Someone help me out.......

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Originally Posted by Kristy

EDIT: Hey we joined the same day :P

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HI 5 !!!! :carrot:

can an experienced breeder please help with some info

There are a number of different pattern types that are considered "normal", such as jungle, reduced, black backed, granite, etc. Some of them, IF proved reproducible, are considered morphs, such as granite and jungle. There are traits that we look for also, such as flames, blushing, eye color, etc.

With recessive traits, for the most part, there are no visual clues that the snake is carrying the gene. Your het hypo, for example, does not exhibit anything visually that would give a clue that it is a het hypo. If you have another snake that has all the same traits, chances are its just luck of the draw. I'm pretty sure I could go to my collection and pick out a het pied, a het albino, and a normal that all have very similar patterns and colors. There are some "markers" for some recessive traits that people look for, like belly pattern on het pieds. The problem is, not all het pieds exhibit the marker, and not all snakes that do have it are het pieds.

Whether your new snake is a het is an unknown. Sure, its possible, but the ONLY way to know for sure is to breed the two snakes together and see what you get. Assuming that your het hypo is truly a het (really can't say that until he produces a hypo baby), all the normal appearing babies produced by breeding him to the new girl would be 50% het, unless you produce a hypo. If you do produce a hypo, then all the normal appearing babies are 66% hets. This is because after producing a hypo, the FEMALE has been proven as a het.

Just to make sure we're on the same page, saying 50% het hypo does NOT have anything to do with 50% of the genetics of the snake! The 50% is a probability only! So, a 50% het hypo has a 50% chance of being heterozygous for the hypo trait. Once the snake produces a hypo, its no longer a 50% het, its now 100%. Once it produces a hypo, there's no question that it carries the gene, so the 50% probability is gone.

If you really want to know if that girl is carrying something, the way to do it is to breed her to your male and hold back all the babies. Breed the male babies back to mom to see if anything cool pops out. Also breed the male babies to their sisters to check them too. Bear in mind that the 50% probabilities will apply to the babies. For example, let say your female is het for "somemorph". All her babies will be 50% het for hypo (if you breed your het hypo male to her), and 50% het for "somemorph". Lets say you get 2 male babies. The first season that the baby males are mature enough, you breed "male1" to mom. You get all normal babies. Doesn't prove ANYTHING, but implies that "male1" is a normal. The next season, you breed "male2" to mom. This time you get one or two "somemorphs". You just proved your female and "male2" as het for "somemorph"!

Also, remember that all the babies will be 50% het hypo! If you breed brother x sister, there's a possibility of producing hypos. A better way to do that, though, is to breed the female babies back to dad, because he's supposed to be 100% het.

So, breed them, keep all the babies, breed the male babies back to mom, and the female babies back to dad. Hopefully, the females x dad will produce some hypos. And its possible that the males x mom will produce something cool too (just don't hold your breath!).

Hope this helps somewhat.
Steve

Another example just posted on KS by Steve Roussis. As I understand it, he bred a het pied to another snake (he didn't say whether it was a morph or a normal) and got an all white snake. That's not supposed to happen - pieds are recessive, pieds have some dark pattern mixed with white, heads are not white, etc., etc.! I can't wait to hear more details.
:taz:

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Originally Posted by Alice

Another example just posted on KS by Steve Roussis. As I understand it, he bred a het pied to another snake (he didn't say whether it was a morph or a normal) and got an all white snake. That's not supposed to happen - pieds are recessive, pieds have some dark pattern mixed with white, heads are not white, etc., etc.! I can't wait to hear more details.
:taz:

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do u have a link???

and thanks for all the help steve!!

Part of me thinks that eventually, the price of actual normals will go up. I am talking way, way down the road. People love the morphs, sure. But people are always going to want "clean" normal stock (especially females) for breeding programs.

I don't know if this has been covered yet, but all normals have a chance for being het for a recessive trait. The recessive trait could be a genetic reduced pattern, or perhaps a very busy pattern. Perhaps they have a nice clear belly, or are very dark. Maybe they are high gold, or have many alien heads. It's hard to say really, when such subtle designs and colors are so common among normals, how can we know that a particular pattern or variation is genetic?

We don't recognize these as 'Morphs' (besides the genetic reduced), but they can still be homozygous or het for those traits.

If you are talking about visual morphs accepted by the hobby like pied, albino, cinnamon etc.... then I say your chances are still there, but slim. They are so different from a normal animal, that it is most definitely a slimmer chance of a Normal animal being het for the outrageously different trait.

Did that make any sense? :P