June 11, 2009

The Scoria Boa Mystery

Posted in Redtail Boas tagged scoria boa, scoria boa for sale, the scoria boa at 2:02 pm by Sid E

When I first thought to make a post about the Scoria Boa I thought I was exaggerating when I called it “The Scoria Boa Mystery”, but that is exactly what it is, at least to me. A mystery is “anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown”.  Someone obviously knows exactly what is going on with the Scoria Boa, but it’s not general knowledge.

We will dig into what we do know and try to take a WAG (Wild A$$ Guess) at what I think is going on. First, here is a pic of the incredible Scoria Boa (credit to Rich Isle).

Scoria Boa - Rich Isle @ SalmonBoa.com

The short and probably most accurate story is on the scoriaboa.com website. You could head over there and give them the credit they deserve, but then you’ll miss our version of the story. To make a short story even shorter, he purchased the male from his fish delivery driver for $75 and picked up the female from a young lady leaving for collage. These first two boas did not look like the scoria boa pictured above. Supposedly they looked like average boas.

The first 03 breeding was said to produce exotic boas, but does not specifically mention a scoria. It turns out that there was one scoria boa in the bunch and it was a male. The second breeding in 2004 produced 25 babies and only one is mentioned to have been a scoria, a female.

In 2005 the  first male scoria was bred to the matriarch, and besides about half normals, there were 2 male and 5 female scoria boas (other stories say 1.7?). That is where the scoria boa website leaves off.

The best info I have found on the scoria boa is related by Jeff Ronne (AKA the Boaphile).  You will find his story here: RedtailBoas.com Scoria Boa This Jeff Ronne not to be confused with the owner of the Scoria reffered to later as “Jeff ND”.

In 05 the first male scoria was bred to mom and produced 8 scorias. This proved the scoria genetic, but it’s not clear wether it’s dominate, codom or recessive?

After that the original owner, (Jeff ND) put some of the babies up for sale at $20,000 each! One male sold right away and then another female later on. I’m not sure if this female is the one sold to Rich Isle at salmonboa.com, but I think it is. Rumor has it that two guys both put $10K together and bought the first male for $20K. Unfortunatley the male regurged about a year later and died the next day. OUCH!! I really feel for those guys.

As far as we know, as of right now, Rich is the only person other than the original owner Jeff ND, that has a shot at making the scoria boa. As of this writing in mid-09 I have not heard of Rich producing any.

I have read rumors in other places that some het’s (or supposed het’s) were sold from the first batch. If this gene is co-dom like a motley or jungle then the supposed het’s would have no scoria gene’s at all. IF the scoria turns out to be recessive then perhaps he has a snowballs chance in Hades of producing the scoria.

The Boaphile points out that out of the first 42 babies only 2 of them were scoria. Even with bad odds you should have produced a higher number if the trait was recessive. Jeff has a theory that the scoria is a kind of dominant trait, but I’ll let him explain that here.

It’s also interesting to know that the scoria boas mentioned in this post are not the only scoria ever seen. According to Jeff … “Now nearly ten years ago, a mutant Boa was being offered for sale by Cal Zoological for a very large sum. I believe it too was for sale for $20,000. This is a picture of her below:”.

Unrelated Scoria type boa

Russ Lockenwitz purchased this boa and unfortunately she died and never produced.

Why isnt the Scoria boa available?

This is the part where I take my WAG at why the scoria boa is not available. Jeff ND has great pics of a bunch of scorias on his site. And I believe those are from before the 07 season. My theory (JUST MY THEORY!) is that Jeff ND is holding all the scorias back so that he can sell the first litters at top price and in volume. Stay with me here….

Most new projects barely get off the ground before the people you sold the first babies to, are competing with you, and driving down the price. In 05 1.7 scoria were produced (some say 2.5). Now in the 09 season they should all be breedable age. If you take the first male and second female  born you end up with 2.8 breeding scorias.

Let’s say you get those two males to breed 4 females (not at all out of the question) and you end up with a low average litter of 18 each. That’s 72 Scoria Boas and NO competition! Let’s say you get half that 36. And you put them up for $10K, since you have multiple scoria, no respectable breeder is going to pay $20K knowing there are more. Let’s say you only sell half of them for a total of  $180,000.  If you only sell the neonates you just produced, you still have at least a full 2 years before you get any competition. In those two years you can sell at least a dozen more for $5K – $7K bringing in another $78,000. By this time many breeders will be producing them and the price will likely come down to $2,500 – $3,000. Jeff ND will likely have another 40 plus scoria by then to sell in that price range. If he sells 2 dozen more (not an exaggeration) he would bring in about another $66,000. So before the third price drop Jeff ND could conceivably bring in an estimated total of $324,000 dollars. Over a quarter of a million from a couple snakes, that cost him less than $100 bucks. Not bad.

Remember, this is just my wild guess and Jeff ND could have completely different reasons for holding back one of the most magnificent boa finds in the last 25 years. I’m certainly not judging him, if this is his plan then I will be the first to call him a genius.

Original post from original owner Jeff ND: http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/boa-constrictor/63551-pink-patternless-babys.html

Wow, that’s the longest blog post ever! At least for me. I guess that’s what happens when you try to unravel a mystery, proliferate rumors, and take a WAG all in the same post.

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