Genetics guarantees?

So this topic came up recently at work, and it got me wondering.....this is aimed toward all the honest breeders out there who guarantee genetics on there 100% het animals. So, say a person gets a 100% het clown,pied, ghost, etc. They raise it up, and breed it for two seasons in a row to a homozygous counterpart and produce no eggs that contain the morph? How long does the guarantee go on for? Do you refund their money and take the animal back? Offer them a homozygous instead? Tell them they have horrible rotten luck? I mean, by then the animal in question could be 5 years old! A het hatchling and a het adult esp female, have very different market values. What then? Keeping it simple, the example would be a person who legitimately bred said animals, had pics and proof of locks, mom on eggs, pipping, etc, but NO morph produced. I mean, im assuming that this possibly has happened, albeit rare....maybe they did have rotten horrible luck, or even as an honest breeder made a mistake? Just wondering if this type of situation has ever happened to you or someone you know, and how they handled it.
sent from my incubator

Yeah I'm not sure what the "guarantee" is for now that you point it out. The only "guarantee" is that your dealing with a honest person who is reputeable and that person bred a homozygous recessive.

This is part of why I asked the question a while back: how many breedings/eggs/hatchlings do you produce from an animal sold as "het" before you prove it is or it isn't? With a female it's harder as well, since she may have a small clutch the first season, where a het male could be paired with multiple females each year so theoretically he could be proven out in a season.

If you produced it from a visual, it's a het. The guarantee is that the animal carries the gene / is offspring of a visual, not that the person will produce visuals from it. It hasn't happened to me, but I'd just point out the person has bad luck and would not offer a refund or trade.

If you're unsure if it's a 100% het, don't sell it as one. If you got it out of a visual to nonvisual pairing, then it is assuredly a 100% het.

I remember Brian at BHB going through this one time, after three owners and like two or three clutches it hadn't proved out. The third owner actually went after Brian for it and he honored it. Now, what's a couple hundred dollars to him in the grand scheme of things? Maybe not much. But, don't buy hets if you aren't willing to roll the dice.

I've got a pair of 100% het VPI axanthics, any nonvisual animals from the pairing are pet quality normals. I won't take that chance of someone expecting a 66% het to prove out.

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One thing that I'm always afraid of is retained sperm from a previous breeding.

I bred my mojave to my pin and lesser last year. They locked all the time for months. She never ovulated. I was thinking about breeding my clown to her this year, but I'm really hesitant to do so because I worry about retained sperm.

There are cases where a clutch is sired by both the current breeding males and males used in the previous season. I'm just worried about something like that happening to me in regards to hets. lol.


As for genetic guarantees, usually sellers give ~3 seasons to prove out that animal. And the buyer gets either a refund, partial refund, or discount on next purchase if the animal doesn't prove out and they want to pursue some sort of action. I don't think many people offer a visual animal as compensation. It's probably just easier to refund the buyer.

In my opinion a written guarantee on genetics is worthless. It simply takes too long to prove whether it is or it isn't what the breeder said it was and there are too many variables that can either help you or hinder you in that proof.

About 13 years ago I bought a pair of het yellow ghosts. I didn't request it, but the guy I bought them from included a written guarantee that they would produce visual ghosts within 5 years. I raised them up and bred them at three years old. It didn't take. The following year I bred them again and got a small clutch of eggs but hatched no ghosts. The year after that I got a clutch of eggs but they all went bad. At this point, the guarantee did NOT prove out, but is that the breeders fault? Is it my fault? Or is it just the luck of the draw? It was kind of a moot point anyway because a few years after I bought the snakes the guy went out of business and disappeared from the ball python scene so I wasn't going to get my money back anyway. The following year (year 6) I produced a clutch of 3 nice looking ghosts out of 5 eggs, not bad odds after all.

In the end it really boils down to 'do you trust the breeder or not?' Because if you don't, no piece of paper is going to make it all better.

Lets assume everyone is a good guy. It still might be different for every breeder. You would have to ask them what their guarantee actually means. Giving a set amount of years imo has too many factors that have nothing to do with genetics. Look at MarkS example, in the 5 years, he only produce actual offspring 1 year, its great that they proved out eventually, but what does non-offspring years have anything to do with it having the genetics or not? Thats really not fair to the breeder imo. I have also seen some breeder say after X amount of clutches I will do something. Well still a big factor would be the amount of eggs, what if one snake only produces 3 eggs a year for 3 years, while one snake produces 9 in one year, doesn't that give the same statistics?

