Re: Reptile show let down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gaiaeagle
My boyfriend and I went to the Kansas City Reptile show this past time looking to buy some very specific types of ball pythons to start our breeding collection. One of the types we were looking for was a pair of Het Pieds to be able to breed some pieds. We found a table with some female het pieds in our price range and started talking to breeder that told me that buying two het pieds would not produce a pied, that we needed a full pied to breed with a het pied to produce pieds. We talked at lengths about this, saying that we thought pied was just a recessive gene and there was nothing complicated about the gene. He was very passionate in telling me that there were more complicated genetics involved and pied was the only one of the recessive genes that was.
Now, Mike and I have done some really extensive research in ball python morphs before we went to the show, so we had a good idea on what we wanted and what they would produce when breed together. As far as our research has produced, piedbald is a simple recessive gene and breeding two hets together will give us about a 1:4 ratio of pieds to normals (some of which will be het for pied). I have a bachelor's degree in a science related field, so have had some college level genetics classes. Genetics is not that difficult when looking at one gene.
Now if there is something more complicated about pied gene that is not mentioned in the morphs pages, I would really be interested in learning about it.
We ended up getting a male mojave, two normal females, and a male blood python to breed with the female blood (eventually).
I have heard (and experienced) a lot of het. Pieds that just don't eat very well. I was told by a bigger BC breeder that he only breeds hets to visuals, and it seems to alleviate the bad appetite problem. Wish I knew that BEFORE we got our pair of het. Pieds, because our female has just hit the wall and absolutely refuses to eat anything. Except the other day, after about 4 months we got her to eat a fresh killed rat that I had scented with dirty mouse bedding.
But he was flat out wrong still, het. to het. SHOULD produce a pied, though there's no guarantees. You have to realize that the percentage is PER EGG not per clutch, so each egg only having a 25% chance of hatching out a pied is not great. I bred a het. Albino to a Spider het. Albino and got ZERO albinos. I trust the source I got the female from and I have no doubt she's NOT het. Albino, but time will tell. If she proves out next year, then we simply got bad odds.
