Enigma abnormalities poll

[dmreptiles]

looking for votes from any one that owns an enigma that has seen anything abnormal in their enigmas and if your enigmas shows no abnormalities please also vote.

 

[dmreptiles]

enigma

Male enigma 50% het albino
Male eenigma 100% het raptor
Female enigma 66% het raptor

all normal not defective

 

[KelliH]

Hey Duvon!

I'll be in touch with you tomorrow BTW, we just got home. What a long trip, we drove more than 2000 miles in four days!

Anyway, here is what I posted on a European forum just now, for some insight.

Hello-

Sorry I am only now replying to this thread. I have been out of town with my family since early Monday morning and we just got home a few minutes ago.

First of all, I got a good bit of the posts read, but not all of them (forgive me, I have a lot of unpacking and catching up to do at home!
Secondly, I want to make it very clear that I have never tried to cover up anything about Enigmas. Most of the Enigmas I have sold were produced by Mark Bell, who originated the morph (as far as I know anyway). Some seem to act weirder than others, as far as the circling etc. I have found that stress most certainly aggravates this. For instance, I have had a few customers (4) contact me after receiving their Enigma(s), and they were concerned that the geckos were going around in circles, tilting their heads, etc. In one of the cases, I sent my customer TWO Enigmas to replace the one because his was 65+ grams, the two I sent him as replacements were 25ish. I never heard another complaint. In the second instance I replaced the Enigma with another, I never heard another complaint. In the third instance my customer decided to keep the Enigma and see how it did after a few weeks; she ended up improving and as far as I know he is very happy with her. The fourth instance is recent and I am still discussing the issue with my customer. Please keep in mind that these are the only instances of this since the winter of 2006, when I started selling Enigmas for Bell.

I have always been up front with my customers about Enigmas but, frankly, I did not know much more about them than they did. My own theory is that Enigmas have a form of ocular albinism, which, in other animals, has been known to cause problems with balance. Over time, the animals brain can figure out how to compensate and it can act normally. As well, many never express any sort of difficulties at all, and act completely normal from hatching. One other thing to take note of is that I have not had any problems with my Enigmas feeding, losing weight, etc, no more than with any of my other gecko morphs, or leos in general. Furthermore, none of the people posting on this thread (that I know of) have contacted me personally about any of this, with the exception of Melanie (thank you by the way). She thought I should know that it was being insinuated that Mark Bell and I are involved in a cover up regarding neurological problems in the Enigma morph. It's not true.

If anyone has any questions about the Enigmas, or anything else, I'd be glad to try and answer them. Sometimes I am kind of slow to reply, so it may take me a day or two. There is a lot more to my life than reptiles (thank goodness!) and I am pretty busy. Thanks for reading.

Oh, just one more thing. I really wish if any of my customers in the UK (I know Nick, Pete and Sarah, Mark and Melanie bought from me, sorry if I missed anyone else) were unhappy with their geckos they would have said something to me about it. I am always more than willing to make things right for my customers, to the point of losing out financially myself. That's why I will never be as successful as Tremper, Bell etc, I actually care personally about my customers, and try to make them satisfied.

 

[jmlslayer]

:main_huh: wow i never knew that the enigma morph acted weird

 

[Ccrashca069]

I personally hear nothing but great things about you and your reptiles Kelli. I hope to actually buy something directly from you in the future.

 

[dmreptiles]

enigmas

Thanks Kelli for the post i have never seen any thing abnormal in any enigma i have ever seen. the ones i have had have all fed and grown at normal rates no problems here.

 

[jmlslayer]

yea kelli i hear great thing about you and your gecko's and was wondering if your going to the houston show cuz i would like to meet you and buy a gecko from you

 

[KelliH]

One more things I forgot to post...

Even one MORE thing LOL. I wanted to also mention the statement that someone wrote about the Enigma gene "tainting the leopard gecko gene pool" (I'm paraphrasing) because the trait would be "hidden in the hets". There is NO such thing as a Het Enigma. The Enigma trait is dominant, and when you hatch one, it is either an Enigma, or it isn't. The normal appearing, non Enigma siblings are NOT HETS. It works the same way as a Mack Snow, there is no such thing as a "Het Snow". The normal, non Enigma siblings are just that: normal, non Enigmas. They do not look like Enigmas, nor do they act like Enigmas. It sounds like someone may have given you some incorrect information about genetics(this is directed to the person that made the statement). Thanks again...

yea kelli i hear great thing about you and your gecko's and was wondering if your going to the houston show cuz i would like to meet you and buy a gecko from you

Well thanks, I am discouraged about the Enigma threads, but only because of some of the insinuations and misinformation. I welcome any and all polite, mature discussion here. The only Houston show I attend is the September ETHS conference, so I hope to meet you there!

Thanks again, now I must take care of some things here at home.

