Genetics question

Snakefood · 08-15-11, 04:10 PM

I was looking up the rare morph of "Palmetto" Corn Snakes and found that the only person to breed them sells only females. He states on his site that he does this to limit the flooding onto the market of a new morph.

So I have 2 questions that popped into my head while reading this.

A) If he is holding back the males in order to stop the market from flooding, does this mean that males hold the color/morph gene??

B) what does he do (do you think) with all the males?? You would think eventually he would be flooded himself in male Palmetto's!!

BlindOne · 08-15-11, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakefood

I was looking up the rare morph of "Palmetto" Corn Snakes and found that the only person to breed them sells only females. He states on his site that he does this to limit the flooding onto the market of a new morph.

So I have 2 questions that popped into my head while reading this.

A) If he is holding back the males in order to stop the market from flooding, does this mean that males hold the color/morph gene??

B) what does he do (do you think) with all the males?? You would think eventually he would be flooded himself in male Palmetto's!!

A: Both animals need the recessive trait to produce the strain, i.e. palmetto x palmetto = palmetto. Normal x palmetto would produce normal looking animals that are het for the recessive trait. You'd have to raise the babies and breed them to the mother to get 25% (I believe) palmetto's

B: Saving them for the coming zombie apocalypse

Kayla90 · 08-15-11, 05:13 PM

Bahaha Does he plan to flood the world with snakes in hopes that the zombies with attack them rather than himself??

Snakefood · 08-15-11, 05:18 PM

LOL, who knows, I just thought to myself that eventually he would be absolutely WADING in male palmetto's just so he can continue to charge $4,000 for each female!!

They are gorgeous though. If they were reasonably priced I would get one in a heartbeat!!

PS- when you say breed it to a normal, is that an actual "original" cornsnake or just any other cornsnake? (ie: any other morph)

BlindOne · 08-16-11, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakefood

PS- when you say breed it to a normal, is that an actual "original" cornsnake or just any other cornsnake? (ie: any other morph)

Normal as in a regular patterned corn. I don't know what you'd get if you combined two different morphs, probably normal (wild type) with double hets

infernalis · 08-16-11, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlindOne

Normal as in a regular patterned corn. I don't know what you'd get if you combined two different morphs, probably normal (wild type) with double hets

Many of the "new" morphs are the product of breeding 2 different morphs together.

I have some double and triple het garter snakes that produce interesting litters.

BlindOne · 08-16-11, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infernalis

Many of the "new" morphs are the product of breeding 2 different morphs together.

I have some double and triple het garter snakes that produce interesting litters.

What I understand is

Homozygous X Homozygous = 100% Homozygous

Homozygous X Het = 50% Homozygous 50% Het

Het X Het =25% Homozygous 50% Het 25% Normal

Wouldn't breeding two morphs together produce normal looking double het offspring?

Dehlida · 08-16-11, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakefood

I was looking up the rare morph of "Palmetto" Corn Snakes and found that the only person to breed them sells only females. He states on his site that he does this to limit the flooding onto the market of a new morph.

So I have 2 questions that popped into my head while reading this.

A) If he is holding back the males in order to stop the market from flooding, does this mean that males hold the color/morph gene??

B) what does he do (do you think) with all the males?? You would think eventually he would be flooded himself in male Palmetto's!!

A) He's holding back the males to push back when other people can produce the morph themselves, thus giving him a huge lead over other breeders and market dominance over the morph.

B) He will breed them, and produce hets, and sell some hets, and use them to produce more palmettos. He might work with other morphs- but I'm unsure what this gene would do in the presence of other morphs.

Snakefood · 08-16-11, 12:57 PM

Very interesting!! So how long do you think it will take before other people breed enough to bring the price down for $4,000 each to maybe a few hundred??

I would love one as they are the most striking (IMO) of the Corn morphs, but there is NO WAY I can justify a $4K expenditure!!

Dehlida · 08-16-11, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakefood

Very interesting!! So how long do you think it will take before other people breed enough to bring the price down for $4,000 each to maybe a few hundred??

I would love one as they are the most striking (IMO) of the Corn morphs, but there is NO WAY I can justify a $4K expenditure!!

You're looking at probably 6 years or so until they are down south of $500 in my eyes.

Snakefood · 08-16-11, 01:08 PM

alright, I can wait that long. I have already chosen my first baby corn (a male Blizzard) and will pick him up next week, so I will be busy raising and learning from him and probably would not expand for a coupe years, both hubby and I are very interested in BP's for our second snake down the road, so if we got a third it would be probably 5-7 yrs from now!! Then maybe I can get a Palmetto!!

**Aaron_S** · 08-16-11, 01:47 PM

This is the first year that morph has been produced. The guy is just using males as holdbacks to spread the gene out amoung other morphs. The price will drop eventually.

BlindOne, you're correct in your genetics there in regards to recessive genetics. It gets a little more muddled up when you have co-dominan and dominant genes.