Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i think this a topic that does not get any real discussion. even though cinnies are extremely common and by now many people have done cinny x cinny pairings, we see very few supers posted - so something seems odd to me. where are the all healthy, non kinked, non duck-billed super cinnamons that we should be seeing posted as commonly as we do on all the other super projects?

i say this because this season, in two clutches, i hatched four supers and three were flawed. which sent me researching to see whats has been posted on cinny x cinny. i found that if you search this forum and other sites you will find people stating that they have heard of kinking problems or the supers they've seen at shows had kinks, etc - but no one seems to come out and say "i hatched a kinked super cinnamon". but there seems to "almost" be a common knowledge that the pairing is a venture that can cause birth defects. i did not know this and wish i had before i ventured into this project; and helping others avoid this pitfall is the main reason for this post.

i want to put this out there as i think it worth exploring, worth discussing. is it better to get yr supers from black pastel x cinnamon? is the cinnamon x cinnamon pairing often flawed the way some other gene pairings can often be?

in an earlier post, someone asked where i got my cinnamons... the person that sold them to me did not hatch them out himself - they came from multiple places. he also never bred them, so this is not a reflection on his stock, as he does not have cinny stock. i don't think it's a reflection on the original stock or the individual snakes either - as from these 2 cinn x cinn clutches, i got 8 non super snakes (2 normal / 6 cinnamon) and all ate within a week of their first shed and all are robust, healthy, beautiful, normal in every way snakes. so the flaw resides completely in the supers. i had 4 supers: one perfect / one kinked (pic below) but eating well and seemingly strong / one visually perfect non-kinked that died the day it hatched / and one kinked that also died the day it hatched.

the two kinked both had / have this paradox look. the one that died much more so.

thanks in advance for any feedback to this discussion.

-paul

that is the whole point to breeding cinny x black or black x cinny, you get supers without brith defects. E

i understand that evan. but does everyone? because i certainly missed that till i went looking for it after the fact.

my point being that i am a very small time hobbyist saying this, but none of the major players (to my knowledge) have come out and said it. of those that sell cinnies regularly, are they dissuading the newbie from the pairing? are they saying "hey i notice yr buying a male and a female fr
from me... i hope you know mating them together can cause kinks or death"...?

You still get deformities with the combo - but they seem to be less. I'd certainly recommend it over doing the super.

I did cinny x cinny this season I went into it fully expecting kinks and cleft pallets and what not - ended up with two supers that look good but one has a bit of a dome head - I consider myself rather lucky - won't likely push my luck try it again.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Herp Medicine does not equal a bottle of Baytril - Dr. Scott Stahl

I don't think it is so much that as it is like caramel albinos. You can breed caramel x het and get perfect babies or you can breed het x het and get kinks. Why? Who do some lines of caramels kink more than others? I think that when Ian G., BHB and a couple other people did black pastel x cinnamon and hit nice, flawless supers that as that point it became pretty much common knowledge that it was a potential solution to the birth defects that Chris Mcquade encountered when he did the first black pastel x black pastel. The duckbills, kinked spines and narrow heads. Without or without knowing 100% for sure why it happens on the genetic level in some cases and not in others will take some work at a scientific level way beyond ours, but knowing now that you can do cinny x black to solve the problem is good news for us. Just like caramel x hypo is a great way to avoid caramel kinks by going for caramel glows. E

>> Just like caramel x hypo is a great way to avoid caramel kinks by going for caramel glows. E

Where did you hear this?
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John Vandegrift

For the handful of genes we see that make a "morph", there are a ton we don't see that effect everything inside the snake.

>>For the handful of genes we see that make a "morph", there are a ton we don't see that effect everything inside the snake.

