Producing Double Hets....

I've not seen published data with a large number of individual het and possible het offspring. What I have seen is the marker passed to almost exactly half the offspring in my possible het project. Posts by who I suspect is the largest Canadian pied producer that 80% of het pieds have the marker. A post quoting the largest US pied producer that 70% of his het pieds have a marker. Plenty of posts by smaller breeders that 100% of their het pieds have the marker. Posts by Ralph Davis that he has a system for picking het pieds out of possible hets. You are the only experienced pied breeder I've seen completely discount the marker and I suspect your motives for doing so.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

I've not seen published data with a large number of individual het and possible het offspring. What I have seen is the marker passed to almost exactly half the offspring in my possible het project. Posts by who I suspect is the largest Canadian pied producer that 80% of het pieds have the marker. A post quoting the largest US pied producer that 70% of his het pieds have a marker. Plenty of posts by smaller breeders that 100% of their het pieds have the marker. Posts by Ralph Davis that he has a system for picking het pieds out of possible hets. You are the only experienced pied breeder I've seen completely discount the marker and I suspect your motives for doing so.

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Bad news for you Randy ... Ralph doesn't use the "marker" for picking out possible hets ...he actually looks for something different. And you don't even know if your possible het pied male is even a het ... if he doesn't prove out, you're going to look pretty silly.

So basically you're saying that if Pete and Corey got on the net and said pigs can fly, you'd buy that one too? ... LOL

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Bad news for you Randy ... Ralph doesn't use the "marker" for picking out possible hets ...he actually looks for something different.

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I had gathered that and that's why I worded it the way I did. However it is evidence in support of markers in this supposedly recessive morph.

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

And you don't even know if your possible het pied male is even a het ... if he doesn't prove out, you're going to look pretty silly.

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And if pied markers become widely proven people might wonder why a well-informed pied breeder like you worked so hard at discrediting them for so long.

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

So basically you're saying that if Pete and Corey got on the net and said pigs can fly, you'd buy that one too? ... LOL

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I'd consider if they where authorities on pig aviation, look for corroborating information, and consider what there motives might be for saying so.

Reliable public information on het pied markers could be considered bad for the pied market price. It totally screws up the marketing of possible hets. It would encourage people to breed het and even possible het males to lots of normal females (I believe this has actually happened). If many pied breeders are admitting to a marker in spite of this (even if RDR isn't posting what his full marker set is) I am more likely to believe it than one pied breeder discrediting the marker.

And there in lies the big hole in your theory ... The #1 pied producer in the states was quoted (inaccurately by the way) as saying that 70% of his het pied offspring have the marker (3 years ago) ... and #2 producer of het pieds in the states looks at something completely different in the possible het pieds he produces. And then there's Corey that actually only produces a small number of het pieds a year compared to Pete and Ralph. If the "maker" thing was so solid, wouldn't Pete and Ralph at least be in agreement?

I think it is hysterical that a guy with a single 50% possible het pied male seems to be the sole authority on het pied markers running around the internet accusing the big breeders of dishonesty for selling possible het pieds without the marker.

-adam

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

For example, with spiders and pastel there is no disagreement that there are het markers - the hets are mutant spiders and pastels. The super pastels are the homozygous version. Pastel and spider are het markers that are very reliable, probably close to 100%. ...

If there is anything to the pied het belly marker (and I believe there is)...

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Some basic information on correct vocabulary within genetics:



When talking about markers in regards to a recessive animal, it means you are looking for an allele that is linked to a recessive allele. You are hoping that every time the recessive allele is passed on this "marker" allele is passed on as well to guarantee you have a heterozygous animal. While I certainly won't discount this possibility to compare a pied "marker" to a pastel or spider "marker" is very misleading.



Since spiders and pastels are codominant trait there is no marker for them. They simply are. When referring to an organism that expresses a codominant trait you do not refer to them as hets (though certainly they carry two different alleles) you simply specify the trait as codominant. These organisms are NOT showing a marker for that trait but showing a true expression of the codom genotype. They are certainly NOT "mutants" either as a mutated gene is rare (due to several reasons: translocation of the gene loci, nucleotide deletions/insertions, to name a few of the normal reasons for mutations). A mutation is often fatal and rarely beneficial to the organism, again, not to say they don't occur. The super pastels simply have both genes for pastel and as such display even more vivid colors related to that genotype as they are not diluted by the normal gene.



