What Do You Breed For?

[Desdemona]

So, I am sort of stealing from Russellm0704's thread idea (hope you dont' mind!) but I am curious as to what specifically you are breeding for. I know what I would like to breed for.. but I am curious about you all! Do you breed for a specific morph or something else?

 

[Desdemona]

I will admit my main want to breed is to experiment with the Enigma gene and it's effect on offspring. I want to see if I can breed to specifically lesson the effect of the E.S. syndrom. No morph or any other physical trait.. just that specific effect. (Though its still up in the air on rather or not I will do this in the near future).

While morphs/colors are cool I have always been more fascinated with breeding programs that have deal with behavior modification and the like.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Based on what is already known about the enigma gene, IMO it isn't a good choice for an inexperienced breeder. Biggest reason is hesitation culling, only to end up releasing a higher number of pet only geckos to the public. Some of those geckos that shouldn't be bred will inevitably be bred, and the cycle will continue. There's an overabundance of strong healthy lines to gain experience with, so why work with something so questionable? Professional breeders are already working on eliminating the syndrome.

 

[Desdemona]

Well, hesitation culling won't be an issue for me, and as I said I'm not 100% decided that I WILL do it. I don't want to just breed for morphs, I can pick up a superior X online of almost anything. I might have to wait a few months for the right one.. but its a hell of a lot easier to just buy than to breed and hope I get something I like. I did the color breeding in other pets in the past and I'd rather do something different. That is "if" I do it. I have never seen a "Enigma showing only X % of syndrom" for sale.. its always "look at this pretty lizard"

 

[Russellm0704]

I don't mind at all, and I really hope to find out how your enigma project goes. Ive never owned one and am somewhat scared to own one.

 

[Desdemona]

yea, it can be hit or miss, especially if you buy one online. The degree of enigma syndrom is what matters. One of mine has very little to no E.S. even when she is stressed. Occassionaly I'll see her get the slight shiver thing.. ie if you drink to much caffiene and your hand shakes.. she'll do that, but its very slight. If you don't have a good "attention to detail" you won't even notice.

My male has it more, though he doesn't spin or do any of the extreme things. Of course I would hope that a breeder wouldn't sell a gecko with syndrom that strong! When I first got him and he had shipping stress he was a bit shaky in his head, but that has subsided a bit. He does over-shoot a little when he hunts, which is his biggest effect, but he does eventually catch the bug on his own. No hand feeding needed and his tail has fattend up. I feed worms though, if he was reliant on crickets then he might not do as well.

If my female wasn't a possible "unknown albino" (though she might just be tang) I would breed her, this season, in a heartbeat. Her symptoms are so slight I would really love to see if her offspring came out that way. However, I could be putting a unknown het albino into the breeding world which is not something I want to be known for. So, sadly, no babies from her. When I first got her she was just a free (with purchase of another) pet, so I didn't care about her genetic makeup.

 

[tiedxupxinxknots]

well one thing that you cant rule out about enigmas is that they are unpredictable. I have a very nice enigma that shows "normal behavior" and very minor enigma syndrome, but suddenly one day her syndrome became severe and to the point where i was thinking of culling her. However, it only lasted a couple days and she reverted back to her old self and I never found out what caused her to behave like that. I am not saying that all enigmas will do what mine did. I am saying that they can be unpredictable.

 

[Desdemona]

The threads I have read on Enigma make me think of epilepsy in humans, especially since some have mentioned a higher fat diet helps their geckos. Epilepsy is pretty complicated and there are different cuases, but in many cases it has to do with fat problems inbetween the nuerons in the brain (sometimes the problems are in the corpus collosum.. which I hope I'm spelling right). So, a epileptic person who eats a higher fat diet could have less symptoms then one who eats a low fat diet. The effects of epilepsy of course ranges from barely noticable (my younger sister has it and if you don't know what to look for you would never guess) to the person being unable to feel emotion without a grand ma seizure. My younger sister, with her very mild case, has one a couple of "grand ma seizures" during her life.. and all during pretty extreme situations. She did pass out once.. so probably close to the grand ma seizure category.. at my house, but it was like her brain just shut down.

Anyways, the added fat makes me think of epilepsy.. and like in humans the effects are pretty random. It could be related to the ability of the brain to send messages from one nueron to another. Though of course I am only grosely speculating.

 

[Desdemona]

I also want to add.. that I really do want to hear about other people's modivations! Not just talk about enigmas

 

[lillith]

I breed for best color outcomes and temperament, as well as general robust health.
I feel pretty strongly about not breeding geckos with nasty tempers, no matter how pretty they are. I also consider slow growers and some that are a bit too much on the lean side to be non-breeders.

