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albino boas- what are the possibilities?

az_gunner May 27, 2006 03:33 PM

First off, I want to say hello.
I'm getting back into reptiles, after several years away from the hobby. Like many, I got addicted and went over board. I had to quit cold turkey.

Now I have 1.1 Albino boas and 1.1 Anerythristics bos type-I
All are babies, so I want to start planning now.

What are the morph breeding possibilities?
I'm interested in knowing how to produce Ghosts and Snows. I'd also like to know about other possibilites. I've been told to implement some Hypomelanistics and/or Salmons. I'm not very well versed on how all the hets work. So please, talk about hets like I'm 8yrs old.

Replies (5)

IMacBevan May 31, 2006 01:16 PM

Your options are numerous if you are willing to do some work and wait some time.

You could produce amelanistics (albinos) and anerythristics by crossing to each morph. In other words breed amel to amel = amelanistic, breed anerythristic to anerythristic = anerythristic. You could breed your amelanistic to your anerythristic to produce double hets for each trait. These would be normal in phenotype, but carry each trait. If you raise these up and cross them to each other, you will produce normals, amelanistic, anerythristic, and snow (which is amelanistic and anerythristic) in roughly a 9:3:3:1 ratio (this is very rough.

In order to produce Ghosts, you will need to cross your anerythristic with a hypomelanistic (more than likely a salmon). You will get normals carrying the anerythristic trait and salmons carrying the anerythristic traits. Hold back the salmons and cross breed those to produce your ghost boas.

Hope that helps,

Ian

rainbowsrus Jun 01, 2006 03:43 AM

I put this together a couple months ago:

Terms:
Gene = the basic unit of genetics, Genes come in pairs, one supplied from each parent. Each gene pair determines one specific trait. There are thousands of gene pairs in each strand of DNA.

Mutant gene = any gene that is different from the corresponding normal gene. Not necessarily a visual mutation.

Wild type or normal = A snake that looks like most of the snakes found in the wild. Also used to describe any individual gene that when paired up with a similar gene would produce a snake that, for that individual gene trait, would look like most of the snakes found in the wild.

Heterozygous (slang - heterozygous) = having two different genes within a gene pair. Most commonly one normal and one mutant but could be two different mutant genes.

Homozygous (slang - Homo) = having both genes within a gene pair the same. Can be normal or mutant.

Super = Slang term commonly used when a snake has a gene pair that is Homozygous for either a dominant or a codominant mutant gene.

Trait = Physical appearance that it distinguishable from the normal physical appearance.

Recessive mutant gene = Trait is only expressed when the gene pair is Homozygous for the specific mutant gene.

Dominant mutant gene = A mutant gene that has it trait expressed when the gene pair is either heterozygous or Homozygous for that specific mutant gene. Heterozygous and homozygous specimens are not 100% distinguishable from each other. Note, with some dominant traits some of the specimens can be visually identified as heterozygous or homozygous.

Codominant = Similar to "dominant mutant gene" except a Homozygous specimen can be distinguished from a heterozygous specimen 100% of the time.

Double heterozygous = Has two gene pairs where one gene in each pair is normal and the second gene is a mutant gene. I.e. double heterozygous for snow would have a normal gene paired with an albino gene and a normal gene paired with an anerythristic gene.

Triple heterozygous = same as double heterozygous except applies to three gene pairs.

Color mutations in boas:

Albino (AKA Amelanistic) - Two independent mutant genes: both recessive - a lack of melanin (black pigmentation) Kahl and Sharp strains.

Anerythristic - Two independent mutant genes; both recessive - a lack of red pigmentation. Two known strains (type I and type II)

Salmon (AKA Hypo) - Dominant - a reduction in the black pigmentation and often some increase in the yellow pigmentation.

Caramel Albino (AKA Tyrosinase positive albino) - believed to be at least two independent mutant genes; both recessive - has less than the normal amount of black pigmentation. Colombian and Nicaraguan strains

Caramel Hypo (Boawoman Hypo) - recessive - has leas than the normal amount of black pigmentation, similar to Colombian T-plus Albinos and Pastels.

Pastel (AKA Hypo) - Polygenic - A line of boas selectively bred for less than normal black pigment, not caused by a single mutant gene.

