Can someone help me out with this stuff? ( Hets and more )

[xXxFluffyEmoxXx]

Ok first off...whats with the hets and homos? I believe het is the gene carrier, and homos are the ones that show it right? Ok.. this is just for instance..what happens if i breed a spider with a normal? i know spiders will lay 50% spiders, but what are the other babies that come out..are the 100% hets, 50 60..im not sure i totally understand it..so all the help would be good..thanks a lot

[pavlovk1025]

A spider is a dominant morph, which means that it's super form looks like it's regular form. Co-Dom and Dominant morphs typically are not referred to as hets. When you breed a spider to a normal you should get 50% Spiders and 50% Normals. If you have a homozygous spider you should have a clutch of 100% spiders. Dominant morphs will be the same visually in both het and homo forms. A good explanation is here..http://ballpython.ca/what_get/dominant.html

So pretty much whatever in your clutch doesnt look like a spider is just a normal.

[RandyRemington]

For the most part genes come in pairs, one from mom and one from dad. From time to time mutations happen causing different versions of some genes (alleles). For each locus, if the two copies of that gene are the same it's classified as a homozygous genotype. If the two copies are different versions then the genotype for that locus is heterozygous.

So heterozygous just means having an unmatched pair of genes at whatever locus you are talking about.

Knowing genotypes is important for predicting offspring in complex breedings. Heterozygous animals have a 50/50 chance of which allele they will give each offspring while a homozygous animal will give each baby the same version 100% of the time. You can think of breeding like flipping a coin for each parent for each gene. A heterozygous parent has a two sided coin, sometimes you get heads and sometimes you get tails. A homozygous animal has a rigged coin where both sides are the same.

To know if a het looks normal or not you must know the type of the mutation you are talking about. With a co-dominant mutation like pastel the hets are a visual mutation (aka "pastel"). The homozygous co-dominant mutation type animals are a different visual mutation from the hets (aka super pastel). With a dominant mutation like pinstripe both the hets and the homozygous mutant animals are the same visible mutation (phenotype). With a recessive mutation type like albino the hets look normal and only the homozygous mutant animals show the mutation.