 

[sunshinegeckos]

I breed for healthy geckos first with the best genetics I can afford and then color and pattern second. I love color and pattern so I mainly will be working to either continue the pattern and color into the offspring or make it even better. I also like working with morphs that noone or very limited number of people are working with.

 

[Wild West Reptile]

First off I like to breed because it's a thrill every time a baby pops out. It's fun trying to improve on color and pattern. I also like to work with morphs that not everyone is doing. I don't see a point in breeding certain morphs since everyone else is or already has beaten them to death.

Next, about enigmas. First off, I get why they are (were) popular. They are very beautiful to look at.

I would like to know what information you will get by "experimenting" with them. If you get 10 babys and 3 show extreme signs and 3 show no signs and the other 4 are somewhere in the middle, what does that prove? Do you really think that by you breeding them that you will be able to prove or disprove anything new about them? I'm not sure that doing a small scale breeding project will benefit anyone or give any more info than there is already out there. How is that helping figure out the enigma syndrome and improving on it? I'm interested to hear about how you will be helping out with it by breeding them.

Also, if you believe that it may be related to epilepsy, why would you even consider breeding an animal who exhibits it? For example, if you had a black labrador retriever who had epilepsy and had grand mal seizures, would you breed that dog to see if the puppys came out with it? And if they did, would you be willing to cull them all? I sure wouldn't. I had a black lab (who just passed away) with epilepsy btw. There are plenty of other healthy dogs out there that we don't need to breed the ones with problems like that. It would be extremely irresponsible to do so. So my question is, why breed geckos with those same issues? Why not breed healthy geckos? There's a ton of different morphs and combos you could create.

I guess I just don't understand the need to breed animals with neurological conditions just to see if the offspring will have it. I don't breed them, but I can tell you the answer. YES, they will have it. Maybe not all of them, but most of them to some extent. How does that help "improve" the quality of life for enigmas?

I apologize for going into such "deep" thought on the subject and I think that your idea of improving on the enigma problems is a great concept, but I don't know if breeding them is the right answer. Maybe there could be a study on their little brains done? Anyways, thats my 2 cents on the subject. Hopefully you don't take it the wrong way, I am not trying to argue or anything, just writing out my frustrations about enigma breeding. It doesn't make me right or wrong, it's just an opinion.

 

[acpart]

I breed for interesting and beautiful colors and patterns within the parameters of what I can house and afford. Since I'm not willing to continuously sell off current breeders and buy new breeders, I'm limited in what I can produce by the males that I have. I started out wanting to make hybinos from scratch and, interestingly, once I did it I haven't had the right combination of geckos to make them ever again. My projects end up being a slow drift from the groups I started out with originally. Currently I'm focusing on stripes, trempers, snows and combinations of those traits. This past season I was pleased that there were virtually no geckos born with deformities and that nearly every one looked interesting. I wrote an article for Gecko Time a few years ago called "breeding on a small scale" and updated it with another article a few months ago.

Aliza

 

[OnlineGeckos]

I just started but I breed mostly what I enjoy the most, as well as morphs & patterns I like that are not abundant. When I first started buying geckos, there were certain morphs & looks I liked but I had a hard time finding them. So I'm looking to breed some of my own.

I also look for the cute factor. Eclipses with white nose & tail? Way too cute. Bandits with nose stripe? Super cute.

I'm on purpose avoiding enigmas due to health issues. They are very pretty, very unique, but I just can't with good conscious breed them. That's just me.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I've been a breeder for 16 years last month, and I breed the gecko morphs "I" like. I've never been a morph-maker, but I look forward to every season to hold back the best of the best to selectively breed the qualities I am looking for. It's kind of funny, but a few years ago I got a LOT of criticism and ridicule for working with 'old school' morphs, and I asked that we call them Classic Morphs instead. I like Murphy Patternless and Blizzards, and now I am one of the few (if not the only) breeder that works with the pure, non-het 'classics', and top breeders are standing in line to get them.

Golden Gate Geckos used to be a profitable business, but I've taken a loss for the past two years. I get discouraged seeing so much indiscriminate breeding going on, and just have to shake my head when there are so many people breeding thinking they will make good and fast money. Trust me, it just doesn't happen for the 90% of us who mainly raise geckos because we love them. I'm OK with keeping them for that reason alone.

 

[Desdemona]

If enigmas were just pretty geckos with a twitch (mild or severe) they wouldn't fascinate me. When I first heard of them I planned on avoiding them. However, I was offered one as a free addition to a order and I didn't want to say no to a free pet. Her personality is almost night and day to my other "normal" brained geckos. I have enigma searched and read a lot of threads about them on this forum. There are a lot of anomalies that surround the gene and no one has for sure answers.

