starting from scratch with a normal

[enigmaslim]

hey gang I was wondering about starting from scratch with normals or wild caught f2's. would this be the best way to go as far as trying to produce clean morphs? And what should I look for in normals if I wanna try to produce diff morps or is it all a crap shoot? I like the enigma's, SHCT, and lavenders. alot of normals if seen on breeders sight seem to show some lav in em. I guess i would like to try this so not to get confused on what I would have, I have a TSHCT, SHCT, and Tremper Albino but im not 100% sure of their lineage. What do you guys and gals think?

 

[Taquiq]

It would take years to produce morphs if you start off with Normals. You have to keep line breeding and over and over again. If you breed Normals to recessives it is all normals het for Recessive. It sometimes works but not always.

 

[Tony C]

There are two basic types of morphs, mutations and line bred morphs. Mutations arise randomly, it is rare for a new one to pop up, and there is nothing you can do to increase your chances of finding one except to breed extremely large numbers of geckos and hope you get lucky. Line bred morphs are achieved by selectively breeding animals over many generations, each time choosing the best examples of what you are trying to create and breeding them together. It is a long process, especially if you are trying to create something new from normal or wild caught geckos.

Your best bet is to decide what morphs interest you the most, buy the best representatives of that morph you can, and breed them to accomplish whatever goal you have in mind. After you have a good handle on that you will most likely have gained the knowledge needed to attempt new combination morphs or create your own line of line bred geckos.

 

[BSM]

Or just stick with pure sub species group and in a long shot like the lottery get something new but a sub species group would be great for out crossing to any other project. Different genes = good in most cases

If you like tangs why not find a nice male shtct and out cross it to some wild caught f1/2s and you can have a nice little project. wouldn't produce the nicest tangs the 1st generation but could have potential.

theres my 2 cents on your question, good luck in whatever way you go and most importantly happy holidays


Bryan

 

[acpart]

Breeding for something special and unusual, as has been mentioned above, will result in a large number of geckos that aren't special and unusual which must be housed and sold (unless you can accommodate a huge, ever growing population). I agree that it's more efficient and satisfying to choose some nice looking geckos and do your own project (even if it's been done before) that may take a few generations. When I started breeding I decided that my first project would be hybinos and that rather than buying 2 hybinos and breeding them together I would start with an albino and a SHTCT to make hets. It should have been done in 2 generations but I got slowed down by a poor breeder. I finally succeeded last season in my 4th year and it was very satisfying.

Aliza

 

[ILoveGeckos14]

I was wondering the same thing, and im not sure if tremper was the first one to produce jungles but in his book he said it emerged around 1991 so that would be around 18 years after he started working with leopard geckos. 18 years is a long time. I'm still going to try things with the wild caughts and see where it goes, hopefully a wierd one will pop out, not likely but one can hope!

 

[enigmaslim]

Good feedback guys.I think I will pick 3 morphs, probly TSHCT, Enigma,and either norms or Lavenders and start from there. Being a animal control officer I see the affects of over population and what happens when poor owners by animals they can't take care off. Sohow can you claim your own line? Does it matter if someone has similair leos to what u wanna call your own?

 

[lisa s]

I would go for breeding some normals, they are beautiful and not enough people are producing them in my opinion

 

[enigmaslim]

Yeah my wife loves em so ill get a set for her lol

 

[lisa s]

that sounds great

 

[acpart]

Good feedback guys.I think I will pick 3 morphs, probly TSHCT, Enigma,and either norms or Lavenders and start from there. Being a animal control officer I see the affects of over population and what happens when poor owners by animals they can't take care off. Sohow can you claim your own line? Does it matter if someone has similair leos to what u wanna call your own?

I think there's probably an aspect to claiming your own line of being well-known enough in the gecko world as a breeder to do so. I would imagine that the identical "line" of geckos if claimed by an unkown would be laughed at but would be taken seriously if claimed by a known breeder. I don't think this is all bad. I would trust someone known with a good reputation to have done the research and work (though of course there are known exceptions to this). I think it does happen that an unknown breeder gets lucky with a strain of geckos and really does come up with something new and different but that person would have to be more persuasive about what they've come up with than a known (and respected) breeder.

Aliza

 

[enigmaslim]

That's so true, I guess its like any circle or click, the new person is looked at with cut eyes. I just can't wait to have my first hatchling no matter what morph and feel that feeling of WOW!!!! Like my son when he first discovers something