Producing Double Hets....

I was wondering what some of ya'll take is on producing double hets. I know the best route to go would be to breed two homozygous animals together and produce all 100% DHs....but if all you have is hets and no homozygous animals and your long term goal is to produce a double homozygous ball python...

....Is it just a waste of time to breed two different hets together to produce babies that are 25% possible of being DH (50% poss. het for each trait)?

...Would it be better to try to produce at least one homozygous ball python first... then breed a homo. of one trait to the a het of the other? or wait until you have two different trait homozygous ball pythons to breed together?

....so basically, what I am asking is....if your final goal was to produce a double homozygous ball python...you had no ball pythons and all you had money for was to purchase hets....how would you go about reaching your final goal???

It's hard enough for someone to produce a double homozygous animal using two double hets, so I wouldn't waste my time breeding, say, a het albino to a het piebald. Having a 50% Het Albino/50% Het Piebald would be great if you already had an Albino Piebald or an Albino and Piebald to breed it with. Otherwise, it would take way too many years of trial and error just to find out if you have a pair of double hets.
I, like most people, have grand dreams in this hobby. Sometimes sticking to basics and not getting greedy is the best way to go. You could be producing your own albinos and piebalds with hets and selling them (or keeping them) in the time it takes to prove out a bunch of 50% hets, and making no money.
Don't miss out on a great opportunity to really establish yourself or to invest in a sure thing. Be happy with a pair of Het Albinos or Het Piebalds. In a few years, once you already have your own Albinos and Piebalds, make your own 100% Double hets. This hobby takes time and patience and PATIENCE. Don't give in to that temptation, because it's hard enough for someone with experience and a lot of expensive animals to do it right, let alone someone having a large group of possible possible possible hets left over after trial and error breeding. Your local pet shop may like having a lot of extra ball pythons on hand, but you won't. Nor could you afford to feed them all.

....just to clairify....don't get me confused with a greedy person that is trying to make a quick buck in the ball pythons business...I am in this for the hobby....

This is all just a fun time for me...I will get there eventually....I was just wondering which way would be best for someone with the limited finances and a small collection...

i was planning on picking up a het pied male next season. I definately can't afford a het pied female so producing possible hets is the only option for me. I was thinking of trying to breed him to the little het hypo girl(she will be at least a year old when the het pied male hatches) that I have and producing some 25% possible DH hypo-pieds....I would be raising all the females from that clutch anyway in search of a female het pied, so why not put the hypo trait in the mix....By the time the female 25% possible DH hypo-pieds are large enough to breed....I will probably have a male hypo and I will still have the het pied male to run through those 25% possible DH hypo-pied females...if I can prove one to be DH that will be cool....if not, maybe a few of the females will prove to be het for hypo or het for pied...

I was just trying to get everyone's input....

Interesting topic.

IMO breeding homos first should be the first priority. You have more options once you have a homo of each type. From there you can produce guaranteed hets and cut down the trial and error.

On the other hand, you may also get lucky with breeding the hets. But you can never really know until you prove them out, which can take ages and lots $$.

I still prefer breeding homo first as you get to produce other traits whilst trying for the double homo.

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

....Is it just a waste of time to breed two different hets together to produce babies that are 25% possible of being DH (50% poss. het for each trait)?

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Lots of people will tell you it is a waste of time but I don't think it is. If you don't have the money to pay for the homozygous morphs necessary to create true double hets, then you could take the long road.
You could breed two hets to produce possible double hets. I would hold back the females and repeat this type of breeding to accrue a significant group of females. Do the hard work and get them up to size.
At this point, assuming prices have dropped in the years it took you to raise the females and assuming you can afford the snakes, you can do a few things: you can acquire a true double het male, you can acquire the homozygous morphs, or you can acquire the double homozygous morph. Use these animals to breed to your possible double het females.......your odds of producing the designer morph you are after will increase.....if you had a bunch of possible double hets, I bet one or more will prove out.
If, after raising the possible double het females, you don't have the coin for the aformentioned options, you can breed the het males or a hold back possible double het male to the females......you are bound to produce some kind of morph!

Thanks for the input Joe! That was kinda what I was thinking. Glad to hear someone that does not think it is a 'bad' idea.