Of course, I am just doubting the validity of the previous statement about hypos having an effect on whether or not the caramels kink.
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John Vandegrift

Wow, how to twist words and change meanings. I never said that. What I saying is that by outbreeding the caramel to the hypo the diversified genetics avoid the kinking. I have only seen about 10 caramel glow, but not one has been kinked, I have never seen a double het caramel glow or het caramel that was kinked. So outbreeding the gene seems to eliminate kinking. Are you going to say that I am wrong? That by breeding the caramel to the hypo you do not avoid kinking from breeding caramel x caramel or het???

>>Wow, how to twist words and change meanings. I never said that. What I saying is that by outbreeding the caramel to the hypo the diversified genetics avoid the kinking. I have only seen about 10 caramel glow, but not one has been kinked, I have never seen a double het caramel glow or het caramel that was kinked. So outbreeding the gene seems to eliminate kinking. Are you going to say that I am wrong? That by breeding the caramel to the hypo you do not avoid kinking from breeding caramel x caramel or het???

Not trying to twist your words at all. I thought you were trying to say that the hypo gene somehow prevents kinking.

I do think that outbreeding probably does little to prevent kinking. I think it is just part of the gene that they are more prone to kinking. I think lower incubation temps may have more of a chance to lessen kinking in caramels more so than outcrossing. There are plenty of people breeding very outcrossed and totally unrelated caramels that still produce some kinked babies. Kinking does not show up in the hets so I am not sure what you are trying to say with those examples?

Not trying to start an argument. Just my thoughts and I did not understand what you were trying to say about the hypos.
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John Vandegrift

but if you dispute outbreeding as a solution, why are so many people producing caramel pastels, caramel pinstripes, carmel glows and other combos without kinks? They are incubating them same as all other ball python eggs and the combos are coming out perfect. then you have a larger breeder (I will not post the name) that is producing a large number of caramels like they have for years and they have kinks, narrow heads and other b grade caramels for sale. I am wanting to argue with you but I think you are ignoring pretty strong evidence to the contrary of what you are saying.

I was at a friends house tonight and looked at several adult caramel glows and a carmel pinstripe and they could not have been more perfect.

Are you overlooking the probability that people just aren't posting up their kinked train wrecks for the world to look at?
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Herp Medicine does not equal a bottle of Baytril - Dr. Scott Stahl

There are PLENTY of kinked caramel combo morphs out there... The first caramel g-stripe was kinked. There is probably a pic of it on here from last year if you look around for it. Combo morphs are probably more inbred than most other snakes just because most people end up breeding the double hets that are brother/sister Also, many caramels only have a tiny kink at the very end of their tail that many people do not even notice unless you are really looking for it. There are also breeders that will snip off the end of the tail to try to hide the kinking. I am not trying to ignore anything. There have been WC caramels imported kinked. Out breeding will not eliminate kinking. I wish it did, but if that were the case the problem would have been solved by now. It's a good idea to outbreed every morph, but so far the evidence points towards it not eliminating kinking in caramels. Again, I am not trying to argue with you, but you seem to be using a very small sample size to base your conclusions on. Tosha brought up a good point about people not posting images of tweaked snakes. It would be bad for business to do that, and I think Ralph may be the only one that actually came out and posted some of his kinked snakes. There are plenty of perfect camarels produced each year, but there are also plenty of imperfect ones. I have been lucky so far and have not produced a kinked baby, but I know if I am going to work with caramels the chance is there. I also wonder how many caramels out there that look to be perfect may have very small kinks that would only be noticable on xrays?
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John Vandegrift

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/90707stripedcarmel.jpg
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John Vandegrift

you do not even have to go that far, the genes that you do see, the color and pattern "morphs" are birth defects. they are derrogotory mutations. in the wild white, orange, yellow, purple, etc., colored ball pythons can not survive nearly as easily or as well as a normal wild type/colored one. If you had a person born with yellow skin like the simpsons it would be a birth defect and nobody would rush to say it was cool and we should breed them to other colors to see what they produce.

I purposefully bought a black pastel female this weekend to pair with my cinnamon male so I would not have the problems associated with cinny x cinny breedings when I do start breeding in a couple years.

