Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I saw an ad today, here on Kingsnake where someone was selling a female who was produced from breeding two different strains of albino. He put a huge price tag on her and hyped her up saying she was a "one of a kind double het" Now as a breeder of leopard geckos and snakes. I know one of the hugest no-no's is mixing albino strains together. Its called "Muddying the Water" and is very looked down upon by almost all breeders. Mainly cause if you breed this het female to one of those two strains of albino, your going to forever have a line of possible mixed albinos, never knowing which it is that's showing up in the offspring. It makes the genetics very complicated and confusing. In my opinion, ruining a project completely. What is your opinion on it guys?

I am no expert but these are not leopard gecko genes that we are talking about. do you know that the lines look completely different?? good example: yellow, orange and red albino have been dirrived from the same line achieving variation through outcrossing, the pink pastel albino is a totally seperate non compatible line hence the double het you are reffering to. as far as being looked down apon I dont think that is the case here because the lines are very easy to tell apart (yellow,red,orange vs pink) and many of us here are breeding for combo morphs and this is just one of the possibilities
thank you
Adam

the first post is orange albino and his mate
this post is a pink pastel and his mate
thank you
Adam

Leopard geckos aren't the only thing I breed. I have hognose snakes as well as carpet pythons, ball pythons, redtail boas and kingsnakes.
I know that the different albino strains look different also. As I have both pink, orange and reds. I consider the orange and reds the same line, with just red introduced. There's a big difference between working with combo morphs and mixing albino strains. And you may be able to tell the difference when you look at a pure animal, but if you mix the lines it may make it difficult over time. Which is the concern I have and what has made mixing albino strains and anery strains so looked down upon by many breeders. I cant imagine how mixing these two would benefit any breeder at all. If anything it makes people concerned if what they are buying from that breeder is pure, or if it has some unknown muddying.

First of all.. How many hognose do you keep and how many have you bred? How many pink pastels have you seen? 
Second.. I've been busting my A.. working on these hognose morphs since 2003(especially the pinks)in a circle of my peers and fellow breeders I am quite respected as a responciple breeder..not much I could do to be looked down upon. Especially when anyone who knows me know what kind of dude I am. 
Third...the rediculace price tag...?? PSHHH..Well since you know the Hognose market so well you definatly know that...Fresh from the egg a single het ppa female if $500 same with the extreme red hets. So is $2000 a rediculace price tag for an adult snake with both genetics? These are not $16.38 leopard geckos with 50,000 other breeders producing the same ol' junk for the past 30 years-?
(at least not yet)
What about hybinos in hognose? You can't decipher the double homo's because our hypos are actually t plus binos. BUT,,, when u breed pastel pinks into our hypos the double homo is a pink glows which has nothing muddy about it. It's a very easy to decipher crazy rare morph. 
I could go on... Toffee x amel has been done by a ton of top breeders simply because we all think that the snake will look like the hybino but will be able to see the double homo due to the paradoxing from the toffees. 
There is also double het caramel albino x albinos... Lavender x amel double hets out there now. 
My point is this... How are we going to know what genes do what together unless we do the dam breeding?
I love this snake hommie and that's the beauty of being a hobbiest first and for most. This is a breedable animal and if I am going to let her go it will be for what I THINK she is worth not random people who see a price tag and drop 2 pennies of under developed knowledge about the subject. 
This is an opportunity for someone to get something that there is literally only a small handful of that has potential to be something awesome and new. 

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**Joe Schmidt-
3rdroomreptiles.com

hey joe you hit the nail right on the head
and if I wasnt buying a house right now I would be driving up to see you about that girl

Adam Switzer

I take great offense to your "these aren't leopard geckos" comment. I happen to have a passion for leopard geckos. Perhaps like you have a passion for Hognose. Please do not degrade my passion like that, because it is no different than your own.
H.I.S.S.

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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me

Kelli-
I ment no disrespect in my comment so if that's how u personally took it
Please accept my apology.
I also breed and love leopard geckos,,was simply making a point with the reference and the numbers.
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**Joe Schmidt-
3rdroomreptiles.com

,lol please girl.

