question

[Snoopybdb]

I purchased 2 bp's last year at the Orlando FL show. One is a female, the other is a male. Now I know that they are waaayyy to young and small to breed and it will probably be a couple of years before I could even think about breeding them IF i decide to. What my question is...Both snakes are possible het for pied and have the ringer markings, what are the actual chances of them producing anything interesting? My guess would be a minimal chance

[cinderbird]

I purchased 2 bp's last year at the Orlando FL show. One is a female, the other is a male. Now I know that they are waaayyy to young and small to breed and it will probably be a couple of years before I could even think about breeding them IF i decide to. What my question is...Both snakes are possible het for pied and have the ringer markings, what are the actual chances of them producing anything interesting? My guess would be a minimal chance

Pied is a simple recessive, in order to produce a pied both breeding snakes must have at least one copy of the pied gene (one copy = heterozygous, 2 copies= homozygous). You say your two are possible hets, that translates to 50% hets, which means either they carry the gene, or they don't. The only way to prove that out is by breeding, and if you're lucky enough that both do have the gene and pass on a copy to the offspring and you end up with a visual pied in the clutch, you then have proved hets, they are now 100% het pied.

Sometimes you aren't that lucky and it either takes multiple clutches to prove out a pair of animals, or they may not be het for pied. That is the chance you take when breeding poss. hets, but thats the fun too.

All in all, if they are both truly het pied, then you have a 25% chance per egg for there to be a piebald in there. (If or when you breed).

[Snoopybdb]

Thank you so much for that explanation. I'm not new to bp's but definately don't have any understating to this whole genetic thing with them. I absolutely love the pied(also the axanthic) but don't have thousands of $$ to buy one, so this was my cheaper POSSIBLE way to get one and have fun with snakes while trying. That is if my b/f lets them stay in our house until they get big enough to breed. He already doesn't like them and they are only babies. LoL

[cinderbird]

Thank you so much for that explanation. I'm not new to bp's but definately don't have any understating to this whole genetic thing with them. I absolutely love the pied(also the axanthic) but don't have thousands of $$ to buy one, so this was my cheaper POSSIBLE way to get one and have fun with snakes while trying. That is if my b/f lets them stay in our house until they get big enough to breed. He already doesn't like them and they are only babies. LoL

Poss hets are a great thing for the right people and they are definitely a less expensive way of trying to produce the morph you want. Maybe he'll forget about them eventually. My boyfriend forgets about mine and he's terrified of them.

[Snoopybdb]

when I told him how much the pied's sale for he said that if they actually produce babies that would get us that much money they could stay! LoL go figure! First one is mine though!! I told him the only way to find out is to keep them until they are big enought to breed.