Lucky Strike on 50% possible het. Toffees!

Hey everyone,

I haven't posted in forums for a while since I was pretty busy finishing up my bachelor in biology, but I wanted to share my experience proving out three 50% possible het. Toffees I purchased from Craig Stewart at The Urban Reptile back in 2012.

Being quite limited budget wise, I decided that the best way to prove these three females out was to buy an Albino male to produce some Toffinos since a Toffee male was out of the question $$ and a het. Toffee male would leave me unsatisfied if all the offspring came out looking normal since I would only have a 25% chance per egg of hitting a Toffee IF the female did carry the gene.

I finally got eggs from two of the three females this winter and crossed my fingers for 53 days until I could no longer wait and decided to cut the eggs. The first two eggs I cut from the first clutch of six were normal and my hopes were starting to fade. When I cut the third egg and peeped in, I saw white, but I didn't want to let myself believe I had hit a Toffino so I assumed I was just looking at a normal belly. A little taunting made the little guy move and I saw the hint of yellow I was looking for!!

http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/...pscyvrrkcp.jpg

I was so happy I almost cried, and quickly got to cutting the remaining three eggs. Three more Toffinos!!

http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/...psfpiwmarl.jpg

About 20 days later the second clutch of seven was due and as I opened the incubator to go check on the eggs I saw a little yellow head poking out!! Another Toffino and another mother with the Toffee gene! I cut the remaining six eggs and they were all normal. I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed with the odds, but the important thing is that the mother proved out and I now have two 100% het. Toffee females and one left to be proved out.

http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/...psbtjqzdaf.jpg

With all this luck, there is perhaps one lesson we can all draw from this. No, odds can’t be beaten, and I was just as likely to have two expensive normal females on my hands as I was to have two bargain priced het. Toffees. But what is more interesting is that out of seven eggs with a 50% chance of being Toffinos, I hit only one. Had the mother not laid that seventh egg, I would have probably dismissed the female as being a normal and sold a breeder het. Toffee female for 100$. After all, the odds of hitting 6 normals without a single Toffino would have been 1 out of 64 and that is probably enough for most of us to consider ourselves beat. So don’t lose hope and give your possible hets. a second chance even if they don’t prove out the first time…

Thanks for looking,
Phil @ P3Morphs

Congrats that is awesome


Sent from iPhone 6 using tapatalk :)

Cool :gj:

Nice one. They look great and healthy. Congrats. I'm a little jealous hahaha.

Cool. Congrats. Thanks for sharing the good vibes. :D

Very cool, congrats!!!

*raises hand* Can someone explain the genetics of this to me? Were poss het toffees het for albino as well to produce the yellow snake? I don't understand how an albino bred to a het toffee produces a yellow snake unless the het toffees were het albino as well.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a bp newb and I'm still trying to work out the genetics stuff

Toffee and Albino are compatible.

Asherah is right the Toffee and Albino are compatible. In other words the two genes are allelic and share the same location on the chromosome or locus. That makes it possible to cross two different recessive genes and obtain a visual morph since it is equivalent to being homozygous at that locus due to the compatibility of the Toffee and Albino alleles.
Sounds a little complicated but apart from saying "they are compatible" I think it's the best I can do. Hope it helps ☺