just curious about albinos

Why can't you breed different types of albinos together? Do they come out ugly or do they come out with birth defects or something?

Breeding albinos is generally frowned upon by breeders because it muddies the genetics. It gets a bit technical and I don't know all the proper terms, but from what I understand is:
say you breed a tremper albino to a rainwater albino. the babies will look like normals but will carry both albino traits (meaning they will be het for both). Albino is a recessive trait, so you need 2 genes (I think gene is the right word) of it, to make it homozygous (I think thats the right word - which means its expressing a recessive trait).

The problem is, if you take one of the tremper/rainwater babies and breed it to another baby with a similar background (i.e albino hets), then you can't tell what those hatchlings are. What is it het for and what is it homozygous for? Is it a tremper or rainwater? Is it tremper het rainwater, or rainwater het tremper? You'd need to do years of test breeding to figure out what it is.

That is just my understanding of it though

Oh ok cool thanks! :P yeah I saw a baby leo for sale on craigslist, it looked like an enigma so I asked if it was and the guy said he wasn't sure but it was a cross between an albino and a bell albino, so I didn't know if getting it would mean special needs or not haha

Getting an enigma would indeed be special needs, you would be taking in a gecko with neurological disorder. I wouldn't recommend enigmas to new leopard gecko owners.

But yeah crossing albino strains are a big no no. There's tremper, bell, and rainwater albinos. They are not compatible, and there's no "blending" of the two. When you mix them you get geckos that are het for both. This can become a headache for anybody wanting to breed to figure out exactly what geckos they'll hatch.

No problem!

People have been mixing the strains and selling them with new names. I believe one is called "bubblegum albino", although I still haven't figured out what mix that is. And then there is "newblood albino" I believe.

And yeah, Mardy is right. Enigmas could get enigma syndrome. So if you are a beginner its best to avoid enigmas until you have a bit of experience. They have special needs. Very sweet leos though I've heard.

i would not say 'dont get an enigma if you are a beginner', and the only reason i say this is for a couple of reasons....one, there are different severaties of the syndrome, some are very severe, while others never show ANY signs at all. they are really cool lizards, as long as they can catch thier own food, why not have one...these are infact leopard geckos, not green tree pythons, or something very difficult for beginners. i have six enigmas right now, two adults and four babies i produced this year. i got my adults from the urban gecko, and they have NEVER shown ANY signs of the syndrome. my babies, most of them would spin a little bit when stressed as hatchlings. they are all a couple months old, and NONE of them show ANY signs anymore...keep in mind this is only a very small number of animals. i even bred my red eyed enigma to my red striped enigma to see what happened...because i have heard that breeding enigma to enigma worstened the syndrome. i have two enigmas from two clutches, which to me at least one of those two animals have a 'double copy' of the enigma gene....and neither of those babies show any visible signs. this is just MY experience so far, i will post more next year, as i should produce alot of babies, and will find more, im sure. and as far as the albino crossing goes, i agree 100% with kathryn, it just makes it hard to figure out exactly what you have when you get visible albinos, and just makes everything really difficult. plus alot of people simply frown on it, and you just should not do it...i have all three strains, and i dont know if i want to continue working with all three, or concentrate on one line....the problem is, i have some killer animals in all three strains, and dont wanna sell any of em!! plus not everyone like the different strains, and i want to be able to offer everyone something.

Hi there - I'm thinking about breeding my Temper Albino Leopard Gecko, and I came across this post. So I can't breed him with another albino... so it's okay to breed him with a non-albino? (There's probably a more technical name for that )

you can breed it to another tremper, or het tremper albino immy, it is frowned upon to MIX different albino lines. just do alot of research, and be prepared before you breed...this is a great place to ask any other questions you may have.

So nothing is physically wrong with the geckos themselves, it's just the problem of muddling the color genetics?

From what I was told yes. Nothing is wrong with the gecko, but you really screw up the genetics lol I know, I did it and now I have to toss this clutch or keep them as pets forever.

Just make sure you know what they are before you put them together, otherwise you will end up with geckos that will be all mixed up (genetically) and youll have to restart.

Also, I have an Enigma, he is my first gecko. I see no problem with it, just look them over and put them on a table and see how they move. Mine shows no signs of the Enigma Syndrome, so i think it all depends on who you get your Enigmas from, get them from a crap breeder then your probably going to have a high chance of ES.

BigFeatherFarm wrote:So nothing is physically wrong with the geckos themselves, it's just the problem of muddling the color genetics?

Nothing wrong physically when combining say tremper albino with bell albino. But since both albino genes are not compatible, they do not mix. So you end up with geckos that are perhaps normals with double hets. They become almost impossible to track and if they are sold to others that breed, they will most definitely muddy up the gene pool.

As for Enigmas who do show physical & neurological issues, even if you have a "healthy" enigma that shows no syndrome, they will still pass that gene down. Offsprings that are enigmas will still have good chances of having mild to severe issues. Enigma syndrome can also be triggered at anytime due to stress or breeding, or even something as simple as bright light.

If you want to further strong genetic lines and improve on leopard gecko genetics, it's always best to avoid breeding enigmas.

Okay. I was getting the idea that you cross a rainwater and a bell and get some sort of physically mutated gecko. LOL! Thank you for clarifying.

BigFeatherFarm wrote:Okay. I was getting the idea that you cross a rainwater and a bell and get some sort of physically mutated gecko. LOL! Thank you for clarifying.

Lol when they first told me I thought the same thing, I thought "Oh no, I am going to have geckos with 2 heads and no legs!! WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!"

rickmoss95 wrote:you can breed it to another tremper, or het tremper albino immy, it is frowned upon to MIX different albino lines. just do alot of research, and be prepared before you breed...this is a great place to ask any other questions you may have.

Thank you for clearing that up I've bought a book on breeding and I've been using the internet which offers a lot of useful information but also a lot of mixed views. So I shouldn't mix my Tremper with a Bell but can I mix it with another Leo which is not albino at all?

just be careful what you 'listen' to on the internet, there are alot of self proclaimed experts that dont know what they are talking about. make sure whoever you are getting info from, is knowlegeable, and reliable...just a heads up, just because someone sounds like they know what they are talking about, does not mean they do.