Double recessive projects?

:P This is all hypothetical. I'm just a small time keeper with only two snakes currently (planning on getting another soon), but it's fun to just dream and think about the future!

I didn't think I would be interested in dealing with recessive genes - I honestly prefer the look of most co-doms instead - but that all changed the moment I saw the lightning pied. So freaking cool! What would be the best way to go about eventually breeding one of these amazing snakes, especially with limited funds? There aren't too many pied het axanthics or axanthic het pieds on the market anyway. I don't mind starting from the ground up with normal het. pieds and het. axanthics. I realize this is a project that could take several years, especially if I have to start with normal hets of both separately, and I'm fine with that. Does anyone have any tips for doing double recessive projects?

I would advise visual x visual to produce double hets. Then dh x dh. If you don't produce the visual double recessive from the double hets (unlikely since it's a 1/16 chance) then try breeding any visual 66% hets back to the original visual parents to prove them out.

I'm aiming for axanthic clowns down the line. My plan is my clown female x the axanthic fire male I'll eventually have. Hopefully I'll get a male and several females from the breeding. I'll keep all the females and put the male to them once they're of size. More females means more chances of hitting the odds right.

If you want to shave some years off your project, I have seen double hets for sale. However female double hets will probably cost more, than producing your own.

I would also suggest the the visual x visual to get your own double hets. There's no guess work on whether the babies will be hets or not. Even if you cant do both visuals I'd suggest one of them be a visual that way the babies will be 100% het for at least one of the genes. You can get visual axanthics for $350-$400, and visual pieds for between $450-$700.

With my own double recessive project I'm aiming for Ultramel Pied, A visual ultramel was way out of my price range and female double hets were pretty much non-existant on the market, if anybody had them they surely weren't letting them go. So I'm going the route of Double het male x Visual pied female. From that paring I'd hope to get some female pieds poss het ultramel to pair back to the double het male. I'd also hold onto a male pied if I got any just to maybe try and prove out later.
Even if those females didn't prove I still got good adds at producing more pieds, and 100% hets, and more pieds is never a bad thing.

Thanks for your replies!

Do any problems exist with inbreeding snakes? Pretty much all of these plans require inbreeding, but I wouldn't want to purposefully create stunted offspring or anything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cipher

Thanks for your replies!

Do any problems exist with inbreeding snakes? Pretty much all of these plans require inbreeding, but I wouldn't want to purposefully create stunted offspring or anything.

---

As with all animals, inbreeding is bad only when bad genes are already present that can cause undesirable traits. Siblings would be more likely to have these bad genes pair up vs another random animal. In the same token, inbreeding can be used to strengthen desirable traits. Good news is it does appear the likelihood of having undesirable traits with ball pythons is pretty slim, so most of us will say it is perfectly fine with ball pythons.

inbreeding is debated so often, i just wont go there.

but there is a plan to get it done without inbreeding. it just requires a larger collection and you need to be in both recessive projects as well.

(just picking albino pied as a random example)

if you, for example, have enough pieds that you can find some that are unrelated and also some albinos that are unrelated, you can set up two different breeding groups to produce a bunch of double hets. then you pair all the double hets originating from one breeding group to double hets originating from the other breeding group. Now you can hit your double recessives completely without inbreeding.

But normally you just do the inbreeding until you hit your first visual double recessive albino pied. now you can breed that one to unrelated albinos and unrelated pieds to make albino het pieds and pied het albinos, or you can buy unrelated double hets from a different breeder to breed to your visual, either way, you have ways to reduce inbreeding after you got your first visual double recessives.

and generally the consensus is that one or two generations of inbreeding dont really harm BPs; the debate is how bad it gets if inbreeding just goes on and on. once you have the visual, outbreeding for fresh genetics gets easier. Most big, reputable breeders regularly do outbreeding to keep the genetics strong, also things get much easier if you have a large collection. if a really big breeder has lets say 30 albinos and 30 pieds and 15 albino pieds, and is every season producing some new hets and double hets (some with new extra genes), it becomes really easy to avoid inbreeding.

Another option is buying a double het male and breeding him to a couple of normal females. Hold back all the females and breed them back to the double het male when they reach breeding size. Hopefully you end up proving a couple of your females to be double het.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zues

Another option is buying a double het male and breeding him to a couple of normal females. Hold back all the females and breed them back to the double het male when they reach breeding size. Hopefully you end up proving a couple of your females to be double het.

---

i dont think thats realistic when you look at the odds. they odds are dreadful. only one in 4 of these females will prove out. and 3 years into the project, when you breed double het to 50% possible het pied 50% possible het albino, your chances to get ANY albino will be just 12,5% , as will be the chances to get any pied. Initial chances to hit an albino pied when you breed back will be one hit in 64 eggs. 1.5%. on average thats 63 other hatchlings to raise and sell before you reach your goal.