Blond is a new color and we have only bred them for two generations, so we can’t tell much about them. But here are all our breeding results and everything we know about the development of their colors so far.
All blonds are born with one common basic color, light color like pale skin. As they grow, they get different amounts of orange or red color besides their light color, and in some cases, it eventually covers the entire snake. Based on their color and color development, blonds resemble bicolors, where the yellow color is missing and is replaced by a “colorless”, pale color.
We bought a normal colored reddish “blond carrier” male from a Finnish breeder. There were a couple of slightly lighter babies in the same litter.
We bred this male with unrelated female (patternless het calico) and the result was seven babies. Two of the babies were blond with a bit of orange color and the others were different shades of reddish/orange. As the blond babies grew, the orange color increased at a fairly fast pace. As an adult, the first blond remained light in main color with some orange, until after pregnancy she got a reddish cover all over her. The second blond was covered in reddish already at a younger age.
We bred the first blond (het calico) with her orange brother (het calico) and the result was seven babies, three blonds, three oranges and one calico (this calico looks different comparing other this line calicos, but we can’t tell is there blond color involved). Overall, three blonds were lighter compared to the first blond litter. Now over a year old, one of them is completely blond, the other is blond with a slightly orange color, and the third one has an orange covering over it.
All blonds (and that one calico) have been females, but with such a small sample we can’t say for sure if it’s related to the color or if it’s just a coincidence.
We have seen that blond color is inherited, but we don’t know how. We haven’t yet successfully bred actual blonds or blond siblings to unrelated individuals to know if they inherit blond color.
The original blond carrier was also bred to another female, which came from the same breeder as the carrier, but there were no lighter individuals in this litter. He hasn’t been bred more than these two times.
Written (Tanja and Milja Keskinen, 2022)
