LGR Hypos

[Snakesitter]

At long last, Living Gems Reptiles is pleased to announce its hypomelanistic project.

Way back in 2010, we tracked down and purchased animals from three of the top hypomelanistic lines/breeders on the market. We have slowly and carefully raised these animals to maturity, announcing them only now, once we are poised to deliver babies into customers’ hands.

The LGR hypo group currently has three members.


Ramses
The group is anchored by "Ramses," a full hypo male produced by the breeder who started the whole hypo line, Mike Lockwood. Surprisingly, despite his young age, Ramses traces almost directly back to the founder animals -- both grandfathers were among the line's original stock. While Ramses retains the originals animals’ beautiful light orange coloration, he carries none of their drawbacks: he has never regurgitated, even once. (In fact, except for the occasional shed refusal, he has only refused food once during his entire life.)

Born in September 2010, below is a picture of Ramses at his arrival at LGR, only a tiny one month old at the time:



Below is a second picture of him at his most recent (successful) photo session, aged two and half years (he refused to un-ball for this third birthday shots):



Ramses currently weighs 1704 grams.


Amber
Ramses is supported by "Amber," a highly outcrossed het hypo female. She carries not only the hypo gene, but gorgeous coloration. Born in October 2010, below is a picture of her as a baby at six months old:



Below is a second picture of her at her most recent annual photo session, aged three and a half years:



Amber currently weighs 1779 grams.


Pearl
Ramses and Amber are supported by "Pearl," a second highly outcrossed het hypo female. This girl traces from the infamous (but now relatively rare) Tim Frazier line. As with Amber, she carries not only the hypo gene, but gorgeous coloration. Born in July 2010, below is a picture of her as a baby at five months old. Note the distinctive little oval in her head line:



Below is a second picture of her at her most recent annual photo session, aged three years:



Pearl currently weighs 1851 grams.


Breeding
At LGR, we prefer to give our girls an extra year to grow, on the theory that a larger female can better tolerate the rigors of breeding, and thus deliver a larger and healthier litter for our customers. Neither girl was ready at the start of this year. Ramses, however, was…but more details on how we used that will be given in our next post. Ramses will be introduced to either Amber or Pearl next year, when we should have both full hypos and het hypos available for sale.


Others
We will be adding two final members to the group this year: another full male, and another het female. Details will follow once we find the perfect babies.


As always, thank you for reading.

[Kera]

Wow sweet!

[Jim Smith]

Those are indeed living Gems. Absolutely stunning animals! Good luck with your breeding project.

[sharthun]

Beautiful snakes

[SnoopySnake]

Wow, that hypo is sweet!

[Snakesitter]

Thank you all! We worked really hard to find the perfect animals for our first morph project, and I'm glad to see it registers with so many readers!

[Concept9]

Grats Cliff and good luck. I cant wait to see the out come of these.

[Snakesitter]

Thank you, MBK -- me either!

[franks]

I'm glad to hear that you guys are using precision and taking you time. Too many breeders rush their animals and projects to quicken the return on their investments to the detriment of both their animals and our hobby. Thanks. Gorgeous snakes too. I cannot wait to see what they produce.

[Snakesitter]

Originally Posted by franks

I'm glad to hear that you guys are using precision and taking you time. Too many breeders rush their animals and projects to quicken the return on their investments to the detriment of both their animals and our hobby. Thanks.

I hear you on that, tenfold. I know major competitors in this species who breed their animals young, breed the same snakes every year, fail to practice good risk control, etc....yet claim they don't do any of these things. Sigh. It's a battle for one customer at a time, I guess. Glad to hear the positive acknowledgment, though!

[Concept9]

Very very Nice.

[jpsteele80]

Those are some absolutely beautiful BRB's

[Snakesitter]

Thank you!!!

[marvelfreak]

They are just stunning. Ramses is one sexy beast.

[Snakesitter]

He was trying to convince his girlfriend of that. ;-)