The expression of a codominant gene is obviously quite different from a recessive gene. To compare a codom to a het recessive is like comparing apples to oranges. While the codom trait resides in one chromosome on one gene locus a recessive gene such as pied will also reside on one chromosome at one specific point (locus). The marker would have to reside at another loci (possibly on the same chromosome or even another chromosome entirely) and be passed on with that recessive gene.



There may or may not be something to the het pied marker but I suspect a respectable and reliable breeder would inform any customer that while they think this is a possible indicator of a true het they would also point out there is not significant evidence to indicate the statistical odds of the het marker will prove out an animal to be het over normal statistical genetic odds.



When talking genetics, lets not forget you are discussing science and to throw ideas out there is great! That is how new ideas and breakthroughs are discovered, usually through collaborative work. But since this is indeed science you need to make sure your conclusions are the result of real empirical data that is truly testing only one variable. There are many variables that go into bp breeding from temps and humidity to name a few. Each breeder may do things a bit differently and some of those differences may account for the results they see in their offspring as well.



My two cents for what it's worth....

Sincerely, your resident bio teacher,

Thank you Wendy for adding some intelligence to this thread. The chest thumping was starting to get old. :P ;)

-adam

ha ha....the same marker discussion is going on in two threads....you guys are funny.....LMAO ;)

I just think the marker situation is funny...

...from the way markers are usually talked about they are all identical in every bp....but these so called markers vary so that you could make all kinds of hypothetical guesses about the markers.....if you really want to go into detail, you should even establish a level of 'markedness' to grade the possible het pied bps...some have strong markers, some have weak markers, some have ringers,etc.....does the level of markers shown in one specific animal increase or decrease its chances of being het? Does one sex show more markers than the other? if the poss het is from a het to het breeding or het to normal breeding do the odds change?....the list of questions concerning 'markered' bps can go on for pages.... the point is statistical probabilities can be subdivided into all kinds of sections....You could disect the 'marker' and find all kinda weird odds.....

the fact is that that in the 8+ years that pieds have been known to be genetically reproducable, no one can say that the presence of a marker means that there is 100% certainty that the bp carries the gene...or the lack of the marker means that the bp has no chance of being het.....with the 'markers' people are looking to increase their odds of having a het....but what does 5 to 10 percentage points really do for you anyway...nothing...either the bp is a het or it is not a het...

People just need to get off of all this statistical crap....every possible het is a gamble in the first place...there is no way you can argue with that :)

Here is what a het pied belly looks like.....nothing special...just a belly...all bps have them ;)
http://www.danielhillreptiles.com/co...piedbelly1.JPG

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

accusing the big breeders of dishonesty for selling possible het pieds without the marker.

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It's interesting the things you pick up on that seem to bother you. To the contrary, I've consistently said that I've not seen evidence of any breeders actually using the marker to decide which possible hets to keep and which to sell and to whom. I just pointed out that the potential for abuse exists with a secret het sign. I still think that the idea of selling whole clutches of possible hets together was an attempt to be fair to buyers who didn't know about the sporadic het sign.

Way back before I heard of the spinning in spiders I torqued you off by exploring the possibility that spider could be homozygous lethal. Your complaint seemed to be that newbies couldn't understand the implications (which I spelled out carefully) and it hurt spider sales. Now I'm wondering how widespread knowledge of the spinning was before it was posted on Kingsnake and how that figured in to the drop in spider prices.

I really don't think that sales should be given much weight at all when deciding which topics can be discussed publicly. In both of these cases the public good would have been best served with more information earlier.

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Originally Posted by wendyhoo9

When talking about markers in regards to a recessive animal, it means you are looking for an allele that is linked to a recessive allele. You are hoping that every time the recessive allele is passed on this "marker" allele is passed on as well to guarantee you have a heterozygous animal. While I certainly won't discount this possibility to compare a pied "marker" to a pastel or spider "marker" is very misleading.

