Double recessive projects?

:P This is all hypothetical. I'm just a small time keeper with only two snakes currently (planning on getting another soon), but it's fun to just dream and think about the future!

I didn't think I would be interested in dealing with recessive genes - I honestly prefer the look of most co-doms instead - but that all changed the moment I saw the lightning pied. So freaking cool! What would be the best way to go about eventually breeding one of these amazing snakes, especially with limited funds? There aren't too many pied het axanthics or axanthic het pieds on the market anyway. I don't mind starting from the ground up with normal het. pieds and het. axanthics. I realize this is a project that could take several years, especially if I have to start with normal hets of both separately, and I'm fine with that. Does anyone have any tips for doing double recessive projects?

I would advise visual x visual to produce double hets. Then dh x dh. If you don't produce the visual double recessive from the double hets (unlikely since it's a 1/16 chance) then try breeding any visual 66% hets back to the original visual parents to prove them out.

I'm aiming for axanthic clowns down the line. My plan is my clown female x the axanthic fire male I'll eventually have. Hopefully I'll get a male and several females from the breeding. I'll keep all the females and put the male to them once they're of size. More females means more chances of hitting the odds right.

If you want to shave some years off your project, I have seen double hets for sale. However female double hets will probably cost more, than producing your own.

I would also suggest the the visual x visual to get your own double hets. There's no guess work on whether the babies will be hets or not. Even if you cant do both visuals I'd suggest one of them be a visual that way the babies will be 100% het for at least one of the genes. You can get visual axanthics for $350-$400, and visual pieds for between $450-$700.

With my own double recessive project I'm aiming for Ultramel Pied, A visual ultramel was way out of my price range and female double hets were pretty much non-existant on the market, if anybody had them they surely weren't letting them go. So I'm going the route of Double het male x Visual pied female. From that paring I'd hope to get some female pieds poss het ultramel to pair back to the double het male. I'd also hold onto a male pied if I got any just to maybe try and prove out later.
Even if those females didn't prove I still got good adds at producing more pieds, and 100% hets, and more pieds is never a bad thing.

Thanks for your replies!

Do any problems exist with inbreeding snakes? Pretty much all of these plans require inbreeding, but I wouldn't want to purposefully create stunted offspring or anything.

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Originally Posted by Cipher

Thanks for your replies!

Do any problems exist with inbreeding snakes? Pretty much all of these plans require inbreeding, but I wouldn't want to purposefully create stunted offspring or anything.

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As with all animals, inbreeding is bad only when bad genes are already present that can cause undesirable traits. Siblings would be more likely to have these bad genes pair up vs another random animal. In the same token, inbreeding can be used to strengthen desirable traits. Good news is it does appear the likelihood of having undesirable traits with ball pythons is pretty slim, so most of us will say it is perfectly fine with ball pythons.

inbreeding is debated so often, i just wont go there.

but there is a plan to get it done without inbreeding. it just requires a larger collection and you need to be in both recessive projects as well.

(just picking albino pied as a random example)

if you, for example, have enough pieds that you can find some that are unrelated and also some albinos that are unrelated, you can set up two different breeding groups to produce a bunch of double hets. then you pair all the double hets originating from one breeding group to double hets originating from the other breeding group. Now you can hit your double recessives completely without inbreeding.

But normally you just do the inbreeding until you hit your first visual double recessive albino pied. now you can breed that one to unrelated albinos and unrelated pieds to make albino het pieds and pied het albinos, or you can buy unrelated double hets from a different breeder to breed to your visual, either way, you have ways to reduce inbreeding after you got your first visual double recessives.

and generally the consensus is that one or two generations of inbreeding dont really harm BPs; the debate is how bad it gets if inbreeding just goes on and on. once you have the visual, outbreeding for fresh genetics gets easier. Most big, reputable breeders regularly do outbreeding to keep the genetics strong, also things get much easier if you have a large collection. if a really big breeder has lets say 30 albinos and 30 pieds and 15 albino pieds, and is every season producing some new hets and double hets (some with new extra genes), it becomes really easy to avoid inbreeding.

Another option is buying a double het male and breeding him to a couple of normal females. Hold back all the females and breed them back to the double het male when they reach breeding size. Hopefully you end up proving a couple of your females to be double het.

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Originally Posted by zues

Another option is buying a double het male and breeding him to a couple of normal females. Hold back all the females and breed them back to the double het male when they reach breeding size. Hopefully you end up proving a couple of your females to be double het.

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i dont think thats realistic when you look at the odds. they odds are dreadful. only one in 4 of these females will prove out. and 3 years into the project, when you breed double het to 50% possible het pied 50% possible het albino, your chances to get ANY albino will be just 12,5% , as will be the chances to get any pied. Initial chances to hit an albino pied when you breed back will be one hit in 64 eggs. 1.5%. on average thats 63 other hatchlings to raise and sell before you reach your goal.