 

[jmlslayer]

iv been wanting to join the ETHS and i think i might in a week or so.thanks for talken with me

 

[leo mel]

hi kelli,
must i first say thank you for posting on the uk board we now hope as uk breeders that it no longer continues with such a negative attuide.
i would also like to point out that our enigma 'LEGION' (FOR I AM MANY) has never showed any signs what so ever, is happily feeding well gaining weight and not effecting his preferomance in the bedroom.
As you know both mark and myself have been very happy with all of our buys from you and we hope we can continue to have a good relationship with each other.
I know that other enigma breeders in the uk that bought from you are also happy too.
I have added to the poll and it is certainly nice to visually see what we all (uk breeders) expected to see.
once again thank you for your'e input, we now hope the fire burns down.
with much respect to you all
mark and melanie.:main_thumbsup:

 

[PSGeckos]

Hi Kelli

Thanks for the reply and hope you had a good vacation

Us UK owners & breeders of Enigmas have decided in the a code of conduct when selling the enigmas, in hope that it will give some security with both the buyers and sellers of the Enigmas. It is in its early stages but the consencous is that it will be a success :main_thumbsup:

Feel free to take a look
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/lizards/108150-enigma-code.html

Thanks
Pete & Sarah

 

[miamimike]

I have purchased MORE than a few enigmas from Kelli.....and others....and have seen none of these abnormalities and have been extrememly happy with the sharing of info I have received from all parties directly involved....and very much look forward to working with this wonderful and exciting morph!

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I have 4 Enigmas. NONE of them display any of the unusual behavior some people have observed.

 

[SteveB]

One more things I forgot to post...

Even one MORE thing LOL. I wanted to also mention the statement that someone wrote about the Enigma gene "tainting the leopard gecko gene pool" (I'm paraphrasing) because the trait would be "hidden in the hets". There is NO such thing as a Het Enigma. The Enigma trait is dominant, and when you hatch one, it is either an Enigma, or it isn't. The normal appearing, non Enigma siblings are NOT HETS. It works the same way as a Mack Snow, there is no such thing as a "Het Snow". The normal, non Enigma siblings are just that: normal, non Enigmas. They do not look like Enigmas, nor do they act like Enigmas. It sounds like someone may have given you some incorrect information about genetics(this is directed to the person that made the statement). Thanks again...

Kelli I want to respond to this, because I have made a post of similar content here to the one you responded to on the european forums.

I don't think people are talking about enigma hets when they talk about a problem being hidden in the nonenigma siblings. I think the worry is more that the problematic trait is not linked to the enigma trait but an entirely seperate gene that happened to have been bred into the enigma gene pool early on and might be a recessive trait (although some have said their enigma siblings have displayed the circling problem, as well, so who knows?).
So people are not concerned about "enigma hets" which don't exist, they're concerned about "circling hets" which might exist.

 

[boutiquegecko]

Kelli I want to respond to this, because I have made a post of similar content here to the one you responded to on the european forums.

I don't think people are talking about enigma hets when they talk about a problem being hidden in the nonenigma siblings. I think the worry is more that the problematic trait is not linked to the enigma trait but an entirely seperate gene that happened to have been bred into the enigma gene pool early on and might be a recessive trait (although some have said their enigma siblings have displayed the circling problem, as well, so who knows?).
So people are not concerned about "enigma hets" which don't exist, they're concerned about "circling hets" which might exist.

I posted about this too-and that's what I was referring to. I'm sorry I lead anyone to believe it was a het enigma. But rather I was thinking if this behavior has been spotted in the enigma siblings, then it's not just the enigma. And if that leo is bred and passes on the gene (if there is one), then it could possibly work it's way to other morphs.

 

[marula]

i have 2 enigmas from kelli and i has see many others (all from her)
no one show any circle attitude...

 

[dprince]

Um...........I have to say, I *really* dislike the title of this poll. Something more like..........."does your enigma have issues?" "Does it circle?" Because "defective" is a pretty strong, negative implying word. :main_huh:

And what about folks that have several enigmas? What if they have one that circles, and 100 that don't? Doesn't that sort of throw this poll off?

Just some thoughts..........

 

[marula]

i really don't like what's happend around enigmas at this time..
many people that try to libel the morph and never EAR about the big part of breeders that post about their health enigmas...
i think is normal that in a new morph something happend and i think that is really important that EVERYBODY cooperate to share information
and i thins that is REALLY important that who own enigmas with circle attitude or with other kind of problem DON'T breed them
is normal that enigmas show to be sensitive to light (like MANY albinos during thier first years of selection)

personally i think that the morph world is bad...but there are many people that have morphs for the pleasure to working with them and not for money...

please, mantenin this discussion FOR an ethic selection and nothing else

 

[godzillizard]

I just think it's interesting how people are 'attacking' the Enigma, but noone's worried about all the other issues associated with certain morphs/genetic combos--like the extreme light sensitivity in alot of albinos, the nasty attitudes of the blizzard, or tremper PAs vitamin uptake issues, the Mack snows 'health' issues, and so on and so on... We have to be honest with ourselves and accept that some genes/combinations have more effects than any of us will ever know, let alone understand. This is truly an emerging science, so if your not comfortable with shaky ground, don't build your house near a fault line...

 

[Mel&Keith]

Um...........I have to say, I *really* dislike the title of this poll. Something more like..........."does your enigma have issues?" "Does it circle?" Because "defective" is a pretty strong, negative implying word. :main_huh:

And what about folks that have several enigmas? What if they have one that circles, and 100 that don't? Doesn't that sort of throw this poll off?

Just some thoughts..........

Yeah...that's why I wasn't even going to acknowledge this poll. I did notice when I was cleaning tubs yesterday with the windows open since it was gorgeous outside that our Raptor and a Bell started circling after clamping shut their eyes from the sun. I guess they're defective too...