(in a thread on the kingsnake forum on hybino pyros, shannon asked about the status of my HONDURAN that might be a hybino. I responded to him in that thread, but i figured the info really belonged on the milksnake forum, so i'm re-posting it here)
shannon wrote:
>>I had never seen that (pyro) pic before but I would have to say that it does look like a dbl-homo. I would guess that the real hybino honduran will be pale or orange as well? We should know this year right terry?
Well, i wish, shannon. The male in question (SEE TWO PIX at bott of this post) a pale tangerine albino with 25% chance of also being hypo and thus hybino, was a slow feeder, slow grower. He's at about 240 grams now (I kept feeding most of the winter and brumated him only a month, to get him to that size). I wanted to breed him x a hypo, see if all the babies were hypos then he'd very likely BE a hybino. (footnote 1) But he never pursued the female i put him with, and i eventually bred her x a different male instead. (2) It's ironic both of my potential hybinos, that i wanted to test-breed this year, couldn't be tested. (3)
peace
terry
about the "footnotes"
(1) remember that even if i breed him x a hypo and get, say, six babies, and they're ALL hypos, that doesn't PROVE he's a hypo, because you COULD breed a het/hypo x a het hypo and get all hypo babies. Odds would predict 3 of 6, but it's not that much of a stretch to imagine 6 of 6. Anybody here ever hatched six babies, all of which were males? I have. So it takes a pretty good sized sample or data pool to really prove the animal is a hypo...the "hybino?" hondo is a male, so i could breed it x 3-4 hypo females next year, and that should reveal the truth. Of course, it only takes one NON-hypo baby to prove he's not, that's the simpler test! The "hybino?" pyro is a female, and with their smaller clutches, it's gonna be a while before she can be proved. PLUS the male i planned to use with her is hypo HET/ALB, so half the babies would be albinos, so even fewer chances for obvious hypos to emerge & provide insight into her genetics.
(2) I preach on here a lot about not drawing false conclusions--when i say he didn't show interest in the female, i mean I WATCHED EVERY SECOND AND AM ABSOLUTELY SURE he not only didn't copulate, he didn't even react to her. I stood there with the box open. Otherrwise--and this is what gets me on the pulpit--if you leave them together for a couple hours and afterwards still don't SEE any signs of breeding, that does NOT mean they didn't breed, and putting the female with a diff male and assuming the 2nd male is the fatyher of her offspring would be a risky and inappropriate assumption. (I know YOU know this shannon, i'm just reminding some of the newer breeders of this...i've run intoi plenty of incidents where people THOUGHT they knew who the father was, thought a prior male didn't breed, and the resulting babies made quite clear that the early one did after all. In fact, i had this happen last year with one of my ghosts, it had been left with a female but i strongly believed had never bred, but because i couldn't be sure, the second male i used with the female was a different genotype that would produce babies that could be told by sight which male produced them...and as it turned out i got one or two babies fathered by the ghost, though i was 99% sure he'd not done the job. BTW, the lady i sold the ghost male to dirt-cheap before the babies hatched was delightyed to hear she'd in fact bought a proven breeder at a bargain-basement price!)
(3) No, don't jump to the econclusion hybinos have some inherent weakness. the fact both hybinos failed to breed this year does NOT suggest any weakness in the morph (there's always someone who volunteers, "I heard xxxx are weak" every time someone says, "gee, my albino laid slugs this year" or whatever. Taint so.) In this instance, the facts are that the pyro got a bone infection from substrate lodged in her upper jaw during brumation--can't attribute that to genetics, unless you really want to stretch LOL. And the male hondo was simply one of those animals that grew slowly. I've had it happen to normals. And i have a female like him that was over 500 grams at 18 months, so can't blame his relaxed attitude toward growth on genetics either!
