Hybrid projects for 2012 and 2013

[kvwherps]

Greetings all

I'm new to the forum and would just like to tell you my projects for this upcoming year....
To start off, I don't actually live in South Africa anymore I have since moved to Germany about 4 years ago but the move has afforded me access to more exotic species of herps and other animals....
Anyway, to begin with, I am quite keen on hybrids, even though there is a lot of speculation about them hanging around, but in my opinion they are great so long as there is no danger for the animals involved.
My first project will be to breed my dwarf pastel redtail boa to another species male either from the genus Epicrates, Candoia or Acrantophis. This should result in awesome babies, but I don't know which of those three males to choose and which exact species to use, so any help will be gladly received!!
The next project is a joint project with a buddy of mine and will be to breed my female nicaraguan redtail to one of the locality dwarfs. I.e crawl cay, caulker cay, hog island, etc. Again, help in choosing the male would be great
Another project which should be quite interesting is to breed my Bredli x Coastal Carpet to another species of python. This is probably the most open of my projects as most male pythons will work so long as they are not something daft like a retic or burm!! Yet again, any suggestions for the male?
Last hybrid project is a colubrid one. Namely, a hybridisation between my male Okeetee corn and something else. The female will probably be a milksnake or kingsnake but all suggestions are welcome

I will also be breeding regular corn snake morphs and leopard gecko morphs to gain a bit of cash to arrange the hybrids....

Hope this interests some of you
Cheers

[Bushviper]

To be honest I cannot imagine why you would want to breed a pastel dwarf boa with anything else. This animal was produced by line breeding for multiple generations and now you are going to undo that all in one year? Mixing it with Acrantophis will not make selling them eaiser as they will still require CITES 1 permits to move them.

Even the nicaraguan boa crossed with an insular boa seems wrong as 100% pure Crawl keys and hogg islands are not easy to find. I cannot think that people will be lining up to throw money at your hatchlings.

The bredli/coastal cross would possibly be best mixed into Chondro or albino Darwins to make something people would want. It does not help you breed animals that will not sell and then you have to feed them to something else because they are not worth keeping any more. Please post a pic of this snake you have.

The corn crosses have been done so many times I am sure the market for those is not too big anymore. Try for something like a Ridleys ratsnake or a Green racer which should not be too difficult to make if you know how to fool them. That might spark some interest.

[kvwherps]

To be honest I was not so sure about the boa crossings myself....
Maybe I will actually end up only doing one or two of those hybrids, but I certainly want to give it a try...
I know that dwarf pastels are line bred, but I cannot find any male dwarf pastels around here and I would love to try something interesting with it. Either morphs or hybrids...
I am already working on 3 leo projects and a project to produce hypo plasma corns.
One never knows with hybrids, they might be amazing or a dissapointment. But unless you try, you'll never know...

[Bushviper]

You should look towards the Dutch side. They have some nice boa morphs there. It is also easy to import them from the US. Many large breeders now frequent the European shows. Boa morphs will always sell and as you say you cannot find any males. If you produce males then you will have a ready market.

[snakemaster]

Kvwherps, seems like u got some interesting plans there! I am still yet to find someone with some serious hybrids here in sa besides kings and corns, well I hope to start my own hybrid project soon, bt will keep everyone posted when I do start
Anyways, welcome to the site

[evenden1]

Hello There,

I have joined this forum specifically so that I could reply to your post. I am passionate about Caulker Cay boas, Crawl cays and all locality boas. To potentially be crossing these boas is incredibly irresponsible; let me explain...... Caulker Cay is the only habitat where these wonderful boas are found, and they only have a 100m square piece of land left to inhabit in the world. They are one of the most endangered species of boa in the wild. There is actually a larger population in captivity. The elevation of the land on Caulker Cay is 8m at it's highest point, and if it were hit by another hurricane, such as Hattie in the 1960's, then there is a very real potential for the entire remaining wild population to be wiped out as the island is susceptible to storm surges. It is therefore imperative that we try and preserve these bloodlines, as the captive population may be all we have left, and the only way we can restock the wild population in the event of a storm surge. Once you sell your hybrid babies, you cannot keep tabs on where they are being sold and what animals they are in turn being bred to.

Please, I implore you not to cross breed any island locality boas, there is no need to do it, the value of the babies commerically will be less than the value of pure breeds, a lot of people will disagree entirely with the fact that you bred them in the first place, and the kind of people that will buy such hybrids will invariably know very little about the threat to these wonderful animals in the wild and may in turn put them into unscrupulous breeding programmes which further dilute the bloodline.

A much better bet would be to selective breed with some Nicaraguan boa morphs. They are much more plentiful, have amazing colour variations, and the hypos are spectacular.

Please use both your heart and your head with this one. It just seems a pointless and potentially destructive exersize. These are beautiful animals and we need to safeguard their future.

[Shaun P]

Well said!

[Bushviper]

I am glad the record has been set straight by somebody who works with this species.

The Nicaraguan has been bred in with many of the other morphs and they do well.