From what I gathered... Enigmas were of course rare when first hatched and greatly inbreed. It was thought the twitches were related to inbreeding at first and that breeding them out would get rid of the problem. There are reports of visual enigmas that don't show the syndrom.. multiple reports not just one guy. There are also reports of non-visual geckos (some with no known enigma gene) showing the symptoms. Some of these are attributed to heat problems during incubation, so they can not be counted. However if some are showing the e.s. syndrom without the visual and some are showing the visual without the symptom, then enough breeding might get rid of the syndrom. Maybe not, but I find it fascinating.

The part I find fascinating though is that my two enigmas seem to deal with stress better than my non-enigmas. To me that is a trait worth breeding for. However, yesterday I read posts where quite a few owners thought their enigmas did not handle stress as well. So, if mine are just anomalies and handling stress better is not a trait then it would defeat my main purpose. I like their little charming attitudes that my others just don't have. I never see two of them because they are so frightful and hide all of the time. I don't want a pet that is THAT uncomfortable in it's environment. All are given the same treatment so it should not be a side effect of my care. I got one as an adult so it could be from her history.. or maybe it's her genes. They are in a way pretty "feral" animals, act like their wild counter parts. My two enigmas seem to be better suited for life as a pet.

I am still reading, as I have said I have not decided 100% to breed yet. But, the enigma fascinates me more than any others and it has nothing to do with their color. I see positive traits in the morph, though I suppose no one else see's those traits.

If I find, as I read, that mine are unusual then I will probably not breed them. If not I might skip Leo's completely and look into G. Luii's since their rarity might make them wanted. That or I'll work for some Phantoms because they are pretty. However, if I do that I'll have to sell off some to make room for others.

Oh, does anyone breed murphy patternless Snows? I don't think I've seen that on here. Or do the two not mix well?

 

[jermh1]

I can’t explain why I do it
I guess it’s kind of like playing a friendly game of chess with god.

Im thinking the enigma syndrome is polygenic and linked to the pattern characteristic. I have two novas which I never bread together. The F with severe spins, craps in its water and sits in the roaches till they all climb out over her body. I wasn’t going to breed her but the other Nova a Male kept developing its pattern as it grew and one day I just had to accept it was most likely just a raptor. So As my only hope for producing a Dreamsicle last season I stuck her with a snow raptor M. In the end one of not Nova male’s offspring had the syndrome so bad that his head is always arched back and just pulling his tub out of the rack would cause him to go into death rolls, I was going to cull but some of my students thought he was the funniest thing in the world. Now he is 50g and does not roll any more even when you rub his back, still holds his head 90deg from where it should be. The Female produced 2 dreams and 4 novas from 2 weeks with the male Snow Raptor, none of the offspring are as bad as her syndrome wise and 2 don’t show it at all.

Project wise I produced at least one of each of the following this year;
Super RAPTOR
Super Snow albino
Super Snow
Snow Raptors
Dreamsicles
Novas
Embers
Snowglow Raptor
Sunglow Raptor
Sunglow
I would like a few of each down the road to improve on each morph and not have dozens of hets to get rid of.
Pulling almost all my hets out of my breeding stock.
Working on ember snow
Test crossing some of my super snow albinos and super raptors.
Getting some carrot tail into Murphy’s albino
Test out some of my snow raptor stripes
Test out a bug eyed mutation that showed up in 2 of my geckos at least double the eye size. They look cool as hell and they are both eclipse. I know some people may see this more as a deformity but I think it’s cool.
Would also like to get a newer Tangerine version, one of the red ones, once the cost comes down.

 

[GeckoCrossing]

I breed because I worked for Petsmart and saw how they treated their reptiles, along with a number of other reptile selling stores around here. I just want to produce the healthiest babies that I can for people.
Secondly, I enjoy them. They're just too cute not to. My wife will catch me 'baby talking' to them and poke fun at me lol. Every baby I have had hatch so far I've wanted to keep... it's a good thing I have my wife to tell me no

 

[Desdemona]

Do you have pictures of the bug-eyed geckos? Sometimes animals with bigger eyes just look cute. Though I've seen some dogs that are a little too "big-eyed" and are no longer cute, ha.

It would be sweet to have a "new" morph (especially if it didn't have any negatives attached to it) pop out. I won't be breeding on a big scale anytime soon (probably not till I retire in say.... 12 years, haha) so I doubt I will see one. I am not going for that either. I just like watching to see what hatches (or births in case of my previous pets).