Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Unicolors hatched this week. Out of eleven eggs 4.2 were normal. Other five were aberrant: more slender than normal, different shaped head, and much more patterned. Of those five three were dead in the egg. Photo doesn't really show what abnormal hatchling looks like. Last year only one hatchling in the clutch was like this.

What's going on? I kept eggs cooler this year. Fat Bastard and mate are siblings. Obtained them as hatchlings from Dan Felice three years ago.

Hey Steve,
Congrats on the hatchlings...sorry to hear about the ones that have issues. My male breeder was also purchased from Dan 3 years ago (and is probably a sibling to your breeders). My adult female was from Bobby Lee. I ended up with 8 hatchlings this year (plus one fully formed dead in egg cribo that looked perfectly normal but never emerged. My hatchlings all came out perfectly normal. They were incubated at 77-78F. What temps did you use? Any possibility of temperature spikes during incubation? The pattern aberrancies would make me suspicious of a problem related to temperature.

Do you know anything about the parents of your breeders? Were they related?
Chris

I worked at keeping temperatures under 75 degrees F. After mid-May there were a few times when temperature topped 80 for less than a day at a time. I don't know how closely related Dan's breeders were.

guys, fyi---the parents of both your snakes are completely unrelated wc's. i got the male in philly in 99 and the female in havre de grace in 00. they are shown together in indigosnakes.com in an old photo.........

Congrats on the Unis! Hello and good luck to to everyone here.

Hi Dan, thanks for the information. I'll have a display at the MARS show in September. If you're there please stop by to say hello. Fat Bastard will be there too.

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Hi Steve,

On the temperature issue-I have no idea.

But on the inbreeding issue,

Fat Bastard and Mate being siblings is enough to cause inbreeding related damage/mortality and also high loads in the "healthy" offspring.

I try as hard as possible to get pairs of unrelated animals(non-siblings, non-cousins, etc) that are ALSO from unrelated parents. Yeah, its a little more work, but nothing compared with the cleaning work these guys require.

I remember my high school science teacher explaining genetics by saying things like "So if you breed the offspring together you have a 66% probability of X" but now looking back I guess it was a good teaching tool to explain genetics, but not a good husbandry tool to describe good breeding methods.

I like hearing about Fat Bastard! Sounds like a really great Uni! I don't think Unis get enough press around here. Congratulations on getting him!

Matt

I was going to mention the inbreeding thing, but you beat me to it. I too do everything possible to avoid breeding siblings.

I'm not criticizing Steve for breeding the siblings, just offering an opinion.

Eric
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If Jesus is your co-pilot, you'd better change seats!

Sorry for the late re-action Steve. Thos Unis are awesome!! THIS is why I love this forum, because people here TRULY appreciate the efforts of breeders.Thanks for posting pics.

Congratulations!

Fred Albury