I do think it's a fairly well known issue, at least, for people who spend any time on ball python forums. I have heard about duck bills & kinks for a couple months.
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BALL PYTHONS
1.0 08 Mojave
1.0 08 Cinnamon
1.1 09 Het Caramel albino
1.1 09 Het VPI Axanthic
0.1 09 Piebald
0.1 09 VPI Axanthic
0.1 09 Orange Ghost
0.1 09 Black Pastel
0.1 09 Pinstripe
0.1 08 Spider
0.2 07/08 Pastel
0.4 Normal
OTHER SNAKES
1.0 Albino Boa
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
0.1 Jungle Carpet Python
0.1 Western Hognose
1.2 Corn Snake
LIZARDS
1.1 Bearded Dragon - Orin & Sierra
0.0.1 Red/Blue Hybrid Tegu - Jackson
MAMMALS
0.1 American Bulldog - Maui Rose
0.1 Shiba Inu - Mako (Starlite's Shark Attack)
1.0 American Pit Bull Terrier - Magnum TT, CGC, TDI
2.0 White DSH Cats - Lucaya (Luke) & Fiji
1.0 Cinnamon Pinto Hedgehog - Niles

lol same here. i feel most people have been pretty open about the probs with cinnyxcinny or BlackPxBlackp and has been said a few times how a cinnyXblack has better outcomes. personally i dont mind a slight duck bill. i think its kinda interesting lol tho the kinks i am worried about thats why i chose to do a future pairing of cinny x black to slim the chances.

hypo rainbows are another good example. it isnt best to do hypo x hypo and always best to do unrelated animals. outcrossing is always best when dealing with any kind of species to help with stronger blood.

all just my opinion

Has anyone produced a super from black to cinny that was deformed?

Has every cinny to black pairing produced perfect supers?
Anyone on the board want to post pics of their supers from cinny to black pairings?

Not calling you a liar Evan or trying to start a war. I too have seen a few supers with good conformity.....supers that were apparently from black to cinny pairings.....so I see and know the truth in your statement.

But I hear it being throw around a lot....often as the solution to the flawed project. I often wonder if it is the perfect answer.

Joe Compel
Joe Compel Reptiles

i dont think cinny x black makes for all perfect babies but it does help the cause. just my .02 cents

I am not saying it is 100% as I have no idea if it is. nobody can know of every animal produced from a project that is so long in the market and so many animals produced now but I personaly have not seen or heard of any deformed black x cinny and have seen over a dozen people with them in person and many on the computer.

I highly doubt that is 100%.....apparently it isn't from what Tosha posted.

But it is a pairing worth pursuing if it produces healthy supers at a greater percentage than cinny to cinny or black to black.

I guess my question is (and it isn't directed at you) how many train wrecks are there from cinny to black pastel that we aren't hearing about. I really hope that it isn't many and that this pairing does produce clean supers at a greater rate....I would love it.
Joe Compel Reptiles

well we know 1 thing for sure, you get better quality supers more often from crossing the two lines than from breeding them together. that in itself is a big help. if you did something else to your breeding say like hypo black pastel x hypo cinny or cinny het hypo, I would bet that the supers het and the super hypos would be excellent. again furthuring the distance between the identical breeding of black x black or cinny x cinny.

I would be willing to make you a friendly bet Joe that the more you move away from the cinny x cinny or black x black formula to produce your supers the less problems you will have until at some point you find breedings that eliminate them completely. Really if you think about it, it is surprising that there are not more birth defects and negative outcomes from so many mutations in ball pythons.

that while I have seen a couple of animals to support it, I am NOT sure that you get better quality supers more often.....in fact I am starting to doubt that the pairing produces clean supers at a better rate than cinny to cinny or black to black.
I haven't seen enough to solidify it for me.

