Success jungle corn breeding

[Katt]

Ok, we haven't bred jungle to jungle, but we did have a successful breeding of anerytheristic corn (male) to 50/50 creamy/black cali-king (female). This female produced jungle babies last year from a striped corn. So we are hoping she will have fertile eggs again this year.

A few shots of last years babies.

Female "Jane" The red is a bit of an illusion, she's actually black and greyish yellow. Mostly greyish.

<img src="http://members.shaw.ca/kattia/jane.jpg">

Male unnamed He's the prettiest of the two, black and yellow, similar to his mother in colouration.

<img src="http://members.shaw.ca/kattia/junglebod.jpg">

I absolutely love his head.

<img src="http://members.shaw.ca/kattia/junglehead.jpg">

They have king attitude, but not king musking or biting traits. When they realize you aren't giving up, they will flee like corns.
<img src="http://members.shaw.ca/kattia/junglebod1.jpg">

[snakemann87]

I agree that its a pretty snake, but I'm not a big fan of inter-crossing species. I don't think I'd buy, or ever breed two different species together.

[marylyn101]

your doing a dangerous thing there. it's not ment to be that way so why would you.

[snakemann87]

I agree, crossing species can cause TONS of deformities in the offspring. Not always, but there is a high risk. If you are to sell babies with genetic flukes, then they get bred, future generations can be effected possibly. Kind of like the burmese python morphs now.

[fr0glet]

There are a lot of mixed feelings on crossbreeding in herps it seems.

The big risk/big complaint I'm most aware of is that you're muddying the gene pool - if everyone cross bred then we wouldn't have different species anymore.

The big argument against that is if the animal is in a private collection and you're not saturating the market with tons of crossbred babies, it won't muddy the greater gene pool.

Please, please, if you ever try to sell them, be 100% crystal clear that these are crossbred mutts.

[marisa]

There is hardly any information ever posted to prove all these "deformities" in SNAKE hybrid offspring. I have seen none. Hardly any at all even on the OTHER forum where the hybrid discussion goes whacky. Not for cal kings vs. corns that is.

As for muddying the gene pool, well all I can say is she is using cal kings and corns. How horrible it must be to muddy a 50 dollar snakes genes. *L* No really, what I mean is like I totally understand NO hybrids when we are talking rare pythons or Indigos. The bloodlines are few. And those we have we need PURE. But we are talking about a cornsnake and a california kingsnake in a private collection.

And besides, she already showed she labels correctly, "JUNGLES" That is what a king X corn is. A Jungle.

Marisa

[snakemann87]

I can see where your coming from, but I think you saying "they're just corns and kings", i think its horrible. All snakes are equally important, and it doesn't matter on the price of a snake. So basically your saying that corns are so abundant, that we dont have to be careful to "muddy" their gene pool??? If not please tell me cause that is the impression that I got from the post.

[marisa]

No, but all snakes are not equally important when it comes to keeping ALL their lines pure. Kings and corns are abundant enough to use some for Jungle breeding. Where as a Boeleans python or an Indigo is not exactly abundant enough to warrant using any for hybrid breeding projects.

And Katt IS clearly labelling them already as you can see in her above post. "Jungles" she is not scamming people, and she is certainly not trying to pass them off as full corn or king. Not that this matters, but anyone who knows anything can tell her babies aren't pure anything. But yes correct labelling is important. Very important.

And as for genetic deformities in corns X king crosses, I haven't seen any written info on this yet myself, so I don't buy into it. I haven't seen more deformed Jungles than there are corns and kings. If I see written information, maybe I will remember the dangers. But as I have seen none, well then it doesn't bother me that anyone produces Jungles a.k.a. corn VS kings.

Marisa

[snakemann87]

I understand that, but there is always a chance of a genetic fluke that isnt possible to see physically. Also, I never stated she is doing something "wrong", I just simply stated my opinion on cross breeding.

[marisa]

I totally understand what you are saying but I don't understand what you mean by genetic fluke. That's all.

I haven't seen ANY genetic flukes. And sure some could be hidden, but what gives you the idea this happens more with king X corns than it does normal kings and corns?

One would assume a corn X king would have a better chance of normal-ness inside and out, than a PURE corn who has been line breed to look a certain way for 10 generations.

Marisa

[snakemann87]

When I say genetic fluke, I mean a mess up in its DNA structure. Corns and kings are two totally different species of snake.

[marisa]

Well this could go on and on.

I understand what you are saying, but I have no clue where this can be seen. I have never heard of it personally any more than a normal snake, so I personally can't use it as an example against hybrids.

If you have personally seen a large number of geneticly messed up Jungles, well then hey I guess you have first hand seen problems with it.

But personally, I have no clue what would lead you to think that happens more so than in a normal snake. If you have some written information then share it! :) I would like to read it. If not, well then hey, nice discussion!

Marisa

[rattekonigin]

Actually, I have a feeling that you'd be less likely to have hybrids with deleterious genetic anomalies simply because they are hybrids, any mutant alleles carried by either parent would be less likely to be expressed in the offspring because their parents weren't the same species and many of the mutant alleles probably wouldn't be compatible...I believe that's what's referred to as "hybrid vigour"...

I agree with Marisa on the "muddying the gene pool" issue...it's a no-no for species with few captive bloodlines or species that are endangered in the wild, but for corns and kings it's not a big deal...plus, corn and kingsnake (though not cal king) ranges overlap in the wild and, granted, they probably don't hybridize often, I'm sure it's happened in the wild at least once, so it doesn't pose any real threat to the wild gene pool either.
As long as the animals are properly represented (which they are in this case), I don't see the problem.

