Bogus Het question ?

[RegiusCo]

I have a 7 egg clutch that just hatched from Albino X Het-Albino (suppose to be a 100% Het) This female was strickly bred to the Albino male, all 7 hatchlings are normal Hets, no Albinos from a 7 egg clutch.

I realize there is a very tiny small chance of not producing visuals from a 7 egg clutch. I would tend to say she is not a Het

Can anyone well versed in math or stats provide the % figure of not producing Albinos from a 7 egg clutch.

Much appreciated

[littleindiangirl]

homo x het breeding will give each egg

50% chance of normal looking hets
50% chance of homozygous albinos

If that makes sense...

[nevohraalnavnoj]

Sure.

What you do is look at the probability of not producing an albino for each egg, which is 1/2 from a Het x Albino pairing.

So for one egg, your probability is 1/2.

For two eggs, your probability is 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4 (because these are independent events we just keep multiplying probabilities).

So for 7 eggs, the probability of not producing an albino is:

1/2 * 1/2 *1/2 *1/2 *1/2 *1/2 *1/2= .0078125, which is 0.78125%.

Meaning, there is less than a 1% chance she is actually a het. Did a reputable breeder sell her to you?

JonV

[PythonWallace]

I might be wrong, but I think that with 7 eggs you would only have a 0.78% chance of not hatching out a single albino.

Edit: Jon beat me to it. That's what I got, too.

[nevohraalnavnoj]

I might be wrong, but I think that with 7 eggs you would only have a 0.78% chance of not hatching out a single albino.

Edit: Jon beat me to it. That's what I got, too.

Glad we agree!

JonV

[West Coast Jungle]

I had a female that I tried to prove 2 years in a row, same scenario. After the first year several breeders I spoke to told me to try again as it has happened before. This year again no albinos so now I am sure she is not a het. I would give her one more try unless you have gotten some red flags about the breeder.

[Tosha_Mc]

Crappy odds happen -- let the breeder know your results and give it one more shot -- a two season sampling will get you a more definite answer.

[gncz73]

i agree. i breed a mojave to a normal female and got 12 eggs and i only got 3 mojaves so bad odds an and do happen

Crappy odds happen -- let the breeder know your results and give it one more shot -- a two season sampling will get you a more definite answer.

[MarkS]

Another possibility is that your het could be the product of retained sperm. You might want to ask the breeder what he bred the mother of your snake to the previous year or if he switched males in the middle of the breeding season.

[JD Constriction]

Although unlikely it does happen. Some anaconda, retic, burmese etc. breeders get huge clutches of homozygous to het and have gotten no homozygous offspring.

Another "scary" scenario which got me thinking was a parthogenetic clone. Basically a clone of the dam. Although EXTREMELY rare it can happen and in a homozygous to normal breeding you could potentially produce a "normal" but think it's a het.

I believe this happend to me with a lemon pastel to an axanthic and made a single axanthic female like mom. A repeat of the same breeding produced no axanthics the following year (9 eggs each year).

My vote would be to let the breeder you purchased from know and try again.