"if you did something else to your breeding say like hypo black pastel x hypo cinny or cinny het hypo, I would bet that the supers het and the super hypos would be excellent."

Why? How is breeding a cinny to a hypo (to make a cinny het hypo) any different from breeding a cinny to a normal (to make cinnys "het" normal)? Regular cinnies and black pastels are pretty outcrossed......people breed them to unrelated normals all the time to produce more offspring.
How is breeding a cinny het hypo to black pastel het hypo any different from breeding cinny to black?
Do you think it is the "normal" part of the equation in cinny and blacks that is responsible for the defects?

The panda pied is a super black pastel piebald.....it doesn't seem to me like the pied gene made things any better.

"that the more you move away from the cinny x cinny or black x black formula to produce your supers the less problems you will have until at some point you find breedings that eliminate them completely"
I hope this is true.....and even though I am skeptical of the black to cinny pairing producing better supers more often, I hope that it is true. I do believe that if we keep working with the project that even if we can't eliminate the defects, we can drastically reduce them.

"Really if you think about it, it is surprising that there are not more birth defects and negative outcomes from so many mutations in ball pythons."
I totally agree with you on this

Joe Compel Reptiles

Agree completely

I also am not sure what Evan is trying to say about the combo morphs being more outcrossed. If anything combos are usually MORE in-bred than if you just buy two cinny's, black pastels, or cinny/Black pastel from two different random breeders and pair them up.
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John Vandegrift

I had a local breeder offer me a kinked cinny x bp if I wanted it as he was going to put it down -- since I have been known to take in and work with some hard cases he thought he'd give me a shot -- it was severely kinked and I did not believe it would be able to thrive so I didn't take it.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Herp Medicine does not equal a bottle of Baytril - Dr. Scott Stahl

I think it has been pretty well known for years. I remember Ralph posting on his birthing records a few seasons ago that he didn't think there was any hope for the project.

Just checked, it's clutch 2 in 07.
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John Vandegrift

But I have seen a couple of supers in person with decent conformity. This gives me hope that things can be worked out......this is why I still work with this project.

Cinnies by themselves are a great morph.
I have seen some crazy black pastels.
Pewters are UNREAL to work with.
Cinnies, black pastels, and all the other variants/alleles of this morph are going to provide insane new morphs in the future.

But the idea of a black ball python is why I got into this project.....and I still see the merit in working the project even with the flaws. I think it can be worked out or at least worked around.

There are lots of things we should try (maybe different incubation temps or humidity) and stuff that I have heard that works......like cinny to black crosses.

But I have grown to question the validity of everything I hear in the bp world....for similar reasons that you mentioned in your post.

Paul.....I appreciate your honesty and sincerity. We need more of it in this hobby.

Joe Compel
Joe Compel Reptiles

thank you joe, i appreciate that.

like others are saying, i think duck-billing has been a topic people have discussed as many are comfortable with a little duck-billing if they get a basically otherwise all black snake - and you really cant avoid the topic if you post a duck-billed snake. certainly i miss days, maybe sometimes weeks when i'm too busy to keep up on this forum, BUT i dont feel like anyone is discussing openly kinks and death on cinny x cinny - and while i dont follow many other ball python forums, i have googled the hell out of this topic and i dont see it... so if anyone wants to point me in a direction or a forum where kinks and dead offspring have been openly discussed as possible outcomes in cinny x cinny pairings, i'd want to see those posts. very few seem to say it happened to them.

either way, whether i've been paying proper attention or not, i'm happy this thread is here for others to see to make up their own minds as to whether this is a project they want to get involved in.

>>There are lots of things we should try (maybe different incubation temps or humidity) and stuff that I have heard that works......like cinny to black crosses.

>>Joe Compel
>>Joe Compel Reptiles

I hope the incubation temp helps. I really think that may be the key to limiting kinking with the caramels so hopefully it helps with kinks in the super black pastels as well. I have everything a bit low this year so I am hoping to get lucky and get all unkinked caramels again this year
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John Vandegrift

although I have to admit I still am skeptical to a degree on the whole lowering the temp thing.....it just seems like a silver bullet type of solution.

