HETs

[Marla]

You're welcome. Understanding the math behind it can make a big difference.

[kraniumz]

Ok answer this ..

When u breed 2 hets together, how can u tell the difference between the normal hatchlings and the het hatclings ?

[mlededee]

that's where the term "possible het" comes in. you can't tell for sure if they have the gene for albinism or not unless you breed them and get albino babies.

[kraniumz]

hmmm .. so lets say, i purchase 2 albino hets (male and female). I breed em and i get 4 hatclings. These four turns out to be 4 'normal' looking bps. I wont be able to tell the difference until i breed every single one of them ?

No wonder people been saying its soo time comsuming to breed ..

[Marla]

If your original two are definite (or 100%) hets, then the resulting offspring are 66% possible hets. Each one must be bred to determine if it's definitely a het, and the fastest way to determine that is to breed it to a snake that's homozygous for the same trait (in other words, is a visible albino, if albinism is the trait in question). In that case, your odds of producing albino offspring would be 50% if the possible het is actually het, and would typically result in albino offspring in the first clutch, though not necessarily. Two of my bp's are possible het albinos, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to prove them out.

[kraniumz]

I can see now that breeding can be fun and tiresome at the same time. The reason why i asked is because obviously the cheapest way to go for morphs is to breed hets.

hmmm ... marla, do u think some breeders are selling normals when they claim they're hets ? Because like you said, theres no knowing until u breed em. And most of the hets on sale are not 'proven'.

[Marla]

That's why being able to trust your breeder is essential, which is why it's a lot easier for "big name" breeders like NERD or Bob Clark or Ralph Davis (among others) to sell possible hets, because people trust that they won't risk their reputations over such small-time stuff. On the other hand, sometimes you can pick up a poss het cheaper than usual because the breeder got some snakes mixed up and can't tell his 50%s from his 66%s or because it's one he got from someone else and has lost the paperwork. It can go both ways.

[kraniumz]

Maybe ill just get lucky someday

[Marla]

Always a possibility.

[RandyRemington]

Another reason you see so many breedings involving hets and possible hets is because those are the people just starting to produce morphs (like I hope to be some day, on a budgeet) and are the ones excited enough about it to post. A big breeder who has been breeding albino X albino for years might not bother to post about a new clutch.

There is one more reason that I know of. I just recently became aware of a trend for kinking in caramels. Apparently even a large number of the original imports where kinked which would tend to point toward it being something intrinsic to being homozygous caramel. Maybe whatever enzyme problem that makes them look like that also makes them kink. However, breeders have been valiantly trying everything under the sun to eliminate this problem including outbreeding. I've heard that a large breeder has given up on caramel X caramel crosses and is doing more crosses involving hets. I haven't heard any hard data to show if this is helping or not. They are also trying drier incubation as a possible countermeasure.

Could there be other morphs with problems prompting preferences for het over homozygous breedings? With the big money involved people can be pretty quite about such things. I had noticed not seeing pics of female pieds on eggs but then I found that the first captive bred pieds where from pied x pied so at least I know it’s possible but I still wonder if female pieds are growing slower than average.