Intro & Possible Het Questions

[Magick]

Hi... I am new to the forum and spent the better part of last night reading the posts & learning alot. Two days ago I bought my first Ball Python (normal) from a great breeder in my area (NC). She is wonderful... settled in enough to eat last night! Immediately I was hooked. I went back to see the breeder yesterday and ended up bringing home a sweet little 50% het for pied male. (I know... I'm nuts, but I know & trust my breeder & got a really good deal on the male) So now for the questions...

1) I've heard that the best test of a poss. het male is to grow him up, breed him to a normal, then breed him back to his daughters. In this case, I'm sure there would probably be males from the PH x Norm breeding, which I would not need. What would these be considered? 25% Possible Hets? Or sell them as Normals? If the Father turns out to be a Het, then the offspring would be 50% Possible Hets themselves...

2) What's the deal with "marker traits" for Pied? My breeder showed me a few snakes, some with a dark striping along the sides of the belly (supposidly "marker"?), some with the stripe closer to the middle of the belly (non-marker?). He also told me that he has seen Pieds come from "markers" as well as "non-markers" and it really wasn't a visual het like the Fire Balls. Can anyone confirm or deny any of this?

Thanx :wink:

[wolfman38]

First off welcome to the best site for your herp needs. What part of NC are you from. I am in Charlotte. Hope that enjoy your BP as much as I do. i wish that I could help ya with your morph questions, but I don't know that much about it. Somebody will be here that can help ya out though. Welcome to the site again.

[Magick]

I'm near Raleigh, NC... I'm really enjoying my snakes, although I'm a bit like a kid just before Christmas when it comes to letting these two acclimate... I wanna play!!! but I am giving them the time they need... and doing a lot of research to fill my BP fix... These are my first snakes, but not my first reptiles by far.

[normballpython2]

welcome magick! sorry can't help ya with the morph thing either but this is the best site for help. tigergenisis is prollytyping a very very long response right now(lol,j/k.....not too long) any way welcome and enjoy.

[RandyRemington]

" In this case, I'm sure there would probably be males from the PH x Norm breeding, which I would not need. What would these be considered? 25% Possible Hets? Or sell them as Normals?"

Yes on both.

Actually some people don't like the "25% possible het" term. There is a significant difference between a 50% or 66% where they are only one generation removed from a for sure het and a 25% or 33% possible het where they are an extra generation removed. The argument for it is that you ought to call them something and people should be able to understand the situation. While 25% of such animals from a large number of 50% possible hets would be het the changes for the offspring of any particular 50% het are either 50% or 0% depending on if the 50% hits it's chance. It's a bit of a moot point though since 100% het pied males are so affordable now that 25% chance hets are generally sold at normal prices even if the breeder does pass on the genetic information.

"He also told me that he has seen Pieds come from "markers" as well as "non-markers" and it really wasn't a visual het like the Fire Balls"

Did he say if any of the marker possible het pieds had been proven not to be het pied? It's pretty well accepted that not all hets have the marker. I don't know why this is. The controversial part is how reliable the marker is when seen. Did you pick a 50% het that has the marker?

[Magick]

Did you pick a 50% het that has the marker?

No... I did not pick either of the two with markers... I figured if I were risking it I would go with the one that had a pattern I liked, and was the biggest. My guy has a black spot in the gold line right behind his head that I liked. The known het Father turns out to have the same dot behind his head, so only time will tell, and I'm keeping detailed records, just in case. I could go back & get a marker male, but the breeder has offered to breed my female to one of his morphs when she is ready either way... So I figure that within 2 generations I'll have a good start on a breeding project.

[Magick]

"Did he say if any of the marker possible het pieds had been proven not to be het pied?"

They are just 4 1/2 months old, so none have been proven either way yet. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and maybe in 5 years I'll know if I got lucky :lol:

[kavmon]

i don't know much about the pied marker thing. in my opinion a poss. het male is really taking a chance. for a quicker test you could pair him up with a 100% het female or a visual pied. but as randy said 100% het males are coming down in price and to me it doesn't make sense to use a female's breeding cycle to try and prove the male! alot of het morph males are coming down in price, it is the female hets that will cost you!

thanks

vaughn

[msolorz]

My 2 100% hets (male and female)appear to be marked on the belly but is very subjective. I don't enough "time in grade" to determine if the marks I am seeing are the right ones. You have to trust the breeder for the most part, see the parents, or at least the original invoice from the original breeder.

I will be breeding my female with my friends pied male sometime this year. My male is full grown 1100 grams and I am trying to get rid of him.

[bait4snake]

The worst vice is advice... though here's mine, lol.
I personally think 50% Possible Het males are useless. It's a coin toss whether he actually carries the gene or not. Taking six years just to prove out a possible het male seems to me to be a big waste of time. Buy a 100% Het female if you really want to do anything with him, like kavmon said. They only way to positively prove he's a het is to breed him to a Piebald.
http://www.geocities.com/bait4snake
Read about breeding projects.
Breeding him to a normal... after 50% Hets there really isn't a term except saying "this snake's father is a 50% Het and its mother is a normal". Unless a snake came from a definite het, be it from breeding a het to a het, or from breeding a het to a normal, it shouldn't be considered anything. I think 66% and 50% is as far as it should go (unless you're talking about breeding a double or triple hets, but that's for another topic).
Markers... well, the only marker I've heard of is for the original line of Bob Clark's Albino Ball Pythons. They have an intense orange where the "gold" part meets the belly. I've tried looking for markers on Piebalds but haven't really found anything universal.