What makes most sense to me would be to say after X amount of eggs from a visual x het breeding or X amount of eggs from a het x het breeding, I will do something . Missing a visual on a visual x het breeding after 7 eggs gives you less than a 1% chance of the animal being het statistically. 17 eggs for a het x het. It would depend on the breeder how many eggs they feel is enough to honor their guarantee. But then again for a het x het, I think you would want both animals to be from you, how do you know the other animal is actually het also?

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Originally Posted by MrLang;2196928[B

]If you produced it from a visual, it's a het.[/B] The guarantee is that the animal carries the gene / is offspring of a visual, not that the person will produce visuals from it. It hasn't happened to me, but I'd just point out the person has bad luck and would not offer a refund or trade.

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this is where a lot of breeders make honest mistakes. if the female is the visual then it's 100% het. if you use a visual male then no. my largest project is with the clown. all my females in the clown project starts as virgins and are dedicated only to visual clown males. this reduces my chances greatly that one of the hatchlings isn't het for clown. my worry is parthenogenesis or gynogenesis, so if my whole clutch is females and are just like mom, it will get my attention. the big mistake that many make is a female has a clutch of eggs, the breeder thinks they can go and breed it to anything they want now. even after a female has a clutch of eggs, she still can retain sperm. think about it, you know this happens a lot. I had emailed tracy barker of V.P.I. who confirmed this.

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Originally Posted by don15681

this is where a lot of breeders make honest mistakes. if the female is the visual then it's 100% het. if you use a visual male then no. my largest project is with the clown. all my females in the clown project starts as virgins and are dedicated only to visual clown males. this reduces my chances greatly that one of the hatchlings isn't het for clown. my worry is parthenogenesis or gynogenesis, so if my whole clutch is females and are just like mom, it will get my attention. the big mistake that many make is a female has a clutch of eggs, the breeder thinks they can go and breed it to anything they want now. even after a female has a clutch of eggs, she still can retain sperm. think about it, you know this happens a lot. I had emailed tracy barker of V.P.I. who confirmed this.

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Genetically, how can this be? I mean, If I breed an albino, (m or f) who has both copies of the gene for albinism,(therefore making him an actual albino) to another snake whos completely normal, why WOULDNT my babies be all 100% het for albino? All of the babies get a copy of the gene for albinism from one parent, and a copy of non albinism from the other parent. Is it different with clowns? ghosts? axanthics? Im cornfused....:confusd::(

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

Genetically, how can this be? I mean, If I breed an albino, (m or f) who has both copies of the gene for albinism,(therefore making him an actual albino) to another snake whos completely normal, why WOULDNT my babies be all 100% het for albino? All of the babies get a copy of the gene for albinism from one parent, and a copy of non albinism from the other parent. Is it different with clowns? ghosts? axanthics? Im cornfused....:confusd::(

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If the female for example was the het and not visual, she can have retained sperm from a previous breeding season or go through parthenogenesis(asexual reproduction).
This is what I was worried about in my previous post. There are cases where a clutch was sired by the current breeding male as well as the male used the previous season.

If any of this was the case, how would you know if your hatchlings were truly hets?

If the female was the visual, of course the offspring would be 100% hets.

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

Genetically, how can this be? I mean, If I breed an albino, (m or f) who has both copies of the gene for albinism,(therefore making him an actual albino) to another snake whos completely normal, why WOULDNT my babies be all 100% het for albino? All of the babies get a copy of the gene for albinism from one parent, and a copy of non albinism from the other parent. Is it different with clowns? ghosts? axanthics? Im cornfused....:confusd::(

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He's talking about the possibility that the babies are 100% genetic copies of mom. It is very rare, but it does happen where babies are clones of the mom. So if you breed a visual male to a normal female, there's a VERY small probability that the babies aren't really 100% hets, but 100% normals. He's just being overly cautious with how he breeds his animals which is fine. Not everyone chooses to do this because it is a very expensive way to save you butt in case the rare thing does happen.

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

Genetically, how can this be? I mean, If I breed an albino, (m or f) who has both copies of the gene for albinism,(therefore making him an actual albino) to another snake whos completely normal, why WOULDNT my babies be all 100% het for albino? All of the babies get a copy of the gene for albinism from one parent, and a copy of non albinism from the other parent. Is it different with clowns? ghosts? axanthics? Im cornfused....:confusd::(

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No its not different. You have it right. If a parent is a visual all offspring will be 100% het.

