The roller coaster clutch
So, what happens when your "perfect" breeding plans are everything BUT perfect? Well, If you appreciate predictability, let me tell you, Blood Pythons will push you out of your comfort zone quickly. Generally speaking, breeding snakes could be considered a streamed line process. But, for this particular clutch, It was a roller coaster ride. In my eyes, there’s nothing simple about breeding Blood Pythons. There are so many details to consider, and putting all the pieces together makes breeding Bloods so great! Although the mechanics of breeding blood pythons are pretty straightforward, creating that "perfect" snake can be complex and, sometimes, even discouraging due to the amount of time it may take to achieve that goal. This is why being resilient, adaptable, and capable of accepting that things are not always in your control are pillars of any successful breeder. As the year goes by, I daydream about my goals for the collection and what I would love to see materialized in snake form. Since this isn’t a “how to” article on breeding blood pythons, I’ll skip to the meat of the post.Back in 2021, I intended to get two clutches. The first one, from my 007 het T+ Female to my dark red Batik het T+ Male. That clutch came to fruition and gave me nine beautiful eggs. For my second clutch, I wanted to pair a Lylly het T+ albino female with a Genetic Stripe Het T+ albino male to get a strong foundation of selectively bred Lylly Genetic stripes for future projects. That pair didn’t work out. I was disappointed but determined to understand what I could've done better and be ready for the next season. Both animals were healthy and old enough (at least four years old) and had adequate ambient parameters. The feeding regime didn't differ either. They just were not "into each other." As a new breeder, I had to ask my mentors for advice. They gave me valuable tips and insights to entice the male Genetic Stripe (GS) to be interested in the female and get him in the right mindset. So, one year later, towards the last quarter of 2022, I began to prepare the terrain for that pair again. The final step was to get him in "competition mode" by putting some sheds from another male in his enclosure. The idea is to create a sense of urgency to breed by making him think there is another male in the area. I threw a couple of dry sheds from my male batik in his enclosure to get the pheromones going. But surprisingly, the GS didn’t care a bit… I left the sheds for a few days, but he was uninterested. Not even a curious tongue flick… nada! At that point, the last option was to put another male with him in the enclosure and see how he would react. This was a little nerve-wracking. By nature, blood pythons are typically non-combative towards other males, or at least not aggressive like other species. They may push each other, but biting or body wrestling is rare. I still kept a close eye on both snakes just to be safe. I decided to use a different male (since the Batik sheds didn't do much.) A Wild Type Marter line-bred male. The results were faster than expected and very positive. A few minutes after the Marter male was introduced in the enclosure, they locked up… I took the lock with a grain of salt, as with this species, there’s documentation of dominant males attempting to breed lesser males. After close inspection, I confirmed the “true” lock. The GS was a FEMALE. So, what now? My original pair was not a pair anymore (Lylly to GS). And now I have a different male (Marter) locked to a female (GS) that wasn’t even in the plans, or at least not for now. 
