Who's your daddy clutches

I'm too much of a planner and like to know what to expect in a clutch so I haven't mixed males to the same female before. How common is it for the clutch to contain morphs that were only possible from both males genes? Is there any correlation between the male most recently or who was first paired with the female being more likely to father the clutch or is it all just random? I'm planning some of my pairings for the end of the year and can't decide on some matches so debating mixing a few males.

I have the feeling it would depend on the specific pairings and whether you are using dominant to incomplete dominant and recessives. Or vice versa in any combination. Surely some would be random. Other pairings may or may not negate the typical morph characteristics bc you are using a dual male project. Just some possibilities.

I love "who's yer daddy" clutches. :D

But each egg can only have two parents so no mixing of the genes held by separate males is possible. I may have misunderstood your question though. :confusd:

As I understand it, while you can have multiple males sire babies within the same clutch, it is less common than 50/50 odds. Also as Dr. Del said, each egg has a chance of being fertilized by either male, but not by both and I don't believe it makes any difference which order the pairings are done.

One thing to consider as you do pairings, is it may not be wise to use both recessive and (dominant or co-dominant) males with the same female unless there are other genes present in the recessive that are unique to it. For example if you paired a Pastel Pied and an Enchi male to the same female, you could be assured that anything with Pastel present is het for Pied. Subsequently anything Enchi would not be het for Pied. However, any normal produced may or may not be a recessive and you have no way of knowing but to raise it up and breed, which could turn into a lot of time spent with no fruits for your labor. The other side is having to sell them all as normal even though they could be het, because you can't say with any certainty whether or not they are het since the co-dominant male could be the sire.

I hope that helps.

I have one who's your daddy pairing this year. Albino female to Super Mojave Spider, Phantom Pin, Enchi Phantom Pin, and an Albino.

The crossover is of course phantom and pin but they are father and son. It will be interesting if and when she actually lays.

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Originally Posted by dr del

I love "who's yer daddy" clutches. :D

But each egg can only have two parents so no mixing of the genes held by separate males is possible. I may have misunderstood your question though. :confusd:

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Oh yes I knew there would only be 1 father to each egg, I just meant the possibility to some of the babies having 1 father and others the other.

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

As I understand it, while you can have multiple males sire babies within the same clutch, it is less common than 50/50 odds. Also as Dr. Del said, each egg has a chance of being fertilized by either male, but not by both and I don't believe it makes any difference which order the pairings are done.

One thing to consider as you do pairings, is it may not be wise to use both recessive and (dominant or co-dominant) males with the same female unless there are other genes present in the recessive that are unique to it. For example if you paired a Pastel Pied and an Enchi male to the same female, you could be assured that anything with Pastel present is het for Pied. Subsequently anything Enchi would not be het for Pied. However, any normal produced may or may not be a recessive and you have no way of knowing but to raise it up and breed, which could turn into a lot of time spent with no fruits for your labor. The other side is having to sell them all as normal even though they could be het, because you can't say with any certainty whether or not they are het since the co-dominant male could be the sire.

I hope that helps.

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That's a good call to not end up with questionable hets. I was only considering 2 different codoms so all genes in question would be apparent.

I generally like to know what snake did what for the year. I don't like having to guess at babies. However I also have a who's your daddy clutch comming could not decide what to pair her with so she paired them all. Due to lay in about 3 weeks so we will see what we get. Wc normal to a jigsaw, enchi, GHI het red axanthic, and spider Huffman.

This year I dual-sired a spinner with enchi and fire males. She's due to drop a clutch in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to whatever pops out of the eggs, and I like both males well enough that it wouldn't matter to me which was the daddy if only one managed to git 'er done.

Now that said I won't complain if I end up with both a fire spinner and an enchi spinner. :D

lol I love the name. The first time I heard it I loled.

Sometimes I've kinda wondered, if the time of pairing has an influence in what male wins out making babies. Say, if the earlier or later male has a better chance. I do suspect, too, that the female may have a degree of "choice" in selecting the material she deems superior. I think the term is "passive choice," and may have been recorded in garter snakes. (though I may be wrong)

But tryin' a "whose your daddy" clutch for the first time this year, with my big pied girl. I gave her a black pewter with a male pied as backup, so, if she goes . . . At least, it will be really easy to know who the dads are ;)

I hadn't heard about the "passive choice" thing. That's interesting.

For dual-sired clutches I put the male in with the female on alternating weeks. So, week 1 male A goes in, week 2 male B, week 3 male A, etc.

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Originally Posted by Alicia

Sometimes I've kinda wondered, if the time of pairing has an influence in what male wins out making babies. Say, if the earlier or later male has a better chance. I do suspect, too, that the female may have a degree of "choice" in selecting the material she deems superior. I think the term is "passive choice," and may have been recorded in garter snakes. (though I may be wrong)

But tryin' a "whose your daddy" clutch for the first time this year, with my big pied girl. I gave her a black pewter with a male pied as backup, so, if she goes . . . At least, it will be really easy to know who the dads are ;)

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Yep that's my biggest question in the process though seems hard to prove. Does she tend to use the goods first put in place or last? My snakes in question are also pied. One of my pied females will only be her first breeding year so debating putting my coral glow pied and mahogany pied with her.

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Originally Posted by Alicia

Sometimes I've kinda wondered, if the time of pairing has an influence in what male wins out making babies. Say, if the earlier or later male has a better chance. I do suspect, too, that the female may have a degree of "choice" in selecting the material she deems superior. I think the term is "passive choice," and may have been recorded in garter snakes. (though I may be wrong)

But tryin' a "whose your daddy" clutch for the first time this year, with my big pied girl. I gave her a black pewter with a male pied as backup, so, if she goes . . . At least, it will be really easy to know who the dads are ;)

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. Nice deduction Alicia, I have been breeding garter snakes for the past 5 years and the "passive choice" phenomenon is something new to me. It does sound plausible in any case. I don't know how effective the time of pairing is since all the sperm is stored until ovulation when the follicles leave the ovaries and travel downwards to be fertilized in the oviducts. However stranger things have happened.

Sorry, I'd typed out a reply days ago, but it didn't post for some reason :confusd:

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Originally Posted by HannahLou

One of my pied females will only be her first breeding year so debating putting my coral glow pied and mahogany pied with her.

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No matter what you end up doing . . . Best of luck! Pieds for the win!! lol

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Originally Posted by bcr229

For dual-sired clutches I put the male in with the female on alternating weeks. So, week 1 male A goes in, week 2 male B, week 3 male A, etc.

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I like the alternating weeks idea. If I ever try a dual-sired clutched again, I'm going to try that.

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I hadn't heard about the "passive choice" thing. That's interesting.

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

. Nice deduction Alicia, I have been breeding garter snakes for the past 5 years and the "passive choice" phenomenon is something new to me. It does sound plausible in any case. I don't know how effective the time of pairing is since all the sperm is stored until ovulation when the follicles leave the ovaries and travel downwards to be fertilized in the oviducts. However stranger things have happened.

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It would depend on the female having either some way of destroying sperm in the oviducts, possibly competition between sperm, or sorting at the ova-level. Weirdly, the Barkers suggested in Pythons of the World vol 2 that the female ball python's immune system may attack late-arriving material -- although I don' t know what their source was. As some populations of garters have such a wildly different reproductive strategy than BPs, I don't know if it's the kind of thing we would see in a who's yer daddy clutch . . . But any time there's a precedent, I don't think it hurts to toss something out there.