# how to understand colour morphs



## daughterofthedarkness (Nov 21, 2005)

Hi everyone, i've been breeding corns for about 7 years now, but when it comes down to the technical bit i'm at a loss.
for example one of my pairs that i breed together regularly are a male ghost and a female carolina. Now i'm fairly sure that the parents of the ghost are both ghost, but i don't know what the parents of the carolina are.
over the last couple of years this pair have produced mainly anerythristic and carolina with the odd amel, snow and ghost thrown in for good measure.
so two questions, 
1. does it mean that one or both of them has the gene for amel, snow or anerythristic, or is this just a freak.
2. if one of the hatchlings is an amel, anery or snow does this mean it is het for ghost and carolina?
I'm sooo confused, i would love to attempt to produce different morphs, like lavender, butter & blizzards, in order to do this would i have to aquire more adults or is it possible to do it through breeding back the hatchlings with their parents?? sorry that's 3 questions. 
hope someone can help, thanks


----------



## cornmorphs (Jan 28, 2005)

if the morphs are different to start with then they will both have to be het for the same other morph to produce it.
i.e you say they have produced amels and ghosts, this means that the normal must be het for ghost and both must be het for amel.
it doesnt always come from the parents either, sometimes it comes from grand parents.
you may see snakes being sold as 50% het for ???, this is when one of the parents holds a gene, say stripe, this then has a 50% chance of being in the snakes hatchlings. you will not know the outcome unless you are lucky enough to breed 2 together and get stripes or use a full stripe to test breed them.
its quite complicated but gets easier as you go along.
i gotta go work now, but can help loads another time.


----------



## Guest (Dec 23, 2005)

Ok to answer your questions

1.Only one parent has to carry the gene for you to get a morph but this does not happen often.Usually you will get all "normal" hatchlings that are het for the morph.

2The carolina is the normal box standard corn anything else is a morph.If you have a carolina hatchling with amel anery and ghost as well then all the snakes will also be het for what they are not.So Carolina het ghost/amel/snow/anery.Anery het amel/snow/ghost.Snow het amel/anery/ghost.

3.To produce lavender,butter or blizzard then you would need corns that 1 show the trait or 2 are het for it.It is extremely rare that you will breed these from normal parents or just taking a chance.Dont get me wrong it must have happened originally because they are around but a lot of the morphs have come around from breeding other morphs.ie butter is a mix caramel and amel so in actual fact all butter hatchlings would be butter het caramel/amel.

Hope this helps you a little to understand the basic genetics.


----------



## daughterofthedarkness (Nov 21, 2005)

right, i see, i didn't realise they both had to be het to produce, i just presumed it was just one. that clears my confusin a bit thankyou.

so in actual fact if i breed my ghost with my new (unrelated) amel that i haven't bred before if she carries the gene for something else that my carolina doesn't and my male ghost does then chances are i could get something else then, i think?? 
Hmmm that's worth thinking about in the spring!! I think my carolina is gonna have to share her boyfriend this year!! :lol: 

thanks for that, it's given my brain something to puzzle over


----------



## daughterofthedarkness (Nov 21, 2005)

sorry greenphase, that last reply was to cornmorphs.
So all the hatchlings i've produced are het for all the normal stuff the ie amel, anery, snow etc.
so in actual fact, breeding any of them back with their parents could still produce a mixed bag of any of those.
I think i'll definately give it a go with the amel this year, you never know she might be het for all sorts :lol:


----------



## cornmorphs (Jan 28, 2005)

the thing is, not all the babies will have the same genes as the parents.
its well complicated.
you would have to breed them all back to the parents or to other snakes with whichever genes you wanted try and produce.
this would then single out which ones were het for which morphs, and which ones werent.


----------



## cornsnakeman (Feb 2, 2006)

Just a question on this, you are talking about mating the hatchlings back with their parents. By doing this, are you not running the risk of birth defects etc caused by inbreeding? I have been around dog breeders all my life and I know they definitely frown on mating a pair that are too closely related, coz it can result in some weird results, I actually own one of these; a sheltie who at a year old is the same size as a 4 month puppy and wont grow anymore!!

Please excuse this if it is a daft question, but I am considering breeding corns in the relatively near future, so am wanting to learn all the ins and outs.


----------



## cornmorphs (Jan 28, 2005)

it depends on how many times you do it.
to get some of the rarer colours you will have to do this several times.
if its only one or two inbreedings then its usually ok.
you dont get too many defects, snakes usually just die at a young age through too much inbreeding


----------



## Ganoderma (Mar 1, 2006)

Look up "punnets square". Genetics can get mighty complicated, but using this square is fairly basic and helps people to understand the basics of resesive traits.


----------



## cornmorphs (Jan 28, 2005)

cool, so what morphs do they have in taiwan mate?


----------



## Ganoderma (Mar 1, 2006)

To be honest i don't know :? I'm Canadian, but i am certainly trying to find out! 

I have seen one guys normal, snow, and albino but thats it.

To be honest there are so many different colour morphs and mixes of various ones, i can't keep up


----------



## daughterofthedarkness (Nov 21, 2005)

Ganoderma said:


> Look up "punnets square". Genetics can get mighty complicated, but using this square is fairly basic and helps people to understand the basics of resesive traits.


Thanks for that I'll have a look


----------



## CyberFae (Feb 25, 2006)

Ooh, I didn't realise how interesting all this is! Methinks I'm gonna have to buy more vivs...!!! Trouble is, I don't think NNY wants to breed his li'l girly  Will have to just buy some snakes of my own! What a shame that would be :lol:


----------



## NNY (Feb 2, 2006)

Excuse me... im buying a variable which will be breeding. :lol: And hopefully a lavender and a florida king. Can any of you on here give me a great site to start at the basics of genetics. Its still a bit confusing to me and id love to learn about it?


----------



## cornmorphs (Jan 28, 2005)

Ganoderma said:


> To be honest i don't know :? I'm Canadian, but i am certainly trying to find out!
> 
> I have seen one guys normal, snow, and albino but thats it.
> 
> To be honest there are so many different colour morphs and mixes of various ones, i can't keep up


#

tell me about it lol, its a total nightmare


----------



## CyberFae (Feb 25, 2006)

NNY said:


> Excuse me... im buying a variable which will be breeding.


Whee!!! And you forget... who was it who had an interview to Cambridge Vet Sci degree?? I probably know enough about genetics to be able to read a (pretty big) breeding chart and tell you which het genes are present in a snake. My mummy says I'm her special little princess!


----------



## mutt (Jul 5, 2005)

CyberFae said:


> Ooh, I didn't realise how interesting all this is! Methinks I'm gonna have to buy more vivs...!!! Trouble is, I don't think NNY wants to breed his li'l girly  Will have to just buy some snakes of my own! What a shame that would be :lol:


sod him :lol:


----------



## CyberFae (Feb 25, 2006)

Did that already! :lol: Look out, here he comes...!


----------



## NNY (Feb 2, 2006)

LOL...im not breeding this little girl. I am breeding future snakes though. And do you really see me complaining at getting more snakes?? I think not.


----------



## Ganoderma (Mar 1, 2006)

Variables eh? those were my favourite kingsnake after mountain kings!

Simple genetics does not explain their colours though...i do not understand their genetics...but you can get black, leonoris and milksnake phase from any phase...whack.

I never got any blacks ones  heres some of mine from before.


----------



## NNY (Feb 2, 2006)

liking very much. Im finding this genetics thing more and more interesting. Its all quite confusing though :lol: :lol:


----------



## pie_man (Oct 1, 2005)

it is very interestin NNY but yep i agree confusing also :lol:


----------