With that being said, I incubated everything at 86 this season. Contradicting myself, ain't I?
It hasn't had any ill effects. My eggs are taking longer to hatch. I just hatched a clutch from het carm to possible het carm.....no kinks.....no caramels either though

Good luck on producing caramels.
Joe Compel Reptiles

I figure it can't hurt. They long incubation is killing me though. I just had a clutch of lessers that took 71 days to finally come out of the egg.
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John Vandegrift

me too! I have been between 68-72 days for most of my clutches. The added weight isn't fun. My hatchlings have been plump though....I'm not positive that it is due to the lower temps but I'll take what I can get.
Joe Compel Reptiles

I agree, the wait is brutal! I incubated a clutch of 6 eggs from a lemon pastel female to a fire, cinnamon and a pinstripe last year at 87 degrees. It took 67 days and I got six fat healthy babies. I got 0.1 pewter, 1.1 cinnamon pastels, 1.0 pinstripes, 0.1 fire, and 1.0 normal.

Here are a couple of non kinked ones we produced this year. I will get better pics of them tomorrow.
Link

>>Here are a couple of non kinked ones we produced this year. I will get better pics of them tomorrow.
>>Link

Those look good. Could you get closer up pics. What was the pairing?
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John Vandegrift

This was a Cinni to Cinny breeding from the Graziani line of Cinnamons. I will get some close up shots.

The first CinnyXBlkPastel 'Super' I saw (in 2007) had a deformed nose.

(I don't doubt that Cinny X BPastel reduces defects, but it's not 100%.......)

And I recall that not everyone could seem to agree what IS the defect exactly, or to what degree does it have to occur to BE a defect.

I've seen photos of duck-billed Supers in ads that claim them to be 'perfect in every way'....

I KNOW what to avoid.
The less-seasoned Super Cinnamon purchaser may not know exactly what to look for and avoid.

To anyone selling Super Cinnys....
Do one of the following, please...

a) mention if the Super is or is not defective
b) provide a photo of the Super's head.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I see ads for Super Cinnys with no mention of noses/defects, and pictures of the snakes slithering away, I can't help but be a little skeptical.

Between breeders 'claiming' to not know what the defect is, past scams in the Ball market, and the overall muddiness of the whole 'Duck-Billed Super Cinnamon' subject, it's entirely understandable, and probably practical, that anyone looking towards a Super Cinny project would be leery or cynical.

BB

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"Have you hugged your drummer today?" --- Me

....to add to the discussion.

Well this doesn't look too bad - right?

Close up of head - still not too bad right?

Same snake in profile

Straight on shot.

This is his brother - not perfect but decent.

Something I really hadn't noticed before but when I went back to look at super heads - there are a lot that have that bowl look to the top of their forehead head even in the super crosses - and they are being considered "perfect" - I think people have been too busy looking at the snout to notice the eyebrows (I know I was) -- and from goofing around with the camera for a dozen or so shots - it's pretty easy to hide in pictures as well.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Herp Medicine does not equal a bottle of Baytril - Dr. Scott Stahl

....the best shot, most accurate & honest photos of Super Cinnamons I have ever seen.

Great job of illustrating the 'defects' for those who can't see them.

The only better illustration is to handle an actual Super Cinny in person. (I have, at a show, and saw the tremendous defect that the breeder claimed wasn't there. LOL)

Again, Kudos to you for the photographs.

BB
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"Have you hugged your drummer today?" --- Me

>>
>>The only better illustration is to handle an actual Super Cinny in person. (I have, at a show, and saw the tremendous defect that the breeder claimed wasn't there. LOL)
>>
>>Again, Kudos to you for the photographs.

