Hi,

I have been trying to think ( always a dodgy thing ) about this.

And I think you would be best buying the female albino and a male het for a couple of different reasons already mentioned by the OP.

If we assume you buy from someone who can be trusted with hets then obviously there is no problem there.

That rules out the horrible possibility of the male or female not being a real het. But it doesn't help with the odds of getting a homozygous offspring of the right sex if that is your goal.

Not everyone will be doing this with the end goal of all albino clutches admitedly - but if they are then taking three years to get your first clutch, hitting the odds, and still having to wait another three years for those gals to reach breeding size might test your patience.

But if the female you buy now is the homozygous albino then you would only have to wait one or two years for a son to be ready to breed.

Ok it only shaves a couple of years off but it has another advantage.

If you decide to mix in other morphs with the albino the same applies if they are dom or co-dom.

So in the future your albino girl could make albino pins, black pastels and spiders etc in only a couple of seasons. If your albino is the male then you need to wait for three years to have the female hets get to breedable age.

But it really all depends on your goals - and it goes without saying it would be wiser to swap genes whenever possible. If there is someone working on a similar project then exchanging animals at each stage could strenghten both projects for little or no money.


dr del