Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have heard numerous amounts of times that a lot of caramel albinos have kinks in there body. I would really like to know if this is true and a bit more about the subject.
Thanks, Jesse

From what I have heard, not experienced, is that caramels tend to have more kinking in babies than other genes. It is thought to be some sort of genetic flaw and there has been more outcrossing to try and make the gene stronger as to get rid of the kinking. Again I don't know this for sure since I've never produced caramels myself...maybe some that have produced them can chime in and let you know more about it. It may be less or more than we think....
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Luke Martin
Bronze Serpent Reptiles

Out crossing has reduced the odd occurrence of kinking. Morph King has produced over 40 Caramels without a single kink. The key is to outbreed th eright lines, which is much more possible now that hets from different siblings and lines are more common.

But if both lines still have the tendency to kink in spite of the original outbreeding to prove them I don't see genetically why crossing the lines should solve the problem. I guess if it works it works and we'll have to figure out how. Maybe the kinking was caused by different things in each line and its just co-incidence that they are both caramels (seems like an awful big co-incidence for all but maybe one caramel line to have the same symptom without it having the same cause). Maybe linkage finally got broken between the caramel gene and a separate kinking gene in one of the lines through outbreeding and it's just co-incidence that MKR crossed one of those lines (i.e. the cross didn't do it, just the right luck while outbreeding of one of the parent lines did). I guess the proof will be years in coming in the reproducibility of non-kinking by other breeders in decedents of this year’s MKR production.

The "Upscale Reptiles" line does not have the kinking problem like the other lines, and they are far more attractive.

Is there more than one Upscale Reptiles because the one linked from kingsnakes doesn't even list ball pythons on their site.

I remember a couple years ago a mention of a new Maslin (sp?) line that there was hope would not kink but I never saw another post about it after the first eggs hatched.

Has the Upscale Reptiles line been bred to other caramel lines to be sure it's compatible (if it looks and acts different ...)?

Upscale line is compatable with the NERD line for sure, proven this year by Stan Chiras. I think the outbreeding done on Caramels has helped any kinking issues. John

Exactly what are all of the official established lines anyway?

The ones I've heard are NERD line, Upscale/Janie Malsin line, Snakekeeper line, Bell line. Are there any more? Are any of these the same as another line? I beleive that I saw Kevin write recently that there is at least one line that isn't compatible with another. Which two lines were those?

Mark

>>I have heard numerous amounts of times that a lot of caramel albinos have kinks in there body. I would really like to know if this is true and a bit more about the subject.
>>Thanks, Jesse