forget which) animals identified to keep the species going. The question is do the caramel's in the USA have this? They can certainly break your heart.

I'd like to also add to the "nutritional genetic mutation" idea brought up earlier. This is something few have considered for herps until now. What if he is right and all that is needed is a thiamine supplement or some similar, maybe an amino acid to make up for the genetic defect.

If someone discovered you could keep caramels from kinking by feeding cream cheese to the rats before feeding the mother snake, would this be OK? Would we still want to continue the breed? Would an unscrupulous breeder hide this trade secret and be the only breeder with un-kinked animals? Thus, keeping this market for himself.

Would spiderballs be OK if ACTH stopped the twitches?

Just an idea. Food for thought. I love bumblebees!

I offer no solutions or answers. Just questions. Sorry. With the right questions we maybe-can solve the problems. Happy New year!

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