Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do you think he could prove out to be something and if so what?

With the blushing.

of his head.

mix it with a known morph ie. pastel, sure it will take about 5 years but in the end you might prove something cool out

He really should prove something out! He is 100% het for Pied and I got him from Ralph Davis. But he looks pretty different for a normal het for pied. I have never seen one that looks like him.
Ralph is honest from the references I have heard about him. I have never heard of him cheating anybody. He has an excellent reputation. Actually he sold me another male 100% het for pied and it had problems feeding and growing and even got constipated and bloated. he helped me work with the snake but after a couple months he just replaced him with this guy. He said he was 100% Pied held back for sale and someone else backed out. He told me he was nicer than usual but would give him to me at no charge because of all my trouble with the other male. He even told me to keep the other guy and see if I can save him. I was so thrilled when I got this guy in but he has improved with each shed! Actually the other het for pied is starting to show a bit of promise. He has actually eaten (small meals for the last month or two) and shows signs of some growth though he is still way below normal weight for a yearling. He must be around 150-170 grams depending on his last meal.
The replacement het would not be carrying any weird genes if he is 100% het for pied right? Wouldn't the female already be proven by Ralph to just be a normal? He is at 330 grams now. How long before he can breed. I don't have any female pied hets just a really big normal and another well on her way. One is 2048 grams and the other is 750 grams (both on empty)
How soon can he breed. I have heard conflicting info.
I guess it will take a while to make a pied that way unless I buy a female het with my beardie breeding money this year. (I do transparents and high end beardies)
I have not decided whether to do it that way or follow the path the first pied breeders took. If I do that the babies could have some nice genes from the father. Would they somehow manifest themselves in the babies. In other words is the pied morph compatible with other genes?
I know to make big bucks the obvious way is get a female het or a female pied for him but that is not my only objective.
I have a small hobby type breeding room so I want to get maximum enjoyment from my herp dollars. I kinda wanted to produce my first pied because I will be keeping that one as a really attractive pet!

Well you can breed him to one of your normal females, but then any resulting females in the clutch will only have a 50% chance of carrying the gene, so you will have to raise at least 3 of the female 50% poss. hets from that clutch up to breeding age and then breed them all back to their father (something I don't recommend, but other people do). That is a really long term project. I would buy a 100% female het at your first opportunity. Perhaps you can make a partial trade with the smaller 100% het male, since there is really no point in having two.

most males will breed before they hit 1000 grams, some are ready as early as 400 grams. Depends heavily on the snake, but usually once they are around 500-600 grams and 6-8 months in age they will be producing sperm plugs and thus are at least capable of breeding.

Your smaller male might straiten out in time (2008 at the earliest) to breed the 50% chance het daughters of the odd looking male so you could avoid inbreeding (assuming the two males aren't closely related).

Of course if you get any daughters with the odd look of the bigger het male you might want to breed them back to him (or perhaps a similar looking half brother) just in case it's a new co-dominant look. I think big breeders tend to have a lot of interesting "normal" females that they use for making hets and the like and you do have a legitimate chance of getting some interesting unexpected genetics along for the ride.

I do think I will try to get a het pied female as soon as I can.
I may or may not keep the smaller male to breed to the first males daughters. Ralph said they were not related and he ate again yesterday and seems to be growing now.