Well, that's a good problem to have, right? I mean, all of a sudden, I have a bredable female GS het for T+ Albino. This highlights the importance of building a solid foundation with your animals from day one. If something like this happens (and it will happen), you can always rest assured that if you need to change course, it will always be in the "Right" direction. The Marter male I put in with her is beautiful and one of the reddest snakes in the collection. So, I was okay with the outcome. Marter Genetic Stripe is a solid combination done in the past. But, in the back of my head, I wanted to take that new "opportunity" in a different direction. After their initial lock, I decided not to pair those two snakes anymore. I wanted to take advantage of the new opportunity and fast-forward to another breeding project (Potentially saving myself about four years). Once again, I returned to the drawing board and, in preparation for the future, I decided to go with my dark red Batik male. Some of you may think Batik-GS is a "boring" pair or even a waste of potential, especially considering some of our current morph options. I respect that. But allow me to explain the why behind this decision. The Batik gene is beautiful on its own. With its distinctive busy and fragmented pattern, It excels in combination with other genes. Just take a look at what it does with Goldeneyes or Ivory’s. (Pixels and White Lightnings). On the other hand, Genetic Stripes are the opposite. With a very clean and organized pattern that is frequently accompanied by a good saturation of colors. Now, why did I want Batik in the Genetic Stripe project? If you’ve been following the Blood Python game lately, you probably already know about the Pollen-Goldeneye combo, aka Snowstorm, that Elijah Armas produced at Juggernaut Reptiles. That snake is flat-out beautiful. The Goldeneye combined with pollen (and other morphs) is impressive. But that combo revealed a potential problem for future designer morphs and specific projects. Like in other species of snakes, from boids to colubrids, once you hit that white-looking snake, there’s very little you can do to change the snake's appearance. Other than minor tweaks here and there, in terms of color and pattern, that snake will look essentially the same to the point where it doesn't matter if you add ten more genes to the mix. In the blood python world, the Goldeneye gene is the incomplete dominant form of the Magpie, which is a white-ish snake with a reduced pattern. Since the Homozygous form of the Goldeneye is essentially a white snake, when Goldeneye (or Magpie) is combined with allelic genes (Matrix, for example), the natural tendency of the mutation is to produce a "White" snake. This characteristic makes Goldeneye (and Magpie) unideal for some projects. The 007 (Matrix-Goldeneye) and the Snowstorm (Pollen-Goldeneye) are good examples. In both cases, the snake has a white look with reduced pattern. So, why is all this important? Well, plain and simple, I love heavy patterned and colorful Bloods. Quite the opposite of a "white" snake. My vision for the Pollen project is to add more diversity to the patterns and color pallet. This is where the GS-Batik comes into play. I wanted to create a crazy patterned Flower (aka, Super pollen) with deep reds and a beautiful dorsal stripe. We have a plan. Now, we need to make it happen. 
007 Batik (aka Pixel-Matrix)
In this example, the Golden Eye and Matrix interact, creating a white-yellowish-looking snake (007). Adding the batik gene only reduces speckling throughout the body.
With that goal in mind, I kept pairing my male batik to the “now” female Genetic Stripe. After a few months of intense labor, I was rewarded with a healthy clutch of 11 eggs. Both parents are also 100% het for T-positive albino (VPI and Red X lineage). I was a happy camper. The incubation period went well; after 65 days, the first nose pipped out of the egg. Those little snouts emerged from the shells one by one, and I was very excited to see a nice mix of normals and visual T+ albinos. Then, Something caught my attention. One of the babies looked very different from the rest. The head was very bright, clean, and reddish. I recognized the facial marks immediately. The Marter male. This means that this is a Dual sired Clutch! I’m not going to lie; that caught me off guard. The Marter male spent maybe 8 hours at most with the female back in September, and somehow, he managed to fertilize one of the eggs. Considering that Mr. Batik was with the female multiple times from September to February, I was pretty impressed with his achievement. All things considered, the outcome of this “crazy ride” could not have been better. The results were as follows:3 Genetic Striped Batiks2 T-Positive albino Batiks1 T-Positive Genetic Stripe1 Genetic Stripe1 Batik1 Wildtype1 Tpositive albino1 Marter Redhead
Full clutch 24 hours after leaving the egg
The biggest takeaway and most valuable lesson from this past breeding season was that no matter how much you think you are in control, in the end, we work with living creatures that follow their own program. My friend that is the epitome of unpredictability. Regardless of the obstacle, call it a mis-sexed animal, fertility issues, an animal passing away, etc., having a plan B, C, D, or F is fundamental to succeed. It is all about Flexibility. I can also add that ensuring you have an actual pair from the beginning can be very helpful, LOL. So, don't be like me and check your babies as they arrive. Blood pythons are notorious for being tricky to sex. So, there it is. A failed plan that was supposed to give me Lylly-Genetic stripes became one of my favorite and most memorable experiences as a blood python keeper! The outcomes were beyond my wildest dreams! Have a vision for the future, but keep your eyes on the present. Enjoy the ride, and have fun! -Ernesto Hinojosa.
Baby Redhead Marter and Batik Siblings emerge from the egg.