Satomi has it right, what the other person was trying to say is if you are using a female visual then you know all hatchlings will be het. But if the male is the visual one and the female had retained sperm from a past breeding then you couldnt call any hets because you wouldnt know for sure. Like if u bred a clown male to a het clown female but say u got a lesser in the clutch. You wouldnt be able to call any normal looking offspring 100% het. Because it would be obvious she had retained from other breedings. Best you could do is call them 50% het because the mom was 100.

So.... if the dam is a het then only breed her to visual sires if you're going to guarantee 100% hets. Got it.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

So.... if the dam is a het then only breed her to visual sires if you're going to guarantee 100% hets. Got it.

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yes if she was never breed to anything else before breeding to the visual.

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

Genetically, how can this be? I mean, If I breed an albino, (m or f) who has both copies of the gene for albinism,(therefore making him an actual albino) to another snake whos completely normal, why WOULDNT my babies be all 100% het for albino? All of the babies get a copy of the gene for albinism from one parent, and a copy of non albinism from the other parent. Is it different with clowns? ghosts? axanthics? Im cornfused....:confusd::(

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if I breed a visual female, I agree they will all be 100% hets. I also agree in what you're saying about a visual passing the gene. what I'm saying is how do you know for sure that the visual male passed his gene to the hatchlings and be 100%?

1. retained sperm

2. parthenogenesis this is rare, but it is more common in reptiles and insects. I know a breeder who had a virgin female normal and the first year was breed to a killerbee (super pastel spider) had a clutch of good eggs. next year was breed to a 3 gene male with super pastel being in the snake. again had good eggs. the third year it was breed to a super pastel champagne got 5 eggs and all 5 were normal females, no pastels at all. this breeder at the time had a small collection, keep very good records. yes a mistake is possible, but knowing him, parthenogenesis makes more sense.

IMO bad odds in that case makes far more sense than parthenogenesis

It is very poor practice to attempt making 100% Hets from a female that you have bred to anything else the year before.

I have females set aside strictly for making certain Hets. I can sleep easy. I keep pics of locks and ovulation for my own insurance.

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Originally Posted by coreydelong

It is very poor practice to attempt making 100% Hets from a female that you have bred to anything else the year before.

I have females set aside strictly for making certain Hets. I can sleep easy. I keep pics of locks and ovulation for my own insurance.

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I would generally agree with you on this, unless there was no chance of confusing the babies in the event of retained sperm (ie. the male used in the previous year was some kind of non-recessive super, and the male from the current year does not carry that gene).

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Originally Posted by don15681

if I breed a visual female, I agree they will all be 100% hets. I also agree in what you're saying about a visual passing the gene. what I'm saying is how do you know for sure that the visual male passed his gene to the hatchlings and be 100%?

1. retained sperm

2. parthenogenesis this is rare, but it is more common in reptiles and insects. I know a breeder who had a virgin female normal and the first year was breed to a killerbee (super pastel spider) had a clutch of good eggs. next year was breed to a 3 gene male with super pastel being in the snake. again had good eggs. the third year it was breed to a super pastel champagne got 5 eggs and all 5 were normal females, no pastels at all. this breeder at the time had a small collection, keep very good records. yes a mistake is possible, but knowing him, parthenogenesis makes more sense.

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I was just trying to keep things simple here guys.....:( no parthenogenesis, no poss hets, no 66%s, no retained sperm, etc... just real clean cut questions about what breeders would do/have done re: handling a genetics guarantee they made. Im also assuming that parthenogenesis is an EXTREMELY rare occurence....

sent from my incubator

I plan to start breeding in the next three years (girls gotta grow) and I often think about guarantees, disclaimers, agreements, etc. For hets I decided to offer two year guarantee and if they do not proove out then I'll take back the snake in exchange for store credit or a similar animal of the buyer's choice. In order for the guarantee to apply they must have evidence of locks, mom on eggs, slugs, pipping, etc. If I have any doubt if a snake is 100% het then it is marketed as a normal only.

Of course I reserve the right to challenge the buyer's claim if I smell fishy business!