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Thanks! I was using "marker" incorrectly as I didn't fully understand that it indicated a 2nd linked gene. I believe that the sporadic het sign (not sure what to call it without "marker") is caused by the pied gene it's self. My comparison with accepted dominant type genes was to bring home the point that I believe piebald is one of those genes that doesn't fall neatly into textbook "recessive" and has co-dominant tendencies. This has been seen in Burmese pythons where some (but not all) het Granite and also het Green animals exhibit an appearance intermediate between normal and the respective homozygous Granite and Green phenotypes. To me the ringer belly with black edges in a het pied is an intermediate form between normal marked belly and the white coming up beyond the belly in a homozygous pied leaving dark lines in the pigmented area.

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Originally Posted by wendyhoo9

When referring to an organism that expresses a codominant trait you do not refer to them as hets (though certainly they carry two different alleles) you simply specify the trait as codominant.

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I know most in ball python circles seem to think heterozygous is reserved for recessive gene carriers but I don't believe that is true in more developed areas of genetics study. Furthermore I think there is great advantage to learning the real definition of heterozygous and using it correctly with dominant type morphs since understanding the genotypes are the best way to predict the offspring. Knowing that a bumblebee is a double het pastel and spider you can use the same genotype rules to predict its breedings as with a double het snow. The co-dominant part only comes in when trying to figure out what those het and double het babies will look like.

Also, I'm not following your mixing of the description of the trait with the description of the individual organism. This mixing causes a common area of confusion in the ball python industry. If you refer to a ball python exhibiting the pastel phenotype as "codominant" rather than the pastel gene as co-dominant and the pastel ball python as het for that co-dominant gene then you start doing things like referring to the super pastel as the "dominant form". The super pastel is the phenotype of the homozygous genotype of a co-dominant mutant gene. The mutation type doesn't change from co-dominant to completely dominant depending on if you are looking at a pastel or a super pastel. It's the difference between the phenotype of those two genotypes that defines the pastel gene as co-dominant (or incomplete dominant but that's a different discussion).

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Originally Posted by wendyhoo9

They are certainly NOT "mutants" either as a mutated gene is rare (due to several reasons: translocation of the gene loci, nucleotide deletions/insertions, to name a few of the normal reasons for mutations). A mutation is often fatal and rarely beneficial to the organism, again, not to say they don't occur.

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Are you saying it's wrong to refer to the animal as a "mutant" or that even the pastel gene it's self should not be referred to as a mutant gene? I'll admit that the concept of a mutant gene is troubled since "normal" is just the collection of the most beneficial mutations to come along so far for the selection environment (per the evolutionary view). However, I believe the change from the normal version of the pastel gene to the pastel version of that gene was caused by a mutation. But I would agree that with all the ball python mutations there is the potential that the scrambling of the genetic code that creates the appearance we select for in the captive breeding environment might not be beneficial for anything other than insuring the animal is bred in captivity.

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Originally Posted by wendyhoo9

The expression of a codominant gene is obviously quite different from a recessive gene. To compare a codom to a het recessive is like comparing apples to oranges.

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In textbooks the line between recessive and co-dominant is sharp and clear. I believe we have already seen several examples in python breeding where the line is blurred. I don't have a good explanation as to why some "recessive" mutations often produce visible hets but also produce some normal looking hets but there is good evidence that it is happening.

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Originally Posted by wendyhoo9

While the codom trait resides in one chromosome on one gene locus a recessive gene such as pied will also reside on one chromosome at one specific point (locus). The marker would have to reside at another loci (possibly on the same chromosome or even another chromosome entirely) and be passed on with that recessive gene.

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Sorry, if I had known not to use the term "marker" it would have been more clear that I believe the pied mutation is the allele of the gene at the piebald locus that is causing the ringer belly seen in many het piebalds. I do not believe there are two genes (one recessive and one co-dominant) involved. In this respect I believe that the piebald allele has both recessive and co-dominant tendencies.

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Originally Posted by wendyhoo9

There may or may not be something to the het pied marker but I suspect a respectable and reliable breeder would inform any customer that while they think this is a possible indicator of a true het they would also point out there is not significant evidence to indicate the statistical odds of the het marker will prove out an animal to be het over normal statistical genetic odds.

