Red Coat/Red Factor

OK, my brain is confused (no comments from the Peanut Gallery, if you please). I swear that I've heard that red coat and red factor are different (different genes?)...and I've heard they are the same thing (same gene). So which is it?

Let's really confuse thing and add Neon to the list. I've been lead to believe that Red Coat, Red Factor and possible Neon are all the same "thing" working to enhance the production of erythrin. None of this is proven, yet. Kind of like the confusion over the nomenclature "Coral Snow". Does that mean: Hypo Amel and Anery, Strawberry Amel and Anery, Line Bred Snows or something else entirely? lol I guess at this point it depends on who you are talking to...

Equally befuddled,
Terri

crackerhead said:

Let's really confuse thing
Terri

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Job well done!

Red coat and Red factor are the same thing.
Joe Pierce calls it 'red coat', while Marsha of Poppy corns titled it 'red factor' (which was the name I've always heard Don call it as well).
They both have been working with it for a long while but I BELIEVE it originated with the landrace lava line.
More than likely it will end up being called whatever the cornsnake community decides sounds best.

So is red coat/red factor/neon, DIFFERENT from Strawberry? or is this one gene with many different identities?

And how is Bubblegum involved? :sidestep:

Red factor is different from strawberry, I have hatchlings of both here. The redfactor/redcoat hatchlings are much redder in the saddles while both can be pinkish between the saddles. I am no expert and have only done one breeding with the gene. Out of 20 eggs I got 3 positive redcoats and one maybe. The aneries did come out really black and silver looking and very clean. From the clutch it looked to me like the gene more readily combined with amel and ultra. Time will show how much they will color up and when older I plan on breeding the red female back to her redcoat father when she is old enough. As far as redcoat and red factor being different or not I don't know. I don't mean any disrespect to Joe or anyone but some of the snakes I have seen labeled redcoat really don't look it, yeah some may be a little redder than others but you can see varying amounts of red in any line. I sent both hatchling males out to friends so that we could spread the testing out.
I believe I was told redfactor/redcoat is in the neons but I am not sure that I am remembering correctly. I am thinking Poppy Corns used it in the neons.
The female I bred to this year was an anery and in no way a redcoat animal and produced three, so does that make it dominant? or a fluke? I am also doing a test breeding with a wild caught female this year with no none hets to see if the gene still passes on.
First pic is strawberry, second is redcoat ultramel female ,third is redcoat ultramel father

Strawberry is a recessive gene allelic to hypo A and (the current line of thinking) also christmas.
It's separate from Red Coat/Red Factor.
Red Coat works similar to a dominate gene and bleeds through into the saddles and belly, almost similar to a bloodred affect (from what I've seen with my stock and other pictures*).

There's a lot of research that has been going on for a few years with Don Soderberg (he could pretty much answer any questions pertaining to this, as I've talked to him at length on the phone about it), Poppycorns and JP.
Of course this is always subject to change based on more breeding trials.

It's thought that neon is Red Coat/Red Factor and that Salmon is strawberry (or a combination) but, at least from my experience, you can really tell the difference just by looking at the bleed through on the belly.

What about Cayenne? Is that part of red coat / red factor?

From what I've heard, it's just Amel with Red Factor.
I'm all confused now after John's statement earlier in the other thread as well.

I really wish us cornsnake people would have a meeting day and place once a year where we can all go and make votes/decisions together for what will be called what and just talk about results and discoveries. Maybe we should try to do something like that next Daytona lol.

Sounds good. I'll get to Daytona one day.

iculatr said:

What about Cayenne? Is that part of red coat / red factor?

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Tara80 said:

From what I've heard, it's just Amel with Red Factor.
I'm all confused now after John's statement earlier in the other thread as well.

I really wish us cornsnake people would have a meeting day and place once a year where we can all go and make votes/decisions together for what will be called what and just talk about results and discoveries. Maybe we should try to do something like that next Daytona lol.

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The way I understand Cayenne is a Fire (Amel X Bloodred) with the Red Factor.

nwheather said:

The way I understand Cayenne is a Fire (Amel X Bloodred) with the Red Factor.

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Is also the way I understand it.

Tara80 said:

Strawberry is a recessive gene allelic to hypo A and (the current line of thinking) also christmas.
It's separate from Red Coat/Red Factor.
Red Coat works similar to a dominate gene and bleeds through into the saddles and belly, almost similar to a bloodred affect (from what I've seen with my stock and other pictures*).

It's thought that neon is Red Coat/Red Factor and that Salmon is strawberry (or a combination) but, at least from my experience, you can really tell the difference just by looking at the bleed through on the belly.

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What are your thoughts on this one? I've attached a new pic of her belly to this message(sorry about the quality-wasn't that easy to get). Here's a crappy older pic of her belly as a hatchling, showing the red suffusion already at that size:


I got 2 of her sisters from the same clutch and they don't have this suffusion at all.

crotalis40741 said:

Is also the way I understand it.

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Oops! That's what I meant, just left out the diffusion.

It looks like her belly has that bleed through Kevin. Real hard to see with the pic.
I think my good camera was stolen, as I've been looking for it everywhere and I'm pretty sure I left it in my unlocked truck (stupid me) otherwise I'd take some pictures now for comparison.
I'll see if I can find a crap camera.

Here's a belly shot of Cinaed, the awesomest Tessera het Cayenne

Top view of Cinaed isn't he just awesome??

Thanks Heather! I love him.
I tried taking some pictures with my son's camera and they are just full of blur.
I'm irritated that my camera is gone. Wish I would have taken belly shots of my Red Factor kids before now, I didn't even have any archived. >.<
I'm not sure if there are exceptions to this. The neon/salmon crosses that I've got have a pink marbling throughout the lower portion of their belly - almost Bloodred style.
Cinaed's is MUCH more apparent.

nwheather said:

Top view of Cinaed isn't he just awesome??

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WOW!!! amazing snake, I am so jealous of it. Congrats on it.

Getting a grasp of the whole thing, especially the name issue, but are those working on identifying the exact gene believe it to be simple recessive, a dominant that has a "super" form when homozygous, or do they think that selective breeding is also having a part in the look, which may indicate more than one gene being involved?