I was also considering this because I don't plan on keeping tons of bps anytime soon....just a smaller collection(for now)...I figured that raising up 1 or 2 groups of PDH female would be a great way to 'keep the numbers down' but would still give me the breeding stock that I want. Also, I would not be wasting my time on raising normal females since I am mainly interested in recessive traits.....all the babies from that pairing would have 75% chance of being het for one or the other. That is alot better odds IMO.

The only downfall that I see is that I am basically wasting a chance at producing a homozygous animal by breeding het A to het B....but I dont mind waiting to produce something visual :)

Of course the ideal way to keep your collection small would be to buy a single pair of for sure double hets but that isn't an option for most. Producing and keeping possible double het females is the only option for me but I've drawn the limit at 5 and will give the other 4 away to a friend with a similar project. They aren't a particularly valuable double het project and it's a lot of work and expense to raise up girls.

I do agree with your way of looking at them as low probability normals rather than long shot double hets. I think people are scared off the triple and quadruple het projects by looking at the glass as half empty and the long odds of producing a multi homozygous animal rather than the decreasing odds of producing normals.

Also since you are interested in a piebald cross you may have the advantage of using the piebald het marker to increase your odds. If you get a male het piebald with a strong marker I would bet that his daughters that also show a strong marker have a much higher than 50% chance of being hets. If you produce more than you want to raise keep the markered ones and sell the others as normals. Then you mainly need to worry about if they hit their 50% chance of being het albino.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

the advantage of using the piebald het marker

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Classic! ... LMFAO!

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Classic! ... LMFAO!

-adam

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Most het pieds also have signs stapled to them between their 4th and 8th subcaudal scales. You have to look close though. Some may require a magnifying glass.


DISCLAIMER: I am joking! To all of you looking at your poss hets and normals with a magnifying glass... look closer!

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

Most het pieds also have signs stapled to them between their 4th and 8th subcaudal scales. You have to look close though. Some may require a magnifying glass.

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ROFLMFAO!! ... Now that is one of the funniest posts I have ever seen! ... LOL ... Much better than the albino joke you emailed me Ken! ;)

Can't wait for the subcaudal scale het pied marker rumor to start making the rounds now! LMAO!

-adam

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

Most het pieds also have signs stapled to them between their 4th and 8th subcaudal scales. You have to look close though. Some may require a magnifying glass.


DISCLAIMER: I am joking! To all of you looking at your poss hets and normals with a magnifying glass... look closer!

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:P hehe, nice one..

Still intresting topic, so crossing between albino en piebald gives a 100% Hetero pair for both morphs if my genetics are right?

Dreams for the feature..

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Originally Posted by MATTI

Still intresting topic, so crossing between albino en piebald gives a 100% Hetero pair for both morphs if my genetics are right?

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That would sure be awesome, if that were true. If you cross an albino with a piebald, you would get some het for pied, some het for albino, and some double het for both. They would all be normal appearing. (This is for a homozygous albino to homozygous pied)

Het to Het, and it just gets hugely confusing.

None the less, albino pieds are freakin cool lookin. Ralph Davis has some on his page.

Oh, but the Double Het Albino/Pieds don't have the stapled sign on thier bellies.

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

That would sure be awesome, if that were true. If you cross an albino with a piebald, you would get some het for pied, some het for albino, and some double het for both. They would all be normal appearing. (This is for a homozygous albino to homozygous pied)

Het to Het, and it just gets hugely confusing.

None the less, albino pieds are freakin cool lookin. Ralph Davis has some on his page.

Oh, but the Double Het Albino/Pieds don't have the stapled sign on thier bellies.

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Actually Ken, breeding albino x pied will produce all 100% dbl hets for albino pied. When you breed a homozygous animal to anything, all of the offspring will be hets. When you breed two homozygous animals to each other, all of the offspring will be het for each (or double hets).

Now if you really want to have fun, how about breeding two double homozygous animals together ... quad hets! :D

-adam

That's what I tought..

small calculation with aa = albino, pp = piebald (AA, PP wildcolor)

aaPP x AApp --> AaPp 100%
albino piebald double het.

correct?

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Originally Posted by MATTI

That's what I tought..

small calculation with aa = albino, pp = piebald (AA, PP wildcolor)

aaPP x AApp --> AaPp 100%
albino piebald double het.

correct?

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Yes.

-adam

oops.. But, still no marker stapled to the albino/pied DH's bellies, right?