Quickest way (ETA: quickest way without actually having visual hets to work with) with best odds would be to get two visuals, breed together, then breed the double het offspring together. Next quickest would be to work with double hets (but you'll have a smaller chance of getting your double recessive).

I'm planning on hypo axanthic ("true ghost") in the future. I have a pair of axanthics and a pair of hypos to accomplish this. I'll be breeding the hypos to the axanthics, then breeding the offspring back together in hopes of hitting the double recessive. It'll take a few years to complete.

Just so I'm understanding the third generation pairing to create my own double recessives (in my case Lightning Pied)...

I would make my double hets with an Axanthic male to Pied female (I know that I "should" go the other way around, but I am doing it this way so that I can pair the pied female with other morphs in the future...) I would then take those 100% dh offspring and breed them together. That covers generations 1 & 2.

With Generation 3, I am taking all of the females, and pairing them with generation 2's males (100% dh), and putting one of the gen 3 males to the gen 2 females... right? Obviously I would be using any visuals from gen 3 that I got, in order to attempt prove out their other recessive gene. If I'm looking at the "odds" correctly, I want as many females as possible from generation 2, as long as I get one male (ideally), and for generation 3, I could get ALL females and that wouldn't be a problem, right?

Here is the "real question"... wouldn't it make the most sense to breed the non-visual offspring with one of the original parents in order to try and prove out 1/2 of it's genetics? Obviously you can only prove out one side or the other... but I would think that pairing a normal looking generation 3 snake to the 100% hets would be the LAST pairing that I made. Would I would want to take a visual looking generation 3 male, and pair him with my visual pied female to try and prove out his het pied status, or just leave him alone completely until I have exhausted all other pairing?

Am I thinking about this correctly, or am I missing something in my logic? I know this is a 6 year minimum project (from Axanthic - Piebald to possibly producing my first Lightning Pied), but I'd like to avoid as many pitfalls as I can. I have read the Best Practices for Ball Python Breeders article, but it doesn't really address the "best way" to deal with dual het snakes.

Ok if you are going to lightening pieds the best way to do it is to take a pied breed it to an axanthic. All of the offspring from THAT breeding will be double het for lightening pied. Then take those offspring raise them up and breed them together to get the 1 in 16 chance of getting the desired results. There is no need to "prove" out either of the hets because you produced them so you know that they have the genes. End of story.

a complete reply to Juicebox:

unless you have access to shortcuts, everything starts with breeding double het to double het. In these breedings you get stuff like axathic 66% possible het pied, and pied 66% possible het axanthic, which may be useful. But its all a race to get the first double recessive visual male.

Once you have a visual axanthic pied, EVERYTHING changes. You can breed him to pied to make pied 100% het axanthic. You can breed him to axanthic to make axanthic 100% het pieds.

The odds change dramatically. In all examples mentioned below, all hets produced are 100% guaranteed hets.

axanthic pied to double het axanthic pied: 25% axanthic pied, 25% pied het axanthic, 25% axanthic het pied, 25% double hets.

axanthic het pied to pied het axanthic: the same, 25% axanthic pied, 25% pied het axanthic, 25% axanthic het pied, 25% double hets. (with a visual double recessive male and some axanthic females and pied females you can make tons of these and do many of these pairings 1 generation later).

axanthic pied to axanthic het pied: 50% axanthic pied, 50% axanthic het pied

axanthic pied to pied het axanthic: 50% axanthic pied, 50% pied het axanthic

and, for completion, finally: axanthic pied to axanthic pied for clutches of 100% axanthic pied.

So, when you have the visual double recessive, everything changes, forever. If you have, for example, a leftover axanthix 66% possible het pied, you prove that out by breeding to a visual axanthic pied. Offspring will be some axanthic pieds in the best case, worst case you "only" get a clutch of axanthic 100% het pieds. Same with leftover possible double hets: in the best case both prove out and you hit axanthic pieds, in the worst case you make 100% double hets, if only one aspect of a possible double het proves out you get more axanthic het pieds or more pied het axanthics.

its hard to get the first double recessive breeder, and then everything changes and everything gets easy. So whatever you do, you should race towards the first visual double recessive, producing more is easy from there.

so in the first generation you breed axanthic to pied to get 100% double hets.

second generation will be double het to double het, to beat that 1 in 16 chance and hit the double recessive. you also get some axanthic 66% possible het pied and some pied 66% possible het axanthic.

if you miss out on the hit, third generation would be: Continue double het to double het breeding. And also breed axanthic 66% possible het pied to pied 66% posible het axanthic, awesome if it proves out, and if it doesnt prove out you at least get more 100% double hets. These breedings can also produce axathic 100% het pieds, and pied 100% het axanthics.

Shortcuts would be to buy 100% double hets, or to buy a pied 66% possible het axanthic or an axathic 66% possible het pied. Breed these to 100% double hets or to each other.

