Questionable 100% Het. ?

Lets say I have a pair of 100% Het Piebald pythons and I know the male is a 100% Het. from Bob Clark. The female was purchased off of Kingsnake and she also came with guaranteed genetics paperwork. Now anyone can guarantee anything to make a sale but doesnt mean anything unless they back it up right. Well my question is how many clutches should I produce before going to Judge Judy? She doesnt have the belly "markers" but we all know that isnt a sure fire way to tell.

I would give both breeders a "heads up" after missing on the first clutch. Of course the size of the clutch will be a factor too. If you only get one or two babies from the clutch, you may not want to bother the breeders with it. If after the second clutch, still no visibles, then definitely let the breeders know. Still, be cordial and definitely don't be placing blame. Just let them know that after two clutches, nothing. If after three clutches, still no little piebalds, I'd be fairly certain that at least one parent is not a het. Be sure to explain that you really don't know which snake could be the problem. And thats something that will have to be proven before you can expect compensation. Don't assume that the one you got from "Joe Blow" has to be the problem because the other came from Bob. Joe may be (and probably is) just as honest as Bob, but everyone makes mistakes. The real problem is going to be proving which one isn't a het. I have a het piebald male and a het albino male and I may never breed either one of them for these very reasons. We have since acquired homozygous males. They can certainly prove out our het females.

Good luck!
Steve

With Het to Het breedings each egg only has a 25% chance of being Pied...so I would say you need to breed her at least twice before I would get really concerned.


Year 1 no pieds - bad luck
Year 2 no pieds - makes you wonder

Usually after 2 years the breeder (if they are a stand up guy) would get involved as it is their reputation if you start spreading word that their Het's aren't true Hets.

This is just my 2 cents - did you trust this breeder? Did he have good references?

Just another thought...

If I was the breeder that sold you one of the two hets, I would probably be willing to take your female on a generous breeder loan after you missed on at least two clutches, and put her with my homozygous male. It wouldn't prove definitively that either snake wasn't a het, might prove your female is, and would give you a clutch of definite 100% hets (and maybe visibles). Thats not to say that Bob or "Joe" would handle it the same way, its just my way of thinking. The end result of the breeding loan may be dependent on which "het" I sold you, and what the results were, and possibly even what the other breeder was willing to do.

Steve

I love pieds, albinos, carmels and all those good hets but this is the one reason I am sketched out by getting into breeding these... You could end up spending good money and wasted time to find out someone made a simple mistake... Easy to say "oh we'll get you the right one" but it just doesnt make up for lost time and potential lost money... I think the advice youve gotten so far is the best for your situation. Best of luck and I pray you get the pieds your aiming for!

IMO, to really know for sure in a reasonable amount of time you would need to breed a visual male to her. For het x het breedings even after 3 or 4 seasons of bad results it is still possible that she is a het. How many eggs did she lay?

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

I love pieds, albinos, carmels and all those good hets but this is the one reason I am sketched out by getting into breeding these... You could end up spending good money and wasted time to find out someone made a simple mistake... Easy to say "oh we'll get you the right one" but it just doesnt make up for lost time and potential lost money... I think the advice youve gotten so far is the best for your situation. Best of luck and I pray you get the pieds your aiming for!

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You work with a reputable breeder, they will make up for it. One reason why my hets came from Adam Wysocki and Justin Kobylka. I have no doubt that if either of them made such a "mistake" that they would do everything in their power to make it right. Shop the breeder as much as the snake.

But you can only make up so much ya know... what do you think they would do to make up for it>? If you missed out on 2yrs of breeding thats alot of potential money gone... with pieds being the price they are i highly doubt any breeders going to toss you 5grand for their mistake.... Sure they can give you a pied baby or something along those lines but to me its not nearly enough to make up for it... Especially if the female wasnt the het pied... If they gave you a female baby youd have to wait 2 more yrs until theyre ready and theres 4yrs wasted... I see where your coming with shopping around for breeders as well as the snake but to me its just too risky to get involved... I'll leave that to all the other breeders :) If I want a pied, albino, or whatever I'd just cough up the money buy one straight up and get a het to breed it with... That way you know for sure if the het is actually a het rather than playing the guessing game for a couple years trying to figure out "is it this one? or is it that one"

it's all about the risk vs reward, breeder with great rep vs no name found on internet.

and also you make it sound like good breeders mix things up and sell non hets all the time. i would like to hear one person that has ever bought any het from any of the big boys (and girls) and it turned out to be just a normal. if there even is some one out there that this happened to.

