I wish there was a straight forward answer to why we decided to focus our breeding around Hypo Puzzle. It wasn’t something that was calculated. It wasn’t anything driven by money or because I thought ‘people are sleeping’ (a phrase commonly used in the industry) on the project. I think the first step towards Hypo Puzzle was our attraction to the recessive gene breeding process. It takes a few generations of selective breeding to get the chance to see your goal hatch out. If you go with a double recessive project the time frame could be the same if you hit the lower odds. Simply put, it is a long term project even if you get lucky. Months after we bought the girls their pets and after hours and hours of looking at different recessive genes I gravitated towards everything, but mostly ultramel and puzzle.
Steph and I spent even more time on Morphmarket trying to find the right animal. We discussed on how we should follow the advice of spending x amount on a few females and then a year or two later spend x on the male so they mature at the same time. Then I fell in love with this boy.
I pushed for him hard and Stephanie just looked at me like I was crazy. At the time I probably was. I do tend to get super fixated and obsessed with certain things. Not to the point when it becomes a detriment to my life or the people around me, because I do listen to the people I value. I do understand that I get into mindsets when I don’t want to have any restrictions just to see if I can handle whatever comes. Most of the time I realize this is not a good way to live, so I usually don’t fight back and I let myself be reined in knowing that when some time passes I would be grateful for it. Would I mutter things under my breathe and keep the majority of my thoughts/feelings to myself? Of course! I love the people that tolerate my quarter “nuisance” level. I have no need to go full “nuisance” and lose them so I usually subdue, but when that boy sold I went a bit passed that quarter “nuisance” mark.
Obviously, it was after a night of drinking with friends and family and my “nuisance” meter was broken. So I told Stephanie how I felt. In my mind I said something like ‘you don’t believe in me’, by the look on her face, what came out was unintelligible. She also said, “What?” So, I repeated myself. This went on for a few until I decided to pass out on the bathroom floor. The next morning Stephanie and I talked and we landed on this Puzzle het Hypo male posted by Exotics by Nature.
We couldn’t tell you why this picture made us feel like ‘this is the one’. It was just a feeling we both shared, so we decided to follow that feeling. After a few phone calls we decided to purchase 2 animals. Hamsta (shown in the link) and Grace, a proven DH hypo puzzle.
I know that hypo (aka ghost) wasn’t in our initial plan, but after looking into the morph more thoroughly, it quickly became a favorite of ours. We don’t understand why it seems to be over looked. It doesn’t fade or ‘brown out’ as other morphs do. The contrast of the animal seems to gets better with each shed so we gladly took this course change. Also, I think that seed was already planted with the boy that got away.
Picking the hypo puzzle project was just like how we do a lot things. Have a vision and slightly adjust if an opportunity appears. If an opportunity disappears don’t worry. A better fit tends to come along.
Alien Reptile 