Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do you have a plan or goal when you put a pair together? Are you looking for a particular outcome or do you just let luck take its course? Do you try for random diversity or are you looking for more narrow results?

I tend to be a planner; I think way too much, you would think I would learn “nothing good comes from it”. For instance: when I put this pair together, I was looking for this result:

continued in next post . . .

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

I had paired the pair together before though so I was also hoping for something like this White one. I was surprised (pleasantly) by this Chartreuse one and this White that was better than last years:

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

This pair was a “crap shoot” (first pic). I only had two babies from them last year (they were great). I had a plan when I paired them though of one I got in the middle picture. I also hoped for one like this female (last picture), which I obviously got. But the biggest surprise of the year was the spotted one (I know, you have seen him before).

So, back to the original question, do you plan, do you not even care, or is it somewhere in-between?

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

I couldn't stop myself from sharing.

>>So, back to the original question, do you plan, do you not even care, or is it somewhere in-between?
>>

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Now that is a damned interesting snake. Can't wait for a few years to pass and find out if its genetic.

With thayeri I'll primarily be breeding for specific goals (color refinement, specific pattern traits, melanistic) but the occasional crap shoot for the thrill and mystery of what will happen is a big part of why I love this kingsnake. So I expect to be doing a lot of that for the diversity you mention to let this animal show it's true colors, which I think is what really excites most of us.

With mexicana my plans are geared more toward specific goals such as brown phase, highly speckled, and animals with nice split saddles with both light and dark ground color. Of course, along the way I would imagine I will take the occasional shot in the dark with these as well.

I have the animals, all I need now is the time and patience to have this much fun. And somewhere in there, I need to squeeze in that Black Gap alterna trio I bought from David Doherty that includes a nice anery female. Now that's one mighty cool looking kingsnake!

Mike

Young brown phase male mexicana.....