Question about hets

If you have babies produced from a pied x het pied will the het babies look similar to the het parent or will the look be random?

I'm not sure what you mean by random.

The het babies would not be pieds. I would expect both the het pied parent and the het babies to look normal -- more or less similar to most of the ball pythons crawling around the African bush.

The het babies will look normal. The pied babies may look like the pied parent or they may not - low whites can throw high whites and high whites can throw low whites.

In so much as variations in the normal pattern are genetic (like maybe black back or high yellow) the het babies could just as easily take their normal pattern variations from the pied parent as the het parent. The pied parent should have "normal" versions of all the appearance genes except the pied gene and can pass those on. Not sure that the normal version(s) of the pied gene do anything for pattern and color but even if they do there are sure to be many other gene locations that contribute to variation in normal.

The one thing you can be sure of is that all the hets all got their one copy of the pied gene from the pied parent although that parent has two copies to pick from. If one or both of the pied's copies happened to be on the more co-dominant end (like leopard) then the hets might have more erratic patterns with the clear belly bordered by the solid black lines toward the tail.

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Originally Posted by paulh

I'm not sure what you mean by random.

The het babies would not be pieds. I would expect both the het pied parent and the het babies to look normal -- more or less similar to most of the ball pythons crawling around the African bush.

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I mean like if the het parent is light/dark busy pattern/reduced pattern will the het babies also look like that.

since everything about appearance is genetic, off spring have a tendency to look similar to parents.

Due to most things about appearance being influenced by multiple genes and the way they mix, it is unpredictable and can vary widely as can be seen by siblings that do not look anything alike.

Morphs are different because they are caused by one gene and its affect can be predicted.

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

I mean like if the het parent is light/dark busy pattern/reduced pattern will the het babies also look like that.

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There should be some similarity, but they're still recieving half their genetic material from the visual pied, so there's likely to be a fair amount of variability.

Listen to randyremmington the man knows his pieds I have purchased my male pied from him and was one of the best BP purchases I've made

Not everything about color/pattern is genetic. Environmental conditions, like a vitamin/mineral deficiency in the mother and incubation conditions, can affect them.

Otherwise, I agree with Randy, Jay, and Badgemash.