Boa Breeding Genetics

[pjvo]

Hi all,

I recently acquired two boas that I plan on breeding but am a little confused with the genetics. The male is double het for snow and the female is an albino. When bred together, what do they have the potential to produce? Any and all help is very much appreciated.

Thank You!

[paulh]

Welcome to the forum!

There are two types of albino -- Kahl and Sharp. Your snakes are probably Kahl albino because that is the more common type. Named for the breeders who made the original matings and worked out the genetics.

Snow is a combination of Kahl albino and anerythristic. Double het for snow means that the snake has one gene pair made up of a normal gene and a Kahl albino gene and a second gene pair made up of a normal gene and an anerythristic gene.

Both the albino gene and the anerythristic gene are recessive to their corresponding normal genes. That means that a het albino boa looks normal, a het anerythristic boa looks normal, and a double het for snow looks normal. A normal boa looks like most of the boas crawling around in the wild.

Those two snakes can be expected to produce
1/2 Kahl albino
1/2 normal looking snakes that are het Kahl albino
And all the babies have a 50% probability of being het anerythristic, too.

Here is a link to a basic genetics guide to boa genetics.
http://www.redtailboas.com/f115/no-f...s-guide-53782/

Good luck!