Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how is it possible for all these people that have ch yb's to guarentee that they are true het ivories. I could understand if they were produced from a proven ivory line(amir's). but to say a snake just because it shares characteristics is genetic is imho crazy and setting somebody up for a terrible loss. I mean there are people who spend most if not all their savings and max out cc's to buy these snakes on someones word that a 1000 baby yb's are born in africa every year but no ivories. The worse part about these guarentees is that it could take up 5-6 yrs before you know if that lone male yb you bought is truly a het for ivory and by that time the paper work is loss or the person you bought from is no-where to be found. Ok enough of my ranting, but the yb's i've seen in person ( amir's line ) are truly beautiful animals, i'll get one next year.
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2.0 het pied
1.1 het albino
1.0 het citrus ghost
0.9 normal
1.0 american pit bull terrior
1.1 taco dogs (ankle biters)
1.0 grey cat

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrior as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

It happens. If you noticed when Amir and Jared posted pictures of the granite female Amir produce the ebony from, alot of people posted they had granites. You have to be very careful when buying YB's or other unproven animals so you just don't throw your money out the window.Like you said get one from a proven line that is the best way to do it. My YB is from Amirs line so I can rest a little easier. But then if people never took chances on questionable animals we would not have as many morphs as we do today. Good luck with your projects.
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Thomas Jones
aligatorhunter@cox.net

You are right to say there are a lot of YB look alikes that nobody can really say if they are het Ivory or not, and most are not. But there are several different lines of YB and to say no Ivorys have hatched in africa would be slighty un-true. I believe Ralph Davis bought an Ivory out of africa. They do hatch there when two YB's breed. But it is rare, just as rare as every other morph out of africa, nobody sees many super pastels come out of africa but pastels come out all the time.

Even if there where 1,000 true yellow bellies exported from Africa each year that would only be 1,000 out of 150,000 (old number, might not be that high now days) or 1 out of 150. If they are randomly distributed the odds of two yellow bellies getting together in the wild would only be 1 in 22,500 breedings producing 1 in 90,000 hatchling Ivories. Localized inbreeding probably shifts the odds but there still might be a lot of true yellow bellies imported every year. The problem is what is the ratio of false yellow bellies to true ones and will the ones that even prove genetically reproducible as far as the yellow belly like condition all produce ivories.

If you feel half as uneasy about YBs as I do, stick with pastels, mojaves, spiders or any other co-doms where you can actually tell the difference between a het and a normal. I think there are a ton of people getting ripped off on $7000 normals labeled as YBs (het ivory), which is sad for the industry as well as the people getting ripped off. Otherwise, you have to spend the extra cash to buy one that is from a proven line and a reputable breeder.

That all sounds logical Randy, except for the fact that the Ivories that have been produced to date from the 3 breeders that have produced them in captivity are all from different origins which would lead one to feel confident that if you have visual "no brainer" Yellow Belly offspring produced from an animal that appears to have the same marker traits that the proven lines have then you "in theory" should have Het Ivories as well. This is no different than having visual Cinnamons/Black Pastels , Pastels or any of the other co-dom morphs that we import in every year, if they have the traits they should genetically be the same, that is the whole point of being a co-dom , the guessing is not needed! If an animal doesn't look like a YB , Pastel or whatever co-dom morph your talking about then it isn't one! The YB gene does have some variability to it but most are easy to pick out , just don't buy one unless it is an obvious one, the nice ones stand out easy enough to tell. I have already had the luxury of having a "proven line" YB in my collection and that particular animal looks just like the ones I already had so I think some of this may be more of a sales pitch than anything else,simply because if I would have put the proven line Het Ivory in with the other YB's you would not be able to tell which was which , actually the proven line male had the least amount of yellow on it's belly and the shatter pattern on the sides wasn't as extreme or defined as some of the others I have (which are still considered unproven until they reproduce). So in my opinion they all are genetically the same assuming they have the necessary markers that is! Just my 2 cents worth, I'll have my proof in about 7 weeks regardless , once visual YB babies hatch that look like their YB father, I'll be totally confident that they will do just the same as the proven lines, as there is no genetic reason to think anything differently based on the data we already know.... Anthony McCain-McCain's Reptiles.

Actually I meant to say the "4" breeders that have already produced them , regardless the Ivories are all from different YB x YB crosses , that was my main point.

I am not worried

Everyone just stop buying them and send the ones you have back home.
I would love to be the only guy producing Ivory balls.

What are you hiding my friend? LOL

That's a little extreme Amir, some people still don't understand what's going on, that's our gain and their loss I think. No matter how much we try to explain this some of them are still lost. I don't know about you but all this talk about "what's a YB" is getting boring to me! It's time to move on, if they haven't figured it out by now perhaps they never will.... Anthony McCain-McCain's Reptiles.

Sorry Amir, the cats out of the bag on that one. The horses are out of the gate! LOL! See you later.

Best Wishes,

Tony Pappalardo

Living Art Reptiles