[Katt]

Snakeman87, I realize you are entitled to your opinion on hybrids, but I would rather you did not air it on my thread. There have been plenty of other oppertunities for you to express yourself and I simply do not understand why you chose this thread in particular. Thank you.

However, to address your concerns. Jungle corns are established hybrids. Most folk know that jungle corns are california king x corn crosses, there is no scamming there is no lying. Vanan and I do not believe in crossing jungles back to either parent species as this creates a snake that is hard to differentiate from the parent species. Our jungles are distinct enough that no one could be scammed into buying them as pure. We also sell to others that keep this sort of integrity.

As for it being dangerous? I'm not sure where this comes from. But when buying anything, buyer beware. Make sure you trust the seller you are buying from. Vanan and I are totally upfront about our jungles, we have nothing to hide, so there will be no mistaking our kings are pure kings and our corns as pure corns, and our jungles are corn x king crosses.

You can not stop hybridizing. Somewhere someone unscrupulous is creating hybrids and mis-representing them. Telling us legit upfront breeders to stop hybriding will not stop those "bad breeders" from continuing their bad business. Buying from someone upfront, will assure you, that what you are buying is "AS STATED".

I like hybrids, and I am very upfront about this. I will always represent my hybrids as hybrids, because to represent them as pure would be in my books diminishing them. I adore pure animals as well and to call a pure snake a hybrid would diminish it as well.

I have no opinion on the "vigour" of hybrids. I simply try not to inbreed my snakes and try to keep my bloodlines as unrelated as possible. I think inbreeding has done much more to diminish captive populations than any hybridizing.

[vanderkm]

Those are gorgeous jungle corn babies Katt. I have an albino jungle, but really prefer the look of the normal coloration and you have some nice extremes in color in that previous litter. Are you intending to pursue the striped jungle look in the future (these are het striped - right - of course you would want another line of het striped to cross to if you did not consider crossing into your striped cal kings). I have seen some very dramatic striped jungles. Good luck with this year's hatch,

Mary v.

[Katt]

I plan to cross my het striped pair.

I don't like 75/25 crosses, they lose the jungle look and I think it's a cheap out to quickly inject striping or other pattern aberrancies.

I like how 50/50 jungles look, the others, well they don't look jungley enough. It's the 75/25 crosses that are tricky as they can look like either parent species and sold as such.

[Andy_G]

I am going to eventually breed my albino female cali to a volcano corn. Probably produce some super red albinos or something. I don't see the big deal about cross breeding two species with similar care necessities. Something weird like a ball python to a king I can see the problems, if that's even possible, but not with something like a kingsnake and corn snake. Something i'm missing?

[Katt]

A king and ball python would not breed and if they didn't, the eggs would not be fertile.

Not all forms of albinism are compatible with corns.

When you do breed, make sure you let everyone know about the parentage of your crosses.

The red doesn't always carrying into cali-kings, unfortunately. The jungles pictured came from a really bright striped corn and as you can see there's no red on them.

[gonesnakee]

In my limited JC experience I have experienced problems with a couple of JC specimens that I would consider to be birth or genetic defects. In both cases the specimens were Albino JC's from JC to JC breeding. The one was quite obviously deformed & had to be euthanized as it would not eat & was really "hooped" physically. I was surprised that it was alive still. The other was eating but would "regurge" 4/5 meals, sometimes 3-4 days after ingesting them. After I got it to start keeping them down I thought it may be alright, but then a new problem arose. The poor little sucker could keep a pinkie down, but now it's stomach quit working. It had ate & passed meals before but now it couldn't "pass" food. The meal was observed going down, but stayed in the gut area & didn't appear to digest at all. The snake was not "bunged up" with anything as it was housed on shop towels & didn't ingest anything other than the pinkie mouse. As the second week approached the snake appearred all fine & dandy except for the large, undigested bulge in it's gut. I tried a second pinkie in hopes it would push the first thru, or maybe the snake would puke them both up. I knew the meal left sitting in it's gut wouldn't be good for it much longer. Unfortunately the snake puked the "new" mouse, but the orginal "stuck" meal remained. Despite handling, massaging, bathing the specimen repeatedly, the meal remained, unmoving in her gut. Over the period of a couple weeks the "meal" that "didn't move" was affecting the snake's health (obviously!) I couldn't bring myself to euthanize her, as I had contemplated it before when she kept puking, but decided againest it once she started keeping them down, that is until the new problem arose. She was getting thinner & lethargic & was beginning to suffer so I decided to do it. I waited too late though because she was dead that morning. I wish I would have done it sooner now to have prevented her suffering, but I was still hoping to save her life. As usual hindsights 20/20 & I feel I made her suffer longer than she should have. Deciding to euthanize is a hard decision & I won't do it unless I'm 99.999% sure that the snake is going to suffer before it "dies anyway". Back to the thread topic though, there may be some truth to genetic malformities in hybrids, but the same problems the specimens above had, have been recorded in "pure" corns etc. also so who knows. I do think that it was worth mentioning though as both specimens were Albino Jungle Corns, but this will not deter me from my JC breeding now or in the future though as I feel that the same can happen to specimens from any clutch, but I do beleive that the Albino specimens, no matter what species, are genetically "weaker" than normals of the same (just my opinion though). Hopefully this offers some additional insight to the topic (be it for either side). I myself love the JC's & hope to produce lots of healthy specimens this year. Mark IsBell - GONE SNAKEE!

[Burmies]

Very nice snakes, keep up the good work.

Burmies