Rufescens

Rufescens pairings often confuse people. To me, they're very exciting, because the results are so variable. Statistically, if you breed a rufescens to a normal, half of the offspring will be stripes and half will be tigers. There are some in between that look like brown snakes with orange flecks and dashes, and theyre often called rufescens crosses. Stripes are pretty self explanatory, theyre brownish black with an orange stripe running from their head to their tail. Tigers, however, appear to be normal. A few features tigers may have would be darker spotting and horizaontalish barring, hence tiger. The only reason tigers really exist and stand apart from normals is the symbolize the presence of rufescens blood. Though stripes seem far closer in relation to pure rufescens animals, you could have a stripe that is 25% rufescens and a tiger that is 75%. This also connects back to trusting your breeder. You can have a stripe that looks very much like a pure ruf, with almost no orange at all and have it sold to you for twice its worth, only to end up with a litter of stripes and tigers when you pair it to a true ruf. To me, it makes far more sense to invest in male stripes as opposed to females. You can pair a male to multiple females and have multiple stripe litters where as a female's striped genes can only passed on once a year. Striped combos are destined for greatness, and Splash Stripes should be produced next year, if not within a few months. Im not sure how apparent a stripe would be when combined with the paint gene, as paints already have a very nice stripe of their own.