Reptile & Amphibian Forums

below is a series of posts stating doing this would certainly be a terrible thing. why? and do we know this to be fact or something that is feared because the possibilities are too everwhelming to imagine? if it is fact then who did the unthinkable, and what did actually happen?

far to many things in this hobby are believed to be taboo and are never realy confirmed as to how anybody knows this. Its kind of like a game of telephone someone says something small the next thing you know the whole world will come to an abrupt end if you do this one small thing. how many times has someone said to you oh you better not do that, but you didnt take the advice and holy crap something incredible happened.
just food for thought

I too have always had that little question mark about this pairing,but will not act on it.
You can do what ever it is you want to do.The point people are trying to make is this.
When nothing special happens as we all know nothing special would come of this Kahl / Sharp pairing (95%-99% assured nothing special will occur).
Be prepared to keep all the babies.
Why do you have to keep all the babies ? Because if you sell them you will
screw up / mess up the entire Kahl / Sharp market.
Uncertainty will exist unscrupulous people will make false claims.

Not to mention the time it will take to prove this out will be many years .
At the end of which nothing special will have happened and many many question mark Boas will have been produced.

Dave Collings has written out the mathematics on this subject to
show just how immense the numbers are.

New comers will be even more confused if DH Kahl/Sharp Boas are everywhere.

Sometimes we have to protect ourselves from ourselves so to speak.
I hope this makes sense to you and helps you understand why this particular subject or pairing is one that just shouldn't occur.
Unless a person wants to keep probably possibly several hundred Boas that have no real use.

They cannot be released into the Boa market even as pets as far as I'm concerned
I'm not one that is in favor of making Boas and then culling
because they are not what you wanted.

Just a few of my thoughts on this subject

. . . Lar M

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Boas By Klevitz
Boas By Klevitz

The fact of the matter is that several hets of both strains have been sold in the pet trade, as well as to individuals, who then turn around and sell it to someone else as a normal. I would make a pretty good bet that both genes are are in many of the albinos and hets as well. No one who wants to sell one strain (kahl or sharp) will attempt this , because it will kill the value of the animals to nothing. "I think they might be sharps, because it hisses more, but he could be a Kahl because I can see a coral like dot on its nose". Not a lot of value in this scenario.

To breed them, to each other is useless. All of the normal hets would have to be bred back to each other, and if you have albinos, you wont know which strain. No new morph would be created. This is a total waste of "forum space" but I guess this subject confuses some people.

The breeding has been attempted, at least once by Brian Sharp and NO albino's were produced.

A huge problem is figuring out what you have when you breed the DH's back together.

If you take Brian's statement that it was done and got nothing but normals (BTW, I heard this directly from Brian in phone conversations we've had) as true, then it's fair to say the genes are not compatible.

If you agree with the genes being incompatible, then breeding would follow standard DH rules EXCEPT all the phenotypes are merged into two possible phenotypical outcomes, albino (unknown strain) or normal poss hets for either or both.

One other assumption, that you could not tell the kahl's and sharps apart from each other and that the double albino also was indistinguishable from the rest.

Out of a litter of 16 from a DH Kahl/Sharp x DH Kahl/Sharp you could expect (if the odds gods were perfectly fair)

1 Kahl and Sharp combined albino
2 Kahl albino, het sharp
1 Kahl albino
2 Sharp albino het Kahl
1 Sharp albino
9 normals 66$ het Kahl and 66% het sharp

But, if you couldn't tell the albino's apart, then it'd be
7 albinos some kahl, some sharp and one both
9 normals

The next problem comes in proving out and finding the double strain albino and the multitude of unknown status babies that would produce. You would have to breed each of the 7 albinos twice to prove it's status, once to a Kahl and once to a Sharp. Again if all went perfectly according the punnet with litters of 16 you would have...

48 Kahl albino het sharp
32 Kahl albino pos het sharp
16 het kahl pos het sharp
32 DH kahl/sharp
16 het sharp pos het kahl
32 sharp albino pos het kahl
48 sharp albino het kahl

All that and you've only produced and proven one kahl/sharp albino. (240 babies later)

The REAL problem comes later, all these babies with unknown albino genetics will be out there somewhere. Many being bred, some being sold as one strain or the other (could even be right anfd proven by breeding trials) BUT, there would always be the "other" strain genes floating around in each of the two gene pools. Meaning if you bred a het Sharp to a het Sharp (both descended from the original breecing trials, Some of them will be het for the other strain as well. That could result in multiple albino;s some of which are NOT the strain you think.