Possible double hets are not very useful, pied possible het axanthics and axanthic possible het pieds are useful, visual pieds and axanthics are also useful, and pied 100% het axanthics and axanthic 100% het pieds are extremely useful. And the visual double recessive is the crown jewel, like the joker in poker, changes the game.

a little helpful tool is to adopt the following gene count:

a codominant or dominant counts as 1. a 100% proven het also counts as 1.

a super form counts as 2. a visual recessive also counts as 2.

in combos, you just use these rules and add it together. so for me a jigsaw is a 2, a killerbee is a 3 (its just 2 genes but there is super pastel in it), a killer spinner is a 4.

now lets rank the relevant stuff:

a het pied is a 1, as is a het axanthic.

a possible double het is somewhere between 0 and 2.

a visual pied is a 2. an axathic is also a 2. a 100% double het is also a 2.

pied possible het axanthic and axathic possible het pied rank somewhere between 2 and 3.

pied het axanthic and axanthic het pied rank at 3.

the visual double recessive is at 4.

now when you breed a 4 to a 2, you either get all 3s (axanthic pied to axanthic for axanthic 100% het pieds), or you get 2s, 3s, and 4s (axanthic pied to double het axanthic pied). Anyway it helps to always count morphs like this, also focus on the stuff ranked 2 and above, for a double recessive project the stuff ranked below 2 wont get you far. Work up from 2 to 4.

I have my axanthic female in with my clown male as I write this looking for the 2nd lock.. im keeping all females back and 1 male and then putting him to all the females I get from the pairing.. good luck everyone this is what makes this great :D

I'm going Pied x Axanthic hopefully I'll produce at least 1.3 DH's to keep, then after I raise them up if all three breed I should hit on at least one lightning.


Thats my plan.;)

Best would be breeding visual axanthic Het Pied and visual pied Het axanthic. However, that can be pricy. A pied and axanthic are relatively affordable these days. So you can go that route to produce double Hets.

I have a double Het clown hypo project planned. I have a clown and pastel hypo that I'm going to pair next year. And I'm paying off a pastel lesser pH hypo clown that looks visually promising.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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Originally Posted by T&C Exotics

Ok if you are going to lightening pieds the best way to do it is to take a pied breed it to an axanthic. All of the offspring from THAT breeding will be double het for lightening pied. Then take those offspring raise them up and breed them together to get the 1 in 16 chance of getting the desired results. There is no need to "prove" out either of the hets because you produced them so you know that they have the genes. End of story.

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I know that all of generation 2 are 100% hets, especially because I will have produced them myself. I was talking about proving out the third generation... and Pythonfriend answered my question perfectly. I would take the Axanthic 66% het pied to Pied 66% Axanthic. Worst case scenario is I end up with another clutch of 100% DH.

What would I do with the non-visual offspring from clutch 3? Do I breed them back with the original parents (generation 1) to attempt to prove out the 66%, or just breed them to each other, and see if I hit the odds? I am still trying to wrap my head around the "numbers stuff". It may take re-reading it a few times to understand it all.

Breed the 3rd gen back to parents, who are known hets. If you breed PH sib to PH sib, you won't really prove anything out if one is a het and the other isn't... Make sense?

Breed any offspring to a double visual would be the best bet... Example... Axanthic 66% poss het pied bred to a lightening pied gets you at bare minimum axanthics 100% het pied. That would further the production of the lightening pieds and down the road out crossing would be a really good idea too.

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I know that all of generation 2 are 100% hets, especially because I will have produced them myself. I was talking about proving out the third generation... and Pythonfriend answered my question perfectly. I would take the Axanthic 66% het pied to Pied 66% Axanthic. Worst case scenario is I end up with another clutch of 100% DH.

What would I do with the non-visual offspring from clutch 3? Do I breed them back with the original parents (generation 1) to attempt to prove out the 66%, or just breed them to each other, and see if I hit the odds? I am still trying to wrap my head around the "numbers stuff". It may take re-reading it a few times to understand it all.

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thanks, im glad to be helpful :)

i dont think the 66% possible double hets you get from 100% double het to 100% double het are that useful unless they prove out. visual axanthics, visual pieds, and 100% double hets are most useful, and when you make your own 100% double hets and have visuals of both genes, those 66% possible hets will be quite a bit behind. since you need a male 100% double het up and running to even produce these, the male possible double hets will be really useless. the females may be worth holding back, maybe they have codominant extra genes, and if they only prove out for one of the recessives, they may nicely fit into one of your single recessive projects.

BTW there is another breeding that may be useful, for example visual pied to 100% double het axanthic pied. a visual pied 50% possible het axanthic is worth more than a visual pied, so these can also get you closer to your goal. breedings like pied 50% het axanthic to axanthic 100% het pied make sense, you have very good chances to hit pied 100% het axanthics, and if the possible het proves out, also axanthic het pied and lightning pieds. Just dont waste too much time and energy on the stuff that ranks below 2 in the counting system i mentioned.

EDIT: also keep in mind that many het pieds have markers, these het pied markers may be quite useful to pick out the most promising possible het pieds. Visual axanthic to 100% double het axanthic pied may be a very good breeding, if you manage to pick out the axanthic het pieds from the clutch.