J-hook, letter p ?

I am new to BP's, I have 15 corns.I have a few questions:

I'm looking to buy a pastel that has the following patterns: a j-hook, letter P, and a ringer, what significance, if any, do these have in terms of morphs?

I already have a pair of BP het Albino siblings: Is it acceptable to breed these two together or should I get another unrelated male?

If I should get another male ( I'm assuming this will be the practice) how difficult will it be finding another person willing to trade for same?

thanks, Kyle

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Originally Posted by ForkedTung

I am new to BP's, I have 15 corns.I have a few questions:

I'm looking to buy a pastel that has the following patterns: a j-hook, letter P, and a ringer, what significance, if any, do these have in terms of morphs?

I already have a pair of BP het Albino siblings: Is it acceptable to breed these two together or should I get another unrelated male?

If I should get another male ( I'm assuming this will be the practice) how difficult will it be finding another person willing to trade for same?

thanks, Kyle

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I have no idea on the first question, but as for the siblings it should be fine to breed them together. If you ever expand operations though you should keep track of all this and make sure you are not breeding siblings to multiple generation inbred siblings or something like that. In my opinion you need to bring in new blood on occasion.

I have a male het albino and female het albino. I picked up another het albino this year. So I can breed the babies from the first pair to him. That way I dont have to breed them back to dad. How good is it to do this or not. You will here different answers from people. Some say its ok some say its not. Some will tell you 1 time is ok and so on. The het albinos are cheap so why not just pick another one up.

Others have answered your questions on inbreeding, so I'll touch on the patterns. Some people think that a "hook" on a ball python means they are het for something, or that they have funky genes which could produce something "neat-o". I don't remember where I read this. It may have been the VPI book. Don't quote me. But as far as I know, none of that has really been proven.

As for the other markings, the letter "P" probably means it's het for Pied!!

Just kidding. :rofl: sorry. I had to.

Really, I haven't heard anything about markings of other shapes. But pastels are usually "jungle" in pattern, which means they're likely to have any number of crazy shapes and patterns. I would just say it's part of his pastel genes and doesn't mean anything fancy.

But, I have no "real" evidence for this. Someone else might have another opinion.

I forgot you mentioned a ringer. I'd have to see it to know if it's really a "ringer" per se. Why don't you speak with the breeder and find out what its genetics are? That'd be your best clue as to whether or not the markings are anything significant.

The breeder inferred that it could be a possible "marker" for caramel?
*thanks for the replies, Kyle

Markers are a debateable subject. I don't think any have proven out as most, a vast majority or anything along that wording. I wouldn't pay much more for a normal with something on it that "might!!!!" be a marker for something unless I knew a lot more about markers than I do now. Odds are it really isn't anything special!

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Originally Posted by ForkedTung

The breeder inferred that it could be a possible "marker" for caramel?
*thanks for the replies, Kyle

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Ringers haven't yet been proven. So far, they are just an anomaly.

I have a couple of friends that have BPs with cool markings. One is a normal male with at least a dozen discernable "8" markings. Yes, they are very well shaped and look exactly like the number 8. Another friend has a super sable (it looks like the one on NERD's site so I have no reason to believe otherwise I guess) with a large "S" on it's back. Its a really cool marking also. I dont know if either of those are genetic, but I would say the "8-ball" would be more likely because of the amount of 8's all over it... Anyone seen either of these before? Just figured I could throw that into the wierd patterns mix :P