Crazy Honduran History

These are pure Lampropeltis t. hondurensis (Honduran Milksnakes)... not intergrades.

The Crazy gene appears to be an incomplete dominate gene and first appeared here in the late 1990s. It produces some of the most spectacular patterns and colors. You never know what you are going to get with each clutch....stripe, reverse stripe, pattern less, anaconda, reverse anaconda, blairs saddles, vanishing, reverse bands, strange aberrancies and combinations thereof!

  1. An expressed Crazy can be bred to a normal Honduran Milk and the offspring will be: some expressed animals, some with limited aberrancies (markers) and the rest are more or less normal animals (although, the color and bands usually aren’t quite normal looking). It has been my experience that all these offspring carry the “Crazy” gene!

  2. Pairing two expressed animals will produce mostly expressed offspring. If you breed 2 Crazies with similar patterns, i.e, stripe, you will express more stripe offspring; however you will still get other patterns and colors. All of the offspring will have the “Crazy” gene.

  3. Pairing two non-expressed or low expression Crazy animals will produce some aberrant offspring and normal looking animals. The offspring all appear to carry the “Crazy” gene.

  4. Pairing a non-expressed Crazy to a normal Honduran Milksnake (non Crazy) will produce normal looking animals (some will have markers), but an expressed animal will pop out every few clutches! Many of the offspring will carry the gene, but not all. Over the past years I have raised up animals from this pairing and discovered some that didn’t have the “Crazy” gene.

This is one of the most exciting genes to work with! I call the animals that carry the gene but looking normal, het/Crazy; even though technically they are not. Heterozygous refers to recessive traits. Dominate and co-dominate genes have a super form. Does the Crazy gene have a super form? Maybe? If it does, it probably looks like just another totally expressed Crazy? I’ve been working with this amazing mutation for 30 years and there are still many things to be discovered. Maybe you will be the first to discover new understanding of this amazing mutation. Maybe you will be the one who figures out percentages of the possible outcomes. The possibilities are tremendous. Breed the Crazy gene into your Honduran lines and let’s see what happens!