Rootbeers hatching

[vanderkm]

The clutch from this pair - a male creamsicle and a female great plains ratsnake
http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/6304_April_24_Crockett_Cheddar_4_reduced.jpg

were eggs that were about 3 times the size of our cornsnake eggs this year.

They started to pip last week and 10 eggs produed 2 males, 8 females - all absolutely huge!
http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/63GPR_pipping.JPG

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/63rootbeer_hatchlings.jpg

Many were blue within a day of hatching like the one in the back here -

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/63rootbeer_posed.jpg

With a 4 week old creamsicle corn for size comparison - heads of these hatchlings are twice the size of a month old corn, and body is at least three times the thickness - amazing little monsters - and they are aggressive too!
http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/63rootbeer_and_creamsicle.jpg

mary v.

[BoidKeeper]

Nice stuff! Are there rootbeer corns too or is a rootbeer a rootbeer? I've heard of rootbeer corns. Are they the same as you have here? If so I didn't know they were a hybrid because I've only ever heard them called rootbeer corns.
Congrats,
Trevor

[Simon]

Congrats on the hatchlings~!!
Especially those huge ones.....man.....
Lovely looking snakes~

[TheRedDragon]

They look awesome! Congratulations, and good luck with the fiesty little ones. :)

[bighillreptiles]

send them to me <ary i want them ,LOL Paul

[bighillreptiles]

Sorey i hit the rong button to soon LOL love the looks of them Mary

[vanderkm]

Trevor - rootbeers are same as rootbeer corns and they are an intergrade (hybrid now that great plains rats and corns are different species in the new classification). They are essentially the normal color variation of a creamsicle corn - should be about 50% GPR and 50% corn, but in many instances they are higher percentage corn (people breed creamsicles back to corns and get some normal colored ones). These are likely between 25-50% corn - don't know the percentage corn in my creamsicle but if I estimate he is 50% corn then these babies are 75% GPR. They certainly resemble GPR more, but there are definate brownish red tones to the saddles - rootbeers usually have less red than corns, just as the albino version - creamsicles are more orange than red.

Will be interesting to see how these guys age and their color changes. A few have been reserved for but I am keeping the rest. Very interesting head markings on many - a real bald head pattern with very few markings in a couple.

I never believed GPR and corns were substantially different until seeing these eggs and then the babies - they are very different from corns.

mary v.

[BoidKeeper]

Thanks for the clarification.
Cheers,
Trevor

[dave68]

Wow that's pretty crazy stuff! I always thought great plains were smaller than corns, but obviously not eh! Congrats on those awesome babies Mary!!

Dave

[Matt.B]

shouldnt this be in the general colubrid forums? ahh whatever who cares there absolutly beautiful!!! good luck with them

[vanderkm]

Dave - I think some GPRats at maturity are shorter than the longest corns, but definately have a tendency to be thicker bodied.

Matt - I sort of agree - now that they are officially hybrids and not intergrades - I guess that they don't belong in the cornsnake forum and should be in general colubrids - hard to know how to deal with these guys - I left them here for now - the corn people are the ones most likely to be interested in them and not all corn people browse the general colubrid column - the joys of categories!!

I agree - they are neat looking - will be much better once they have shed - pretty muddy looking now.

thanks,

mary v.

[Scales Zoo]

So, since they are all het for amel or creamsicle, if you bred them back to one another you should get creamsicles that have more GPR traits than corn.

Have you ever seen pictures of those?

Cool project!

Ryan

[vanderkm]

Thanks Ryan - will definately get creamsicles in the F2 from these - not many pics available of any cream projects - no one seems to work much with them specifically - especially since butter appeared in corns.

I will be doing F2 with these - they will be the same percentage GPR and corn as the F1 - but expect some more diversity as there is genetic sorting - so hope to select out what I am looking for - those with clear orange color and no white.

I am also taking the girls from this breeding back to my smaller male creamsicle to get back toward the 50/50 percentage and hope to get the creamsicle color more like his soft, light orange with more contrast between saddle and background but keep the white trim out of them - but will be interesting to see how these sort out - how much variation I get in them.

Glad you and Sheila got a chance in Red Deer to see those creamsicles I got from you now that they are all grown up. It will turn into a fun project - definately my favorite corns!

mary v.

[Invictus]

Those look incredible Mary! I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a few of those...

[dia]

Stunning creatures!

[Jeff_Favelle]

Fantastic photos!!!!

[fizox]

Good Show!!!

[Katt]

Totally awesome!!!

There was a GPR I wanted so bad at the show, but I had to settle with a grey rat.

Can't wait to see how they look after their first shed.

[gonesnakee]

I can't beleive how big they are. I say this because I have a bunch of the ones used by Mary to compare & they aren't small either folks. I'd safely say that those are the biggest hatchling "Corns" (I'll use it loosely LOL) I've ever seen before, little mutants they are. Mark
P.S. gonna start them on fuzzies? LOL

[vanderkm]

Definately starting these guys on fuzzies - I think they might take small hoppers!! I can't believe how big they are - thicker and longer than my hondo babies. They are demons too - strike at anything that moves, but nice once you pick them up. Very different from our corns - one is quite brown compared with the rest - will be neat to see how they turn out. And of course I am really waiting for the F2 from these.

mary v.

