Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When I bought those ones last year I did hope to get nice red animals.
1 year later, thats how they look like.

I can not deny that I expected them to be more red.
The good thing is that they are 66% possible het for axanthic and patternless, so let me cross fingers for the future.
1 of the "normal" Kingsville is a male the other one and the patternless are females.
I will need a lot of luck to hatch patternless axanthic from them.

First of all, I love those bulls!!

Now, here is my opinion.

The reason why you did not end up with red bulls is the fact that those are actually NOT Kingsville red locality bullsnakes. They are a product of breeding a Kingsville red with a non-locality animal, such as a morph, maybe patternless. In doing so, the parents or grandparents of your animals were a combination of two snakes, one being a morph, and the other, the Kingsville red, which is not a simple-recessive gene to begin with, but a line bred gene.

With combining the two, the genes that would contribute to any type of red, may have been suffocated to say, in the mix, as they are not simple recessive, to my knowledge. Some babies may have some red show, some may not. Maybe the chance of getting red babies in the mix is not as prominent?

So, the Kingsville-red aspect, along with the locality, was lost, as you can't be partial a locality, or half a locality. Locality is lost when something that is not that same line, much less the locality morph, is bred into the Kingsville line.

In doing so, this creates the confusion you are now experiencing. I believe you were sold snakes that were simply mislabeled, maybe not intentionally, as they were indeed NOT Kingsville reds to begin with, since both parents or Grandparents were not the same Kingsville red-locality line. Gorgeous snakes though, and I love that second one pictured, actually more than any morph.

People do the same thing with the Stillwater-hypo traits as well.
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Genesis 1:1

John great looking animals. I'm sure the offspring they produce will be amazing.

Billy well said. It bugs me when animals are mislabeled. It happens way to much in this hobby.

Jason

Those are some nice snakes even if they aren't really red. The patternless one is fabulous!

My Kingsville x Stillwater hypo babies today. The little brown males look sort of like yours, except of course for your patternless one and my Rozy. It is most informative to know the Kingsville red thing is a line bred trait. I want a Kingsville red that is really red. If anybody reputable has a baby male I'd sure like to hear from them.

The white on the males is poster paint so I can tell them apart for feeding, etc, although now they are beginning to show their individuality.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

All very nice. The top one would be my favorite.
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See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

While appearance is a big part of how we select our snakes, what we like most in terms of appearance is highly subjective depending on personal appeal. Other traits such as "personality", ease of feeding, etc. are also part of the equation (at least for me).

I have often heard of the variability among Kingsville hatchlings, some turning redder than others as adults, and as Billy stated, is probably the result of corruption somewhere in the linage of the adult breeders.

I like both of them for different reasons of appeal but I would select the second snake if presented a choice between the two for reasons of visual appeal to me.

My Kingsville is not the reddest in the world, nor even a close contender but he is an awesome snake for a variety of other reasons beyond visual appeal that have become apparent from being his primary caretaker these past three years and I would never consider replacing him because the color didn't materialize the way that I had hoped. Of course, you won't know the latter appeals until you make the commitment to keep and raise the snake.

My two cents worth,

Jim

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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

Nice animals either way. I fully understand your issue with them not being as red as you expected. They do gain red-as you know- with age. Maybe they'll brighten up some from you.

My reds came from www.kjunsnakehaven.com KJ didn't breed any this season but it has taken him a few generations to create one of the reddest lines I've ever seen. He does have pure line bred Kingsville Reds but also his personal line thats a mix of different RED bloodlines...

BTW: Your patternless animal is awesome.

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