How common is the train tracks marking for het pieds?

So, I got my first ball back in July from a show. At the time I knew nothing about morphs, but since acquiring my snake I've become more and more interested in the genetics side of the hobby. The breeder I bought my normal from told me that his brother was a pied. I wish I could talk to the breeder about this but I've lost his contact info. Basically I am wondering if my normal is possibly het for pied. He doesn't have any train track markings. From what I understand, if my snake's sibling was a pied, then they must have come from either a pied-het for pied pairing or a het-het pairing. If it was pied-het, that would make my normal 100% het and if it was het-het, my normal would be 66% het. Is that right? But I also am under the impression that het for pieds often have markings, and since my normal was sold for 20$ as a normal, is that an indication that he's probably just a normal?

You are correct in your percentages. Some get piers have markings, others don't. You can't tell just by that. If your snake is a sibling to a visual pied than I would say that your chances are pretty good that your snake is at least 66% possible het pied.

The only way to know for sure is to breed him to a 100% pied or a visual pied.

Its just odd the breeder wouldn't be selling it as a 66% het pied (atleast thats what I would assume it to be). The tracks are hardly worth mentioning, some have them some don't. Some normals have tracks. It's not even worth bothering to look at unless your trying to pick out possible hets out of a clutch and that's even failed on someone I talked to.

I would find it odd for a breeder to sell a 66% het as a normal, even if he priced it as a normal, it would be a selling point to have it labeled as a 66% het.

If your snake is a female it wouldnt hurt to try and prove her out. If its a male I dont think its worth the time and effort to prove out a 66% het, hets are really cheap and visuals are even coming down quite a bit, I would rather invest in one of them before I proved out a 66% het male.

To be honest, now that I think of it it's quite possibly my snake WAS labeled as het. Like I said I knew nothing about morphs at the time and so if that was on the label it would have gone right over my head. I was just so excited to get any snake at all!

100% het males are often sold as normals. I had a high male clutch this year. I sold them to a pet store for $30 because most people are not interested in male hets. Happens more than you think.

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

100% het males are often sold as normals. I had a high male clutch this year. I sold them to a pet store for $30 because most people are not interested in male hets. Happens more than you think.

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I have heard of this. Even at shows.

1/3 of my female hets actually has the "het pied markers".

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Originally Posted by ReptilesK2

1/3 of my female hets actually has the "het pied markers".

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All of my 100% hets have markers and the 50% and 66% animals also add up. So far, all possible , with markers, I have produced and kept track of have proven to be hets. Not all hets will have the "tracks" and as I've mentioned before, there is more to the marker than just the tracks. Some do not believe in the marker but I can say I do as well as a few "big name" breeders.

In addition to the markers, if you've hatched enough hets and normals in the same clutch then you develop a pretty good eye at what else to look for. Pieds like to bring out the orange and it's night and day (for me anyways) when I'm looking at poss hets and normals. More often than not, the hets will have a lot of orange going up the sides and towards the vent area - almost like it's trying to be a ringer. Hard to explain w/out pics, but the regular tracks/markers are good........I definitely go by them when holding back het girls. The males go to friends or new snake keepers that I try to get into the hobby!

I proved two 25% het pied girls last summer that where held back because of the markers followed through two generations.