[Vanan]

I wonder if that's cos of Emory blood in them or the fact that they're crosses. We've found that our hybrids/crosses come out bigger and more fiesty and almost always eat fuzzies by their 3-4 meals.

[vanderkm]

I think it is because of hybrid vigor - a result of the crossbreeding rather than the GPR background. The female GPR was very small when we bought her - had been maintained on pinks only, but still was very thin, though she did have a big head - but not a particularly big snake. I think the cross - even between such closely related species - is what makes the difference in size and fiestyness.

mary v.

[MouseKilla]

That's a very interesting idea. The little I have read about hybrid vigor makes me think you could be right.

Most of the research I've done on it has left me more confused than when I started but my narrow understanding of it is (without first defining what a hybrid is!), the hybrid offspring being superior to both parent races. Superior tends to mean the same thing as being more fit to survive in their current environment so if there is a hybrid vigor effect here, it seems to me what we should be seeing is offspring that are better suited to living in plastic tubs and eating boiled rats. Sounds good to me, domesticated snakes here we come. lol!

Also, back-crossing the hybrid offsping back to the parent species, as you've done with the GPRs, is supposed to help stabilize the bloodline and cause it to breed truer. I would be interested to know how much variability exists in rootbeers and creams in the first generation as opposed to an established line of the same hybrids.

I'm quite interested in this stuff but I didn't even take biology in high school so I could be way off on all of that. lol! Where's that Dr. Fry when we need him? I'm sure he would know about this stuff...

[vanderkm]

Only thing I would argue with is 'superior' definition!! - not more fit to survive in current environment (wouldn't that be neat - adaptation to plastic tubs and boiled rats!!), but in the case of hybrid vigor - it is a general enhancement of vigor - size, feeding response, general basic biological functions like metabolism that are improved when the gene component of an animal is more heterozygous rather than homozygous. Any species bred and selected in captivity for any length of time tends to become more homozygous in lots of genes we don't select for - they kind of go along with the increase in homozygousity in genes we do select for. When you cross two completely unrelated lines (each homozygous for a lot of genes - but not the same ones as the other line) you get a very heterozygous offspring - and that overall heterozygous state is associated with increased vigor. Likely really a result of increased chances of a dominant gene being present in every gene pair - so no double recessives - and most dominant genes are advanatageous to viability.

The basic principle is used a lot in livestock breeding and production - use of crossbred cows that will have enhanced mothering ability with a purebred bull of another breed to increase the growth rate and feed conversion of calves - same with swine and poultry. Interesting to apply stuff from agriculture to hobbies!

Like you say, and back crossing into parent lines will enhance overall homozygousity - I expect a very uniform group in the first generation (all are evenly heterozygous and dominant genes tend to show from every pair of genes) but in the next generation (either an F2 among offspring or back to a parent line) you get a chance for the recessives to show up again so get a lot more diversity there. That's when you really need to do the heavy culling - keep only those that really reflect what you are after in future generations.

Gotta love genetics,

mary v.

[MouseKilla]

That makes sense that the most variation would turn up in the F2s now that I really think about it.

I've done some further digging around and I understand now that the "vigor" isn't some magical thing that happens through combining the two sub-species but instead it's more about switching off harmful recessive genes and allowing beneficial dominants to take over. Again, just my dim understanding of it, I'm probably still wrong about at least half of it. lol!

I guess in order to have the incredible snakes that I was talking about we would need to make a concerted effort as breeders to cull any problem feeding offspring and only allowing the most voracious eaters to reproduce instead of doing all we can to get them all eating. You don't need to be a geneticist to know that ain't gonna happen, not that I think it should but that's what it would take I guess.

I'd rather it be done with ball pythons, you could almost make an argument for it in their case, but for corns I think I would rather select for something a little more abitious like say, snakes that will eventually clean up after themselves. Now that's an adaptation! We'll start by killing all the ones that seem to push the paper in their cages aside and crap in the corner forcing you to scrub instead of just changing the paper. lol! What do you think?

[vanderkm]

Love the idea of selection for snakes that automatically paper train themselves - I definately have a few this year that insist on going under their papertowel instead of on it.

We did the force-feed thing last year to learn how to do it. This year anything that doesn't eat goes to our baby cal king - he has been more than willing to take care of a couple this year for us. Amazing thing is that some of the very tiniest corns I had hatch from very tiny eggs are eating like pigs and it is some of the larger ones that seem to fear a pinky when I put it in with them - they just freak out and try to get away from it (have seen this with rats before but these two were even 'afraid' of mice pinks. They had 8-10 chances but no interest so they have served their purpose - the cal king is looking great!

mary v.

[MouseKilla]

Yes, I'd have to agree with doing that after 8 or 10 tries, fussing over one now just translates into fussing with dozens in the next generation whether it's in your collection or in another.

In the two clutches I had this year I didn't have many that refused more than the first 3 or 4 times, I think maybe just one and as with yours he was one of the bigger ones of the bunch. Weird.

We had a tiny little freak in the second clutch that came from a normal sized egg but weighed only 3 grams! He still isn't big enough to put away the smallest of pinks but on the third try he took a wee little pink's head, he's taken one or two more heads since and might have to eat a couple more before taking his first pink. I didn't have high hopes for this guy and didn't consider him to be an animal I could rightly sell so I have decided to just keep him and see how he does. If he survives then he'll be my daughter's pet, I have no desire to produce pygmy corns! lol!