Well I guess its only fair for you to question my knowledge on the subject since I questioned your methods of breeding. I've been breeding/keeping reptiles for as long as I can remember. My very first snake was a wild caught eastern hognose when I was 8. I learned about genetics at a very early age cause I grew up on a farm. Of course I know genetics varies from one animal to the next. But one thing remains the same when it comes to every albino animal that has more then one line that are incompatible with each other. Mix it up, and eventually your not going to be able to tell the difference. And then what do you label your animal as when your selling it to someone else? "Pink.. no wait.. orange.. oh darn I'm not sure.. so lets just call it a new morph" why cause you cant tell any more~ You said so yourself, its been done, with other lines of albino, and the proof is in the pudding, after a while, you wont be able to tell which is an orange and which is a pink (for example) coming out of those eggs. Why is that a bad thing? Well say I wanted to breed one of these "double hets" of yours to another morph that's het for albino. Well when those eggs hatch, how am I suppose to know which albino line took to that snake I bred it to? You said that you can tell the two apart easily, but can you tell hets apart? Then you'd be stuck with the issue of labeling it as a "possible this and possible that" who wants to buy something that they possibly don't know what it is? Also its already been done. You said "how are we suppose to find out?" Well I'll tell you how, when the pink pastels popped up, of course people bred them to other albinos to find out that they wasn't compatible and indeed a new line of albinos.
The bottom line is, you can get defensive and ask all your buddies to come have your back and agree with you all you like, but its your future in breeding that your screwing up not mine.

I would say you would know what line took as you would most likely know what albino type het your other snakes is. I might be misunderstanding your question, maybe your talking about mixing say the yellow line with extreme red or mixing
an orange to red is that what you are getting at??
by the way to the previous poster I in no way slammed on leopard geckos I simply stated that these are not loepard gocko genes we were talking about, I to have a passion for loe's have kept them for 10 years used to breed them years ago but not anymore
thanks
Adam

Yea look at all my friends sticking up for me.Lol.. My one friend Adam who I haven't talked to in 3 years and hasn't posted here in the same amount of time?
Dude.. I agree with some of the stuff you say about breeding albino x albino. 
 look down half a page at the huge convo we all had about accurately disclosing genetics. I'm just as over that convo and this one. I never questioned your genetic knowledge it's clear you know what you are talking about in that dept. 
Do you even know the history of this female or who produced her how or why she came about and how many more there are? 
Does that mean that all my peers and mentors are ruined in the breeding world becUse we are founding mutations and figuring out what works with what with this species?
Guess that really sucks that the guys in new York bred both lines of anery together and they are in fact compatable. 
And it sucks that 10 people I know have bred toffee x albino already. 
And plenty of other people that have bred hypo x toffee and caramel x albino and lavender x albino x and toffee x lavender and snow x hypo and caramel x anery and a ton of other combos man.  the truth is this,,, it is going to be done like it or not.. look at the leos and corns and rats and bp's and boas and milks and kings..etc etc... Dude,, im defensive because you jump on here randomly almost talking sh- while giving your 2 cents,, you don't even know me or what is going on besides what you see on the Internet. 
Bring up the topic at hand with out sticking your finger in my face pal. I'm the wrong dude! I ain't trying to get paid or make a living doing this I do it out of the passion in my heart every cent I make i put right back in. If you don't like my style and my animals are junk to you don't do business with me but don't make me out to be a fool or the sore thumb. I don't play that and I have been around this industry long enough to absolutely know what I'm doing and why. Also know the reprocutions of my actions deals breedings aswell as the "what usually happens" dance obi one kenobi

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**Joe Schmidt-
3rdroomreptiles.com

I am on of the newer guy's to the hognose world so my words might not mean much but thought i would put it out there anyway. I would like to say i have spoken to Joseph a few times in e-mails to me he deff knows his S@@@. I would always like to know what iam buying if its pure or a het w/e it may be. I saw the post and it say's right in there what you are getting. I dont see any beating around the bush, no bulls@@@. If he was posting the snake as a het albino without going into detail then that would be something to frown on. With the rise of these snakes we need these breeders to mix n match to see what we can get its always nice to see something new. There is no harm done here that i can see as long as they keep proper documentation and know 100% what they have and are breeding or selling i see no harm. There was a stab made at someone of course there will be something said in return. I would brush this off and continue on.

My 2 cents...

Joe, the dude you are talking to is actually a woman... A pretty hot one at that... LOL... And as you have already said, she also knows her stuff...

Now these next statements are coming from someone who was big into leopard geckos for many years...

As already stated, these are not leopard gecko genetics where the albino strains can be hard to tell apart to begin with and are still sometimes mistaken for one another...

In my opinion Joe has done nothing wrong... In fact by doing this cross, he is helping to push the morphology of this species ahead... PPAs are easily distingushed from the classic albino... This means that telling hatchlings apart is quite easy to do...

I am not 100% sure but I am willing to bet that the double visual albino/PPA will look different from both the classic albino and the PPAs and most likely pretty hot...

Mixing the albino lnes in leopard geckos has been done in the past and even quite recently... Anyone who was trying to produce RADARs had to have mixed Bells with Trempers even if they were at the very lest 50% poss hets... I am certain there are Bells poss het Tremper and vice versa floating around in collections without anyone knowing...