Blood - Recessive - A Hypererythristic mutation.

Named Color mutation combinations:

Ghost – homozygous anerythristic / heterozygous hypomelanistic
Super Ghost - homozygous anerythristic / homozygous hypomelanistic
Snow – homozygous anerythristic / homozygous albino
Sunglow – homozygous albino / heterozygous hypomelanistic
Super Sunglow - homozygous albino / homozygous hypomelanistic
Bloody Salmon – homozygous blood / heterozygous hypomelanistic
Moonglow – homozygous anerythristic / homozygous albino / heterozygous hypomelanistic
Super Moonglow – homozygous anerythristic / homozygous albino / homozygous hypomelanistic
Pewter - homozygous type II anerythristic / homozygous blood

Locale Related Color Mutations:

Sunset – homozygous hypomelanistic having 50% Hog Island Boa blood
Salmontine – heterozygous hypomelanistic having 50% Argentine Boa blood

Pattern Mutations:
Arabesque – Dominant? - A genetic circle-back boa with a ladder-tail, Typically highly speckled and often having a very brown color with some specimens tinted pink.
Jungle – Codominant - Originally identified in Sweden,
Motley – Codominant
Stripe – Recessive
Reverse Stripe – Recessive?
Leopard – Recessive - dark color, a mix of underlying tones and marbled pattern.
European Square tail - Recessive - long list of variable characteristics.
Scoria - Recessive? - Pink pattern-less with two parallel lines down back.
Aztec - Dominant?
Gray pattern-less - unknown
-----
Thanks,

Dave "Rainbows-R-Us"

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB)
2.7 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (adult breeders)
2.5 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (sub-adult from 2004)
4.8 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (sub-adult from 2005)
2.1 Hypomelanistic BRB
0.1 Het for Hypomelanistic BRB
0.1 BCI "Elvira" normal from 1989
1.0 BCI Albino / het-anery
0.1 BCI Salmon / het-albino
0.1 BCI Anery / het-albino
0.1 BCI Salmon (possible super)
1.0 BCI Albino het stripe
1.0 BCI Salmon
0.1 BCI Ghost
0.1 BCI Super salmon, possible jungle
1.0 BCI Salmon, possible jungle
0.1 BCI Super Ghost

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

az_gunner Jun 11, 2006 06:31 PM

Thanks for all the info.
In the next 2 weeks, I should receive the rest of my project stock.

I'll have:
1.1 Kahl Albino
1.1 Anerythristic
2.2 Hypomelanistics

They're all babies, so breeding is still 3-4 years down the road. With all the combinations available, what would be the best pairings? I would like to produce sunglows eventually.

rainbowsrus Jun 12, 2006 01:45 AM

With what you have I'd go with:

Albino x Anery = DH Snows
Albino x Hypo = 50% DH Sunglow, 50% het albino
Anery x Hypo = 50% DH Ghost, 50% het anery
Hypo x Hypo = 75% hypo (33% super), 25% normal

To speed things up I'd suggest you add DH's (or TH's) to your collection.

A DH snow could be bred to either albino or anery to produce albino or anery 50% het for the other trait

a DH sunglow could be bred to you albino for 25% sunglow, 25% albino, 25% DH sunglow and 25% het albino. Same percentages for a DH ghost bred to one of your anery's.

In my collection of 25 boas,
1 is a TH snowglow,
7 show two traits,
3 show one trait and are het for a second,
1 is het for two traits,

5 show a trait and are possibly het for a second,
1 is het for a trait and possibly het for a second

7 show only one trait

As you can see, a good percentage of my animals either have two traits or possibly have two traits. The only ones that don't are some salmon's, dominant pastels and three newly acquired striped normals for breeding into the other lines.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling
website

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
10.22 BRB
10.14 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

___

Edited on June 12, 2006 at 16:05:07 by phwyvern.

az_gunner Jun 29, 2006 01:43 AM

Thanks for the great suggestions.
Maybe I just don't get the genetics.

Why is it, that Hypo X Hypo = 75% hypo 25% normal ?

Shouldn't Hypo X Hypo = 100% hypo ?

I would love to replace the hypos and anerys with DH/TH. However, getting me this far, has exhausted all the play money. Plus I still need to buy the permanent housing (med/lg vision cages).

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