Could mess up many breeding projects!!
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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

I think that this has been the most useful reply to this question that I have seen on any forum. I respect the problem of what DH to DH would bring to the beeding aspect, but I think that the question that most people are trying to get at with posting this is:

Has anyone done the DH to DH and if so is the double albino indistinguishable from a Kahl or Sharp, or is it something "magnificent"?

Since searching for the answer comes up with little to no info, I am assuming that no one has done it, precisely for the reasons mentioned in the above post, so no one knows what the double homozygous form would look like.

I have noticed, too, that occationally there are albinos with birth defects, such as missing an eye/ or eyes. Is it true that albinos are more prone to birth defects and that may also be a good reason not to try to breed the two lines together?

Thanks for reading my thoughts and questions.
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Cheers,
Jessica
10.15 Ball Pythons; 8.9 Corn Snakes; 0.0.1 Green Tree Python
2.2 Jungle Carpet Pythons
6.6.1 Bci
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!

Thanks Jessica!

I think the real point here is, even if the homozygous Kahl/Sharp animal was magnificent, stunning, OMG gorgeous, what do you do with it? Making more is what comes to mind first!!! BUT, while making it and making more like it, you produce mountains of "dunno genetic" animals. AND, you would have to do a LOT of inbreeding. Every time you outcross to strengthen the line, you make yet another mountain of "dunno genetic" animals. It's all the mountains of "dunno genetic" animals that scares me. What to do with them and what projects are ruined by them being sold as one strain or the other or even simply not mentioning it's possible or even 100% het for the other strain. ANY and ALL albino projects other than dual Kahl/Sharp would NOT want these "dunno genetic" animals.

Example, you get a DH Kahl Sunglow, and then get a Albino to go with it. Unknown to you both are het for Sharp. You breed them and mybe the litter is a little heavy on Albino/Sunglow babies, maybe not. BUT, some of those babies would/could be Sharp Albino/Sunglows. Maybe you also don't get lucky enough to hit the dual strain sunglow so you don't even know. Not to mention ALL the babies would be pos het Sharp further propogating the "dunno genetics"!!!

Again, to sumarize my point, producing the dual strain animals would likely filter into other projects and potentially ruin them all!!
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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

The way I understand the story .The Sharp X Kahl breeding has occurred like Dave has stated.
The only thing left unmentioned here is I believe Heterozygous to Heterozygous was the pairing
Not Homozygous to Homozygous,but the point was still proven.
No Albino Boas occurred in the litter
Therefore the two strains are indeed incompatible

. . . Lar M
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Boas By Klevitz
Boas By Klevitz

The cross was done by Brian Sharp. He bred a het Kahl Male to his albino female. Litter was 17 all normal looking babies. To avoid the genetic nightmare of figuring out what was what, they were all sold as normals to the pet trade, NOT as breeders. Of course they could have been bred but the eventual owners would not know of the possible hidden genes.

This info came directly from Brian.
-----
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

Thanks Dave N/P
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Boas By Klevitz
Boas By Klevitz

The big problem is that the only thing people think about is “I wonder what a Sharp Kahl albino will look like”. No one thinks about the HUNDREDS of boas that will end up in the market in which nobody will know what genetics they are carrying. As far as we know someone might produce Kahl Sharp albinos, Kahl albinos het. Sharp and Sharp albinos het. Kahl and you may not be able to tell ANY of them apart! Just to prove those out you would need AT LEAST 2 more breedings for EVERY ALBINO in that litter! Since it would be IMPOSSIBLE to determine genetics until after 4 generation breedings what would happen to the hundreds of boas produced in between? We need to use a little more common sense here.

I think the likelihood of a double homozygous Kahl Sharp Albino being distinguishable from either lone strain is incredibly slim.
I know someone who had a litter of Albino Atrox with 3 different strains of albinism in the same litter! There were more T negative appearing babies born than there were either strain of T positive in the litter. Some of the the T negative babies were also likely homozygous for one or both other strains of albino, but were indistinguishable from the T negative type.

>The cross was done by Brian Sharp. He bred a het Kahl Male to his albino female. Litter was 17 all normal looking babies.

In other words, the probability that the Kahl and Sharp albino mutant genes are not compatible is not 100% but a mere 99.9992%.

Paul Hollander