Whew i am going to try and answer this but right now i am a bit shook up from a fellow long time herper and breeder who just passed away this morning.
Simple answer to the question is there are T pos lavender" albino Floridas that have cal king in them. So how many lavender cal kings are out there that during the late 80's and early 90's that were incompatiple?
I am assuming that what you meant by "albino" are the lavender albino or T pos albino Floridas. NOT the T neg (red eye) true amel. There is only one true line of T neg out there in the Floridas. With the lavenders there are 2 true lines and many MANY from cal king genes mixed in.
Around the late 80's and early 90's there were several Lavenders being sold as Lavenders Floridas that were 50% cal king. So that caused some confusion and devalued and polluted the true lines when they showed up in 1990. Some people will argue that these were never true Lavender albino Floridas because of the crosses being made just a couple years earlier.
What took place was that Florida residents started experimenting with crosses by brreding their cal kings into the Floridas they found in their backyards (so to speak). So there were lots of cal x Fl being produced and being sold at shows like the Tampa show. I saw lots of tables with these crosses and was able to get a good idea wha a back bred florida looked like. Some were 50/50 and some were a bit refined from back breeding to the Florida kings to wash out more of the Cal king look..
Originally there were two authentic T pos (lavender albino) and one T neg strain that are authenitic. There was only 2 authentic lavenders i know that were successfully reproduced and made avaliable. But even both of those lines have a messed up history because the breeders messed with crossed FL x Cal lavenders as well.
One line of true lavender (T pos)came from Lloyd Lemke and the other from Tim Ricks. These two lines were compatiple but looked different.
In 1993 time I spoke with Tim and it seems that his line was the real deal because nobody else had Floridas that looked like his. Plus he swore and explained how they came about. I paid attention to the other lines of amel florida and his looked like they were 100% pure.
I know that Lloyd had some of the mixed cal x Florida he sold when he purchased them from other breeders (Gulf coast)to resell. But he had the real deal as well which I saw in his collection in the mid 80's.
Also Tim Ricks was affiliated with Southern reptiles which created crosses of Floridas before the real ones came onto the scene.
So people will argue that all these lavenders are crosses. Some are and some arent. Unless one has a good history we'll never know except by the look...and that can be hard to tell.
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Observing them in a cage by themsleves with set temps and deciding when to feed is hardly natural or healthy for the snakes.
Bluerosy
You are doing what suits you. which is fine, but its not about the animal, its about you. Your requirements.
Frank Retes
www.Bluerosy.com
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