Yea, I really love the "optical illusion" argument.
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John Vandegrift

What kind of camera did you take the pics with Tosha? They show great detail and all the photos are AWESOME.

hey tosha, thanks for posting them. beautiful shots btw.

just a thought - and i may be way off... i know super cinny x het red has been done by rdr and those are very cool looking, but someone recently posted black pastel x an import they think is cinnamon probably an extra gene as they came out very different - and quite healthy. he got extremely cool supers. i think the snake in question looks like a low grade red axanthic (or maybe het red w/cinny)... if you really look at these animals, they have many of the same visual traits as cinnies... so i'm wondering what a true red axanthic x cinny or black pastel is going to do. can it create a black snake?

We were blessed by hatching out this 1.1 pair of Super Cinnamons. These came from a Cinny x Cinny breeding from the Graziani line. Neither one is kinked and there heads look like most other Cinnamons. Sorry about the picture quality as I am still learning my camera.

Not sure how to post more than one picture so here is the female.

Hey Paul, Evan or any one else in the know or breeding these. I picked up 1.1 Beautiful Black Pastels from Chris and Sheila that will breed next year. I used my male to a female Pastel and made a great Black Pewter from this pairing this year. I know not to breed the Blacks together so I also bought 1.2 late 07 Cinnimons from Stan Ruppel and they should go this fall. I will as I have planned from the beginning use the Black male to the Cinnie females and the Cinnie male to the Black female and as I did this year also breed some of my Pastels to the Blacks and Cinnies for more Pewters like I did this year although all I got out of 4 eggs was 1 Pewter female and 1.2 what look to be like Granites I would say. Showed them to a friend that has been breeding longer than myself because I know these babies didnt look Normal and didnt quite look Black Pastel. He said he didnt think they were BP but looked very different from the other Normals and said they looked Granite to him. Strange but great looking babies so maybe I will keep the .2 or even the 1.2 like I need another Normal type and see what they do with something else down the road. Great conversation on the Supers of the two different ones. It does make me glad that I was planning on the BP x Cinnie and visa versa with these great snakes.. Thanks for all the pictures you guys have posted. The ones that look very normal and the one or ones with the terrible kinks. ou were all very gracious to do that for the rest of us to learn from. Jay
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JEM from sunny AZ.

2.25 Normals
5.12 Pastels
3.7 Normal Spiders
1.1 Spiders 100% het Ghost(thanks Mark Petros)
0.2 Spiders 66% het Ghost
1.3 Orange/Butterscotch Ghosts(BallPython777 Mark Petros)
0.6 100% het Orange Ghosts
0.3 66% het Orange Ghosts
0.1 Pastel Ghost
1.0 Citrus Ghost
0.1 Super Pastel 100% het Ghost
2.0 Albinos
1.0 Caramel Albino
0.1 100% het Caramel Albino
0.4 100% het for Albino
0.3 66% het for Albino
0.1 50% het for Albino
0.2 Yellow Bellies
1.0 Pastel Yellow Belly
1.2 100% het for Clowns
1.2 Cinnamons
1.2 100% het for Pied
0.3 66% het for Pied
1.3 Mojaves
1.1 Beautiful Black Pastels(thanks Gulf Coast Reptiles)
1.1 BumbleBees(thanks for the AWESOME Bees Marc Bailey)
0.1 Pewter
0.1 Chocolates(Thanks Brandon of Priceless Pythons)
1.1 Lessers
2.1 Fire's(Thanks Brandon of Priceless Pythons)
1.2 High White Calico's(Thanks Brent from BRB)
1.1 SpotNoses(Thanks Brandon of Priceless Pythons)
1.1 Enchi's
1.0 Pinstripe
0.1 Lemon Blast
1.0 Vanilla Ghost(Thanks again GCR for all the great snakes)
1.1 Stillwater Hypo Bull snakes
0.0.1 Vietnamese Blue Beauty
17 Tarantulas
Last but most Important 2.2 Children