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

I was just trying to keep things simple here guys..... no parthenogenesis, no poss hets, no 66%s, no retained sperm, etc... just real clean cut questions about what breeders would do/have done re: handling a genetics guarantee they made. Im also assuming that parthenogenesis is an EXTREMELY rare occurence....


sent from my incubator

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It's tricky, as a buyer I'm going to be quite upset that I put that much time and effort into an animal that doesn't prove out. But if I then look on the BOI and see that in the intervening years (assuming I purchased the animal as a hatchling) you still have a sterling reputation (because I sure as heck would have checked to begin with), I'm a lot more likely to chalk it up to "just one of those things," and likely be satisfied with a credit of the original purchase price toward a new animal (because you were so nice about the whole thing I would buy from you again, and I would be telling my friends how nice you were about it as well). This is assuming at I as the person trying to breed the animal have very detailed records and photos etc. that satisfy you that I haven't just screwed up and there's nothing fishy going on.

If we're talking about a het purchased as an adult, espcially a "proven" one, I'd probably give it two seasons (assuming it was paired w. a visual, and am again speaking as the theoretical buyer). At that point I'd probably be wanting to return the animal, and because it was probably a rather expensive purchase I'd be looking for at least a partial credit toward something else.

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Originally Posted by shadowsnakes

I plan to start breeding in the next three years (girls gotta grow) and I often think about guarantees, disclaimers, agreements, etc. For hets I decided to offer two year guarantee and if they do not proove out then I'll take back the snake in exchange for store credit or a similar animal of the buyer's choice. In order for the guarantee to apply they must have evidence of locks, mom on eggs, slugs, pipping, etc. If I have any doubt if a snake is 100% het then it is marketed as a normal only.

Of course I reserve the right to challenge the buyer's claim if I smell fishy business!

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I think I would move it to something like a 4 or 5 year guarantee. Most females aren't even ready to breed by 2 years old so how can you prove out a het if they haven't been given the opportunity to breed? Just something to consider.



What I plan on doing with regards to hets is that all my VISUAL recessives will be females (I've already planned on getting a female lavender albino/albino as well as a clown). The only exception to this is that I have a het pied girl. She's only going to a visual pied male so no chance of retained sperm (She's only 400g).

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Originally Posted by SquamishSerpents

IMO bad odds in that case makes far more sense than parthenogenesis

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with the only 3 males bred to her had super pastels in them. it's not bad odds. the very least that should of hatched would of been pastels.

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

I was just trying to keep things simple here guys.....:( no parthenogenesis, no poss hets, no 66%s, no retained sperm, etc... just real clean cut questions about what breeders would do/have done re: handling a genetics guarantee they made. Im also assuming that parthenogenesis is an EXTREMELY rare occurence....

sent from my incubator

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then the only reason you would need a photo I.D. is that the breeder is dishonest. and that photo I.D. wouldn't be worth the paper that it was printed on.
photo I.D. is to protect not only the buyer from a mistake as listed in some of the post. but also the breeder from the buyer switching snakes. I give photo I.D's even on a phantom that's not het for anything to protect myself. when a customer comes to me with a problem with a snake that's from me. I want to make it right with that customer.

crystal, this was a good post. some of the post was a little off of what you was asking but still related as for reasons. you got a good number of response to your post, something that's been lacking lately on a few forums. merry Christmas don

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Originally Posted by don15681

then the only reason you would need a photo I.D. is that the breeder is dishonest. and that photo I.D. wouldn't be worth the paper that it was printed on.
photo I.D. is to protect not only the buyer from a mistake as listed in some of the post. but also the breeder from the buyer switching snakes. I give photo I.D's even on a phantom that's not het for anything to protect myself. when a customer comes to me with a problem with a snake that's from me. I want to make it right with that customer.

crystal, this was a good post. some of the post was a little off of what you was asking but still related as for reasons. you got a good number of response to your post, something that's been lacking lately on a few forums. merry Christmas don

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Thanks! ;)

sent from my incubator

The value of a guarantee is directly proportional to how invested in the hobby the breeder is.
The guarantee of someone I've never heard of is virtually worthless, they may be the most honest person on the planet but, at the end of the day the guarantee is only their word.
But, with a well known breeder, if issues should arise where maybe a mistake was made, then I think you have a better chance of resolving the issue amicably.
I will be producing 100% hets with any luck next season and those I don't keep will have to be sold as either normals or any codom/dom expressed genes because of this. I will inform buyers of the 100% status of their animal and for what gene but, I cannot reasonably expect more money because of that.