Question: breeding recessive genes?

[elklord0413]

Hello everyone,
Hope all is well. I have heard it through the grape vine that breeding two recessive genes such as AlbinoXAlbino is not desirable and leads to weak genetics. Is breeding a het to a visual really better genetically than breeding two visuals? This question is asked more out of curiosity than anything else. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Cara

[OhhWatALoser]

Not true at all.

[PitOnTheProwl]

I would find a new "grape vine" to listen too

[OctagonGecko729]

Not true necessarily. Recessives are no different genotypically then dominant or co dom/inc dom. The issues usually pop up from improper or excessive line breeding. Recessive disorders can be tricky though just because they do not display a phenotype in the het form. This can lead to animals or humans being paired up and producing offspring with disorders. This hasn't really effected the reptile community thus far though.

[MasonC2K]

I have heard something similar from a couple of people I met at shows. They said specifically breeding AlbinoXAlbino increases the odds of genetic defects like missing eyes and such. I've never heard that here or anywhere else. And I'd trust to people here more than anywhere.

However, it does beg the question: why do recessives retain their market value?

I understand recessives are hard to breed out at the beginning, but once you get 2 visuals you can get the visual 100% in all the babies. So why haven't Pieds and Albinos gone down in price?

[OctagonGecko729]

Well, with albinos and pieds it is simply that folks like albino and pied animals. Leucistic animals are still pretty high demand and fetch a nice price as well and they are co dom.

[Don]

Pieds and Albinos have come down in price. I paid around $3k for my pieds in 2007. They come down slower because recessives are a little more difficult to breed. True once you get two visuals you can get 100% offspring. However, it takes you three years to grow up your hets, then three years to grow up those babies (if you get lucky enough to get a breeding pair hatched out), so you have at least six years invested in the project. If you did co-doms, you would produce visuals in the first generation. Since it takes more time to breed out those recessives, the price is more stable. Also, as people take their visuals off-line to pair with cool co-dom genes to produce more hets, the fewer visual recessive snakes there are on the market. It is all supply and demand.

[4theSNAKElady]

I have heard something similar from a couple of people I met at shows. They said specifically breeding AlbinoXAlbino increases the odds of genetic defects like missing eyes and such. I've never heard that here or anywhere else. And I'd trust to people here more than anywhere.

However, it does beg the question: why do recessives retain their market value?

I understand recessives are hard to breed out at the beginning, but once you get 2 visuals you can get the visual 100% in all the babies. So why haven't Pieds and Albinos gone down in price?

Pieds and albinos have come down....considerably. for what i paid for my het pair in 2006, i could buy a trio of ALBINOS today.

sent from my incubator

[scooter11]

Pieds and albinos have come down....considerably. for what i paid for my het pair in 2006, i could buy a trio of ALBINOS today.

sent from my incubator

X2. For the last few years I've wanted caramel albino and a pied. In November I was able to afford a caramel because they have come into my target budget, and last week I purchased my first pied. A mid white female for only 700. That's been unheard of until recently.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

[MasonC2K]

Hmm...well I only know the last 3 years or so. And baby pieds have been consistently $500 on the low end and $1000+ on the high. And Albinos have been in the $300-$400 range. Well, at least based on what I see on KS.