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That way you know for sure if the het is actually a het rather than playing the guessing game for a couple years trying to figure out "is it this one? or is it that one"

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If you buy form a REPUTABLE breeder there is no guessing game!

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

But you can only make up so much ya know... what do you think they would do to make up for it>? If you missed out on 2yrs of breeding thats alot of potential money gone... with pieds being the price they are i highly doubt any breeders going to toss you 5grand for their mistake.... Sure they can give you a pied baby or something along those lines but to me its not nearly enough to make up for it... Especially if the female wasnt the het pied... If they gave you a female baby youd have to wait 2 more yrs until theyre ready and theres 4yrs wasted... I see where your coming with shopping around for breeders as well as the snake but to me its just too risky to get involved... I'll leave that to all the other breeders :) If I want a pied, albino, or whatever I'd just cough up the money buy one straight up and get a het to breed it with... That way you know for sure if the het is actually a het rather than playing the guessing game for a couple years trying to figure out "is it this one? or is it that one"

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While I understand your point...consider the chance of this "mistake" actually happening. How long would it take for a reputable breeder to go out of business if even the hint that his Hets were not proving out? Since this is a hobby where reputation is pry more important that what you have to offer who could afford to risk it? There was a well known case where the Hets weren't Hets but as soon as it popped up the guys business was gone and he has/had more lawsuits set on him then he could possibly imagine (so everyone is paranoid about it). If you buy your snakes out the back of a caddy on 8mile expect to get taken...but if you buy from an established breeder (even smaller breeders) you can rest easy that everything is going to be OK. Will mistakes happen? Sure. But not that often cause if they did we would all hear about them. :)

Just my 2 cents

I'm by no means saying this happens a lot... or even happens at all... I'm just speaking my personal view of why I'm skittish in getting involved with hets... I wouldnt expect anyone to sell a non het as a het on purpose but mistakes can happen... I agree 100% with you guys if your buying from a Big Dog your like 99.8% in the clear... I guess what it comes down to is sometimes people try to replace the quality of animal/breeder with price and they obv lose and wonder why they got ripped off

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

If you missed out on 2yrs of breeding thats alot of potential money gone... with pieds being the price they are i highly doubt any breeders going to toss you 5grand for their mistake.... Sure they can give you a pied baby or something along those lines but to me its not nearly enough to make up for it... Especially if the female wasnt the het pied... If they gave you a female baby youd have to wait 2 more yrs until theyre ready and theres 4yrs wasted...

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I have no doubt that if one of my hets from Adam didn't prove out, and he went back and realized that he had a "mix-up" that he would send me an equivalent animal of the same age, or refund my purchase price. Either way, I know without a doubt that he would make it right. Because I trust my breeder.

Rab I see where your coming from but to me thats not good enough... Youve wasted time trying to prove out the het only to find out its not a het and youve lost money in potential baby sales... If you would be satisfied with a replacement snake or your money back then thats good for you but to me theres much more lost than just the wrong snake... I dont want to argue with you on this topic as that was not my intentions by any means I was just expressing that much more is lost in the long run that just the wrong snake

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

Rab I see where your coming from but to me thats not good enough... Youve wasted time trying to prove out the het only to find out its not a het and youve lost money in potential baby sales... If you would be satisfied with a replacement snake or your money back then thats good for you but to me theres much more lost than just the wrong snake... I dont want to argue with you on this topic as that was not my intentions by any means I was just expressing that much more is lost in the long run that just the wrong snake

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You still want to breed in the future right? So what if people feel the same way about you as a breeder and do not give you a chance because of the "WHAT IF" ?
If every body was thinking like that no one would ever buy hets from anyone again.

Again it's all about finding reputable breeders whether they are big dogs like you call them or small hobbyists, it does not matter. There are many people on this forum from whom I would buy hets without any problem.

There are many good people in this hobby and good people can be trusted, good people will also make it right if there is an honest mistake.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. She should be ready to breed next year so hopefully I will be able to prove her out then.