My point is, you can not compare leopard gecko genetics with hognose genetics and if you do, you need to consider that the very same has been done with leos to either test breed or in an attempt to create a new morph...

lol hi Gregg XD
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that neither side is understanding the other side's point completely. I used an example and it was misunderstood as me thinking that I considered them the same. One of the previous replies from another person pretty much hit the nail on the head. I just wish that Joe could of understood me the same way. Then he wouldn't have got so defensive I think.

I can understand and agree with both sides if this thread. In the beginning of any recessive project, most will be bred to similar mutations to see if they are compatible. If their not, the by-product is a double het for basically the same morph. In most cases, those double hets are then bred together to see if the double homo mutation will be anything special. If not, the projects is usually abandoned and the stock is hopefully properly represented and either sold or kept outside the main breeding group. That wasn't the case with the ppa x classic albino.

The original breedings that proved them not to be compatible, never resulted in those double het animals being bred back and producing viable clutches to prove whether the double was worth a damn. After many years of otger breeders failing at attempts to produce a double, Joe wanted to try to take a stab at producing it. He was able to track down one single female out of only two known to exsist. He has apparently now decided to move away from this project and placed it up for sale. He accurately represented the genetics and clearly explained the story behind this unseen double mutation. I don't feel that you pointing your finger directly at him was just. I don't see how he did anything wrong, morally or ethically.

Now if he was intentionally producing animals that were known to cause confusion and misrepresenting them to his customers, that would be a problem and I would be completely on your side. But that's not the case and your post appears to be nothing more than a personal attack against him.

My $.02

-Jon
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Ultimate Hognose

I have nothing personal against Joe. I don't even know him. If Joe would of responded the way you did then this whole mess could of been anything but that... a mess. I found concern in the mixing of albino lines. And stated that concern here. He took offense to it and went in head strong with gloves on, instead of answering any of my concerns, he treated me like an idiot that was trying to ruin his reputation. In my opinion a professional should know how to contain his feelings and properly explain himself. However he did not do that.
I understand the testing phases that must be done when trying to figure out albino lines and new morphs. I tried to explain that when I was responding but I think it was over looked. What upset me out of all this was that the snake that started this whole thread is being sold as if its something new, rare, and amazing. Where as in my opinion (and many others even though they aren't here to speak up), it's a disaster waiting to happen. As an animal I do not devalue its existence, however I don't think it should be sold with the intentions of further breeding intentions. I would never sell a snake with 2 lines of albino mixed together and that's just my personal morals. I would sell it as a pet and leave it at that. He can do whatever he wants, its his snake, but I felt the need to discuss it and get other's opinion's. Not have a boxing match.
P.S. and I'm not saying all this cause I want the snake either in case anyone's thinking that. I have my own hognose projects and I always stay as far away from mixing albino lines in my projects as possible.

Also I would like to clear up one last thing. I understand the albino strains look a lot different in hognose snakes and you could tell one from the other. That's not what concerned me. Its the hets that concerned me. Let me explain a little here where my concern is.
(just for example)
ppa x orange albino = 100% double hets
then you breed the double hets together (which some people do a lot to save money on buying a visual) Even though they are 100% double hets your likely to get Normals, Normal HET PPA, Normal HET Orange albino, Normal double het for both Albinos and one of the two albino lines.
Now this is just estimates as you know its never always exactly those percentages. So that's when it gets confusing as to what you have cause all of the ones that didn't hatch as albinos (that you can recognize) will be possible hets and you don't know which its het for.
I hope that wasn't too confusing lol

Funny how every single person in this thread is defending me to your rude a@@ post and I'm defensive because u point ur finger in my face like i said. clearly that is the problem you don't see. Have fun listening to your self talk Doodet...
Ps...what's a het?

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**Joe Schmidt-
3rdroomreptiles.com

lol, lol well said.

I agree with you 100%. That is the exact reason I started the accurately disclosing genetics thread below. But that didn't even come close to happening here. I know Joe very well and he is a very honest and ethical breeder. I don't believe he would sell that animal to someone he thought would be irresponsible with the offspring they produced out of her. This is why we as sellers need to be disclosing everything about our animals genetics to our customers. And as customers, I guess we need to be proactive and ask questions about possible multiple recessive traits before we add animals into our breeding groups. I for one want to know exactly what I am working with and a "surprise" mutation popping up all of the sudden in the middle of a project I have been working on for years wont exactly be pleasant.

Unfortunately not all breeders or our customers will feel this is as important as you and I, so things can and will get a bit messy at one point or another in just about every strain out there. All we can do is try our best to keep it at a minimum by educating our customers and asking questions before we buy anything.

-Jon
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Ultimate Hognose