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There are two questions here. One is whether most breeders would have ever opened the can of worms of mentioning the markers in the first place (it is a significant complication to marketing of possible hets). The other is how much evidence pied breeders have seen and if the odds are significantly altered. The discussion is to try to get to those two answers.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

It's interesting the things you pick up on that seem to bother you. To the contrary, I've consistently said that I've not seen evidence of any breeders actually using the marker to decide which possible hets to keep and which to sell and to whom.

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Oh really .... well, I pulled this post (made by you) from another message board ...

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the breeders kept all the markered possible het girls for themselves of their friends and sold the unmarkered ones as full 50% or 66% to the uninformed public.

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Randy, you're a liar and your agenda is very obvious. You are so all over the place with the garbage you spew you can't even stay on topic in a single thread ... jumping from markers to spinning to kinking in a desperate attempt to sound credible. It’s not working and judging by the emails and private messages I get people are beginning to see you for what you are.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

Your complaint seemed to be that newbies couldn't understand the implications (which I spelled out carefully) and it hurt spider sales.

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I don't think so. I've never sold a single spider and I'm not sure that I ever will. If you think that "sales" are the reason I call you out on your garbage you couldn't be more wrong. I am luck enough to be blessed with owning an extremely successful business outside of ball pythons that does very well for me. In 10 years of breeding ball pythons I have not put a single penny of profit into my pocket and at this point I'm pretty sure that I never will. I keep and breed these animals because they are one of my greatest passions in life.

I get "torqued" at you not for myself, but for my friends .... You see Randy, when you do your little song and dance and try to bring market prices down by casting doubt in peoples minds, you are hurting good people ... People that breed these animals for a living, for their sole source of income. People that feed their children with ball python money, pay their mortgage with ball python money, try and get by day to day in this world with ball python money ... and then there's also my friends that aren't full time breeders but are passionate about ball pythons and love these animals enough to invest a couple of hundred dollars into a het pied up to a couple of thousand dollars into a spider or a pair of het caramels. Their only hope is to produce a couple for cool snakes for themselves and possibly make a few extra dollars each year to be able to take their children on a vacation or buy their spouse a couple of extra presents around the holidays. These people are good people Randy ... auto mechanics, teachers, stay at home moms, and truck drivers to name a few .... they are people that I consider friends and care about and they are people that you hurt every time you make a post that questions the ethics of breeders in the market or the integrity of the genetics of a bloodline without data to back it up so that you can do nothing more than promote your agenda. Your broad speculation posted over and over in a campaign to drive the prices down on the morphs that you want so that you can afford them hurts good people Randy.

The day that you want to come out of the closet with hard facts and real empirical data about markers, spinning, kinking, homozygous lethal, linked alleles, dilute genes, or whatever else you have brewing in that head of yours and that data shows conclusively that you’re theories are correct, I will be your biggest supporter Randy. I will pay for banners on kingsnake thanking you for all of your hard work and research. But as long as the best you can do is quote 3 year old posts by Pete, or talk about what you heard from 17 year old kids in a chat room, or use a guy you met on a message board called “hahaman” as a corroborating witness, I will continue to question you, your ideas, and your motives.

Where would we be in this world if throughout history people presented theories and no one ever asked “where’s the beef”?

-adam

Here is the full quote of what I posted on the RDR site:

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Actually I haven't seen many selling possible het pieds since the news broke. Of course possible hets in general have become less desirable since co-doms came on the scene. I can't give away possible het males for breeding when people look at the alternative of breeding their female to a pastel etc. I guess they are just pets now.

To me the big scandal was the chance the breeders kept all the markered possible het girls for themselves of their friends and sold the unmarkered ones as full 50% or 66% to the uninformed public. At least with the pieds you could never sell the markered possible hets as 100% hets due to the chance that a normal will have similar markings. You need to get up to something more distinctive and more reliably co-dominant like pastel before you can sell the possible hets as hets (i.e. you can be pretty close to 100% sure which are pastels and which aren’t).

News of the marker no doubt complicated marketing possible het pieds. I think before that some breeders might have been doing their best to be fair and above reproach by recommending buying whole clutches of possible hets together. Personally I think full public disclosure from the start would have been best. If nature deals you a messy hand it would be better to deal with it rather than try to sweep it under the rug as long as you possibly can.

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By leaving out beginning of the sentence you conveniently make it look like I was accusing someone. Who's honesty does this reflect on?