...sticking tail between legs....

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

But, still no marker stapled to the albino/pied DH's bellies, right?

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Depends on who you ask? :P :neener:

-adam

The markers make it more attractive for people who only have hets to try to make combos rather than leaving it to people with homozygous pairs.

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%. When you breed a heterozygous spider (most if not all visible spiders are hets) to a heterozygous pastel (a regular pastel) you are crossing het X het trying to make the 1 in 4 odds double heat bumble bee. You can easily look at the clutch and see if you got a pair of double hets and of course the bumblebees are nice enough that you might not even keep trying for killer bee or the theoretical homozygous spider killer bee (it would be cool if one can be produced though as it would produce 100% bumblebees with normals). These visible het projects to produce visible double hets are much quicker than a fully recessive project where it takes another generation and you are then working against 1 in 16 odds. And the big reason most don't start out say a snow project with het albino X het axanthic is that you would not know which of the average 1 in 4 of the clutch where double hets.

If there is anything to the pied het belly marker (and I believe there is) you could use it to allow you to start pied crosses with a pied het rather than a homozygous pied and pick out the on average 50% of the clutch that is pied het by sight. I have to admit the pied combos that came out this year look better than I expected so maybe some will be tempted to try starting projects with a pied het X a pastel/spider/albino/axanthic. Still a gamble that most probably wouldn't take, especially considering the value of a female of any of those morphs for breeding to something else (like maybe a loan to a homozygous pied male to remove any doubt).

Still you would have a shot at producing a pastel pied in as little as 4 years starting with a $2000 investment and raising up as few as 3 animals (pastel male, het pied female, and pastel het pied marker male to breed back to the het pied female). The gambles would be hitting the 1 in 8 male pastel het pied marker first clutch and trusting the marker. Where as say a clown ghost project would cost much more to start ($15k? assuming homozygous X homozygous), take longer to finish raising up 2 generations of females (the original homozygous and the double het), and probably require raising up a lot more animals to cover the 1 in 16 odds.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

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

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And your belief is based on what empirical data exactly?

-adam

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:

Quote:

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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?

You can spin your BS any way you want Randy, everyone sees through you.

All that I'm trying to do is get to the truth and all you ever do is promote your agenda of lies and confusion disguised conveniently as "discussion" .... Funny thing though Randy, I seem to be the only person that ever responds to you.

Sad.

-adam

So we are agreed on getting to the truth. I'm all for more truth for those working class breeders.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

So we are agreed on getting to the truth. I'm all for more truth for those working class breeders.

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Wow Randy, even after being asked to stop by the admins here, you just can't let it go. I'm not even going to dignify that trollness with an answer.

Try as you will, I'm not going to fall for your bait. Out of respect for the mods and admins of this site that bust their buts everyday to make this the great place that it is, I'm done for now. I'd hope that you would have a similar respect for their request as well.

Good day.

-adam

Can you guys arm wrestle and have a watermelon seed spitting contest? Then maybe we'll measure the size of both your members and really determine who's the man. Let's have a contest... both of you buy as many het and possible hets that have the "marker" and breed them with Piebalds. We'll talk again in 5 years and see who has the larger member or the most proven "marker" hets. Deal?
Blessed are the peacemakers... though I'd really like to see the Southpark version of roshambo - "First I kick you in the nads, then you kick me in the nads, and whoever's left standing wins. I go first."
I love you guys. Sorry to the admins if this is offensive, but it's the only workable solution.

Ummm... if you hadn't noticed this thread had kinda died. ;) It's been over a month since they've posted. Let's all play nice and I won't have to break out the ruler, ok? :devilish:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bait4snake

Can you guys arm wrestle and have a watermelon seed spitting contest? Then maybe we'll measure the size of both your members and really determine who's the man. Let's have a contest... both of you buy as many het and possible hets that have the "marker" and breed them with Piebalds. We'll talk again in 5 years and see who has the larger member or the most proven "marker" hets. Deal?
Blessed are the peacemakers... though I'd really like to see the Southpark version of roshambo - "First I kick you in the nads, then you kick me in the nads, and whoever's left standing wins. I go first."
I love you guys. Sorry to the admins if this is offensive, but it's the only workable solution.

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Well, that was an intelligent and stimulating addition to the discussion.

Pot, let me introduce you to kettle.

-adam