Question on breeding

So I am trying to understand some of the aspects of breeding. Let me ask a basic question to start.

If I have a normal female, and I breed her with say a piebald, what kind of offspring could I expect? Does the genetics mainly come from the morph? Or would the offspring be normal with piebald traits?

Man the breeding process is confusing!

You would expect normal looking offspring that are carriers of the Piebald gene. In this industry they are referred to as 100% hets. The Piebald trait is recessive, meaning that you need 2 of the alleles in order for the snake to express it. If one of the parents is Piebald and the other normal, the offspring would only get the Piebald allele from the Pied parent, and therefore would not express the trait.

Other morphs that are recessive include: Albino, Clown, Ghost, Axanthic, Genetic Stripe, and many more.

Since a piebald is a recessive morph, when bred to a normal you would produce all normal looking ball pythons that are 100% het for piebald. Which basically means each baby will carry the pied gene, so when bred to a visual piebald the odds of producing a visual pied is 50%.

But say you bred a normal to a spider(dominant morph), you will get approx. 50% normals and 50% spiders.

Hope that helps.

Here is a good website on genetics: http://www.ballpython.ca/genetics.html

Thanks! So I understand that now.

However, explain to me where the Het precentage's come in. I have seen 66% het as a discription for some snakes.

And I will check out that link.Thank you for that!

Scratch that! I understand the precentages now.

Is there ANY way to tell if your normal is a Het or not outside of breeding? I THINK my normal came from a clutch that had a pastel and an albino ( I am 100% sure there was a pastel in the clutch, was told there was an albino). So would she be a carrier of any traits or just a normal?

if you are certain, of have proof of an albino being in the clutch, and there was a pastel as well, both the parents must have been carriers for the albino gene hence the albino silbling.

If you are correct about the albino being there, your pastel is either 66% or 100% het.. depending on the parents being either heterozygous or homozygous for albino..

Get what I'm saying? :p

greets,

Yaron

I do. I guess the only way I can know for sure is if I were to breed her in the future.

Thanks for the info all!!!