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

Rab I see where your coming from but to me thats not good enough... Youve wasted time trying to prove out the het only to find out its not a het and youve lost money in potential baby sales... If you would be satisfied with a replacement snake or your money back then thats good for you but to me theres much more lost than just the wrong snake... I dont want to argue with you on this topic as that was not my intentions by any means I was just expressing that much more is lost in the long run that just the wrong snake

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Anything worth doing in life is going to have risks. Including the chance that a het animal purchased turns out to not be het at all. But if you take the right steps, you can greatly minimize the amount of risk involved, as well as have an assurance of being "made whole" again if something turns out wrong.

If you're too afraid to take even that minimized and warranteed risk....well, I guess you can always save your pennies to buy visual recessive morphs right off the bat. (And then hope that none of them die either by illness or accident...or are stolen...or simply fail to breed for any number of reasons.) ;)

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Originally Posted by Kagez28

it's all about the risk vs reward, breeder with great rep vs no name found on internet.

and also you make it sound like good breeders mix things up and sell non hets all the time. i would like to hear one person that has ever bought any het from any of the big boys (and girls) and it turned out to be just a normal. if there even is some one out there that this happened to.

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Actually, I know a breeder who bought a het that didn't prove out from one of the "big dogs". I have no intentions of sharing either party's names, as I wasn't involved, and I do know that the seller settled the situation with my friend in a manner satisfactory to the buyer. I don't know the details of the settlement, but he told me that it had been settled to his satisfaction.

That said, I agree 100% that it would be very, very difficult to receive adequate compensation for the time, lost visible morphs and 100% hets, and obviously monetary proceeds! You buy a $750 het. By the time she is old enough to breed, they're selling for $500. A couple more years of missed "odds", and they're selling for even less. Say 3 clutches of eggs, all of which really can't even be sold as 50% probable, because the female hasn't proved out. Its a tough deal. That's why I mentioned the breeding loan situation. And depending on the circumstances, that might not even be adequate compensation.

Steve

In my most humble opinion, if a trustworthy breeder keeps such poor records that he or she can accidentally send you something other than what you ordered, than that breeder is not a 'trustworthy' breeder.

Rick

I would like to chime in to this thread just to possibly open the eyes of some people who may not have thought of it this way before.

I do know of someone who bought a Het from one of the "biggest boys" and it did not prove out. I like Steve, will not mention any names, because I was not involved in the deal, but suffice it to say that the deal was smotthed over.

Now for the point I would like to make. I have seen a few people that believe that buying from a "big boy" is the only way to be safe, and some have stated this on this thread. I am not knocking the "big boys" here, as I have bought numerous animals from them, but some people need to rememeber that these guys are producing thousands of animals. Do you thin it is possible to misplace a couple on accident once in awhile. NO. It is probably not likely, but way more probable than me or some other smaller breeder that is producing in the low hundreds of hatchlings.

Here is what I do to try and make my cutomers feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I seperate my hatchlings after they have shed the first time and put them into their own tub. The same day they go into their own tub, they also get an ID number that is written on their tub, and a photo is taken of that snake. The snakes photo and ID number is then entered into our computer and stored with the rest of our collections records.

Hope that helps anybody when thinking about Hets.

Just to add to what others have said. Yes it is possible that even a reputable breeder could make a mistake. But like Tim said, there are levels of insurance against that, that I and many other breeders take such as images of the animal as soon as it sheds.

Its essentially like fingerprinting every snake and makes it exponentially more difficult to make that "mistake"

I know for me, I had some hetero animals that got mixed up and I could not sort it out with photo records, they would be held back or sold as normals.

Justin

Oh and another level of protection that some of us take, is to keep the same females involved in the same morph project on consecutive years so that there is no possibility of sperm retention from the previous year screwing up the resulting offspring....

There's a low likelihood of that happening, but as the breeder its my job to make sure it doesn't happen.
Justin

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Originally Posted by jkobylka

Oh and another level of protection that some of us take, is to keep the same females involved in the same morph project on consecutive years so that there is no possibility of sperm retention from the previous year screwing up the resulting offspring....

There's a low likelihood of that happening, but as the breeder its my job to make sure it doesn't happen.
Justin

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That's a good point Justin. I wish there were definitive studies out there that show how long retention is possible.

I know for Mike and I hets will always be bought from only the most reputable of breeders (be they a big breeder or just a close friend with a small breeding group). For us it's just not worth the time to raise up hets to breeding size that may or may not be what they were sold to us as.