pied white content. Genitic?

[Raverthug]

So Ive heard both ways. But is it genetic in pieds how much white there offspring will have. Ie a high white pied bred to a high white will have mostly high white babys

[asixtwo]

So Ive heard both ways. But is it genetic in pieds how much white there offspring will have. Ie a high white pied bred to a high white will have mostly high white babys

From my own experience, the percentage of white is independent of the parents.

[darkbloodwyvern]

Technically, the white and amount of it are variable. Though my pied girl is low white, from low white parents and the entire clutch was very low white. One of the males had almost no white crossover and the highest white was about 40% white.

I think the thing is: not too many people breed pieds to pieds since it is so much more exciting to breed co-dom to pieds for pastel/spider/whatever hets. Though personally, if i had enough pieds I would probably put them together at least once for an all pied clutch.

So I think it's possibly genetic, but pieds are so variable on their own that breeding medium white pieds together could theoretically result in insanely-white pieds and low whites in the same clutch!

[OhhWatALoser]

of all the clutches posted on here and talking to breeders, its pretty much random. I mean you wouldn't expect to breed 2 no white pieds and get a high white pied but it could happen. though i'm sure selective breeding could eventually start to make them trend one way or another.

[kellysballs]

I think that is is variable to an extent. From what I see for sale (unless people just keep the high whites). It seems to me that most of the pieds I saw back in 06 and 07 30%-70% white and all the low white guys (less than 30%) where not as desirable. But, low white where cheaper and I am seeing a trend at the shows of pieds now being mostly low white.

So I think that while it is variable low whites mostly don't thow high white babies. Or at least not in the same ratios as low white babies.

But my opinion is based on my casual observation, take it as you will.

[Serpent_Nirvana]

I haven't bred them, so I can't speak from experience. That said ...

I believe that the amount of white has genetic influences. That is to say, I believe that if you were to breed low-white to low-white or high-white to high-white for many generations, you would start to get snakes that would "breed true" and produce primarily low- or high-whites, respectively.

I base this belief on several factors. For one, it makes sense to me that there would be other genetic factors that influence the amount of white that could be selected for. We know that other known, single-gene mutations (spider, sable, etc.) influence the amount of white -- generally increasing the percentage. Why shouldn't there be other genes that influence the expression of the pied gene which simply aren't expressed visually in its absence?

Now, obviously it would take quite a few generations to "fix" those other genes in a bloodline. Without trying to select for anything, and just randomly breeding high and low whites, I do believe that the amount of white is going to be random, AND that a highly outcrossed high or low white could easily produce animals with the opposite distribution of white. This is why I think many people see the amount of white as being random -- because in their animals, it is!

Two, I *think* that the empirical evidence seems to suggest that is can be selected for. I have seen and heard of individuals who claim to have done just that, and to have lines that produce high whites fairly consistently. Maybe this is just a marketing ploy, but then again ... Maybe not.

Also, it seems to me that, when looking at a bunch of pieds for sale from the same clutch, they very frequently look to have similar amounts of white. There is obviously variation, but I often find the similarity between clutchmates to be striking.

Tl;dr version is, I believe that the degree of white is influenced by genetic factors and can be selected for, but that in the absence of active selection, in an out-crossed animal the degree of white will be random.

I currently own a no-white pied female; my plan is to pick up a high-white female and high-white male. My hypothesis is that the no-white gal will produce a mix of whites, while the high-whites will produce all high whites. Tiny sample size, but I'm curious as to the outcome (many years down the road, since my high-whites probably haven't even been born yet ) ...