Granite female corn - what would you breed her to?

[Ssthisto]

I have a granite het amel female corn, Feldspar, who I would *like* to breed next year. The only problem is... I don't know what I should breed her to. The animals listed below are the possibilities, and in each case I'll list what could hatch out based on the hets I KNOW about.

Which male (or set of offspring) would you pick, and why?

Granite male "Quartz" almost certainly NOT het amel
Offspring predicted as:
100% Granite possible het Amel

Anery male "Zircon" het Amel, Lavender, Stripe
Offspring predicted as:
75% Anery het Bloodred, possible het Amel, Lavender, Stripe
25% Snow het Bloodred, possible het Lavender, Stripe

Coral Snow male "Calcite" (I did this breeding last year)
Offspring predicted as:
50% Anery het Bloodred, Hypo, Amel
50% Snow het Bloodred, Hypo

Anery Stripe male "Arsenic" possible het Amel, Lavender
Offspring predicted as:
100% Anery het Bloodred, Stripe, possible het Amel, Lavender

Butter het Motley male "Popcorn"
Offspring predicted as:
50% Normal het Amel, Anery, Bloodred, Caramel, poss het Motley
50% Amel het Anery, Bloodred, Caramel, poss het Motley

Blizzard male "Selenite"
Offspring predicted as:
50% Normal het Amel, Anery, Bloodred, Charcoal
50% Amel het Anery, Bloodred, Charcoal

Normal male "Realgar" het Caramel, Lava, Amel
Offspring predicted as:
75% Normal het Anery, Bloodred, possible het Caramel, Lava, Amel
25% Amel het Anery, Bloodred, possible het Caramel, Lava

Normal male "Houdini" het Bloodred, Caramel, Hypo, Motley
Offspring predicted as:
50% Normal het Anery, Bloodred, possible het Amel, Caramel, Hypo, Motley
50% Bloodred het Anery, possible het Amel, Caramel, Hypo, Motley

White-sided Texas Ratsnake male "Cerastes"
Experimental breeding... something I've read suggests that Whitesided in ratsnakes MAY be the same thing as Bloodred in corn snakes, but the only way to find out is to cross homozygotes for each and see what a double het looks like. Thing is, this isn't a cross I'd be happy to SELL offspring from; I would probably destroy all but a couple of eggs.

So, what pairing would you make - or would you let Feldspar go unbred until 2011, when I should have alternative homozygous bloodred or heterozygous bloodred males available to breed her?

[DazedLewis]

I would use Houdini or Quartz, as I love visual bloodred morphs. But the best male I reckon would be something like a hypo bloodred het amel and anery or something along those lines, as you would get a good split of morphs, all at least bloodred, and you'd be testing your girl for het hypo

[Ssthisto]

Technically speaking she's already been tested for the het hypo - she was bred to a coral snow (Hypo+Amel+Anery) last year, and none of the anerythristic babies looked homozygous hypo, all of them were quite clearly Anery. Couldn't tell you for sure about the snows, but I'm betting they were the same.

Buying another adult male is unfortunately out of the question at the moment.

[Athravan]

If you are looking at selling the offspring then in the current market I would go for granite offspring. There aren't that many of these available and most people these days seem to want a visual rather than a het.

If you're looking at producing offspring you can use for further projects down the line then I'd go with the anery stripe personally, as granite stripe is a nice project and all 100% blood related stripe lines are pretty thin on the ground right now.

I personally wouldn't use the coral as to me Avalanche just looks like yet another white snake, and I'm not sure that Hypo Snow Blood would look any better. You'd have a lot of genes in there but for popularity or attractiveness of the snake it just wouldn't do it for me personally, but that's down to opinion.

[Ssthisto]

You've got some very good points there, Athravan - although I'm not all THAT worried about breeding babies I can sell, I don't need next year's breeding of Feldspar for project babies (that'll be when my Lavamel male is big enough; I am also hoping to get hold of a bloodred stripe male) ... so the conundrum is whether I breed her at all, really - I don't know if I really want to produce an entire clutch of granites - which means I might give her next year off to build up for 2011.

[DazedLewis]

If you find a bloodred stripe supplier let me know please

[spirit975]

I would personally go for Arsenic, i think getting the stripe into the picture is the way to go. I love my Granite stripe and will hopefully have some nice babies from her next year.
Although having said that, although baby Avalanches are like any other white snake i think they get some lovely colour as they age.

I like to get surprises from clutches and i love being kept waiting to see what i'm going to get, so for that reason i wouldn't use Quartz.

I've often wondered what a Whitesided rat would do with a corn, i intended to try it but never got that far, i'd love to see the results if that's what you went with, but personally i'd not "waste" (for want of a better word) a Granite female for it, i'd try a normal or "lower end" corn to start with, even though you won't get the bloodred answers you're looking for, if that made any sense?

[Ssthisto]

The only reason I'd bother with the whitesided rat is to find out if Whitesided is allelic to Bloodred ... so it wouldn't make sense to cross it to anything that *wasn't* bloodred.

A cross to Arsenic is one possibility, but all it would do is make me project hets, rather than actually getting me a Granite Stripe in one go... to that end I'd rather wait until I can get a bloodred stripe, so that the offspring will be guaranteed homozygous bloodred and I can get the stripe KNOWING that the animals are already bloodreds.

[spirit975]

So really it's either Quartz or wait until you get a blood stripe then really, as the other males would only make projects.. wouldn't they?

[Ssthisto]

Yeah, pretty much, although I suppose of the lot Arsenic is the best "alternative" choice... if I breed Feldspar at all next year.