A Little Something out of Africa
Meet Razzmatazz, our sweet little import
We’re excited (to say the least) to introduce our new import morph project!
We knew that this wasn’t a decision to be made lightly, but this little guy just seemed to have so much promise! And the investment… thousands of dollars right off, but then there was everything else that would go into it. Time, resources, more money, but we’ve made this commitment, and we intend to see it to the end.
And reward! Already, even though Razzmatazz is only just creeping up on 150g, he’s such a joy and well worth the investment even before we’ve discovered what he carries — or maybe doesn’t.
Judging the Snake
Some thoughts on what we see
At first glance, Razzmatazz looks a bit like Stranger: the dorsal striping, the graniting, the “percolating” pattern. But there are notable differences… the lack of white edging around the “alien heads”, the full eye-stripe (that also connects to the ventral patterning at the posterior termination).
Maybe there’s another gene at work here? Or this is a super form? Or maybe it’s entirely new but falls into the same “complex” as Stranger, and Cinder, and Nyala. There’s a lot that needs to be discovered! And so many paths that need to be taken.
Proving a Gene
It takes more than you might think
At least to do it right…
Working with Stranger as a template gives us some idea of what directions might be most rewarding. Based on this, we know that working Brimstone into Clown is a must! Then there are the codoms: BEL complex (esp. Butter/Lesser, Mojave/Mystic/Phantom, and Russo/Special), Fire, Yellow Belly, Spotnose, Mahogany, Chocolate, Stranger, even Pastel could be the key to revealing if Brimstone is a new gene or just a new importation of an existing one.
Which leads to the actual logistics of applying all of these genes individually and in combination to Brimstone. Obviously, growing Razz up to safe breeding size is primary as we identify the best females to pair him to (and possibly work on acquiring what we don’t already have), then going through the breeding process until we produce offspring. All of this is unlikely to take less than an entire year, if we’re lucky, and could potentially take 2-3 years if we’re not, and that’s just the beginning when it comes to working with a recessive gene like Clown.
And if all of that doesn’t sound like a major undertaking, then consider the potential loss of revenue from those breeder females just that first season alone when a single Clown female could produce from $2,000-$20,000 worth of offspring, depending on the male being put to her. This isn’t for the faint of heart, to say the least.
