Normas,l Breeding Question

[Akren_905]

This is just a quick question about Normal babies. If i breed 2 very bright similar patternd normal and a baby comes out looking different then the other siblings, say with my cousins example, he is much much more yellow then his brother and sisters and has silvery eyes would he be on the way to making a morph? or would it take breeding the baby back to the parent with the closest traites then those babies would all have to be the same to be new right?

[snakesRkewl]

Unless you match up recessive traits all your doing is making new normals with traits similar to or the same as the normal parents.
Your not creating a new morph, just selectively breeding normals.

[Akren_905]

Ok that answers that but what makes a recessive trait? and how could it be found in a normal then?

[WingedWolfPsion]

Recessive genes are called 'recessive' because they RECEDE behind the dominant genes. There are two copies of every gene in your body. If you have 2 copies of a recessive mutant gene, then the recessive trait will show up. (For example, blue eyes in humans--or albino in ball pythons).

If you have 2 copies of normal-type genes, then you will look normal.

If you have 1 copy of a normal-type gene, and 1 copy of a recessive mutant gene, then you will look normal--the recessive gene RECEDES behind the normal gene, and you only see the normal gene expressed. This animal, carrying just one copy of the mutant gene, and looking normal, will be called Heterozygous. So, 'het for albino' looks normal, but carries 1 copy of the albino gene.

If you breed 2 heterozygous animals together, they each contribute half of the DNA to make the baby snakes. They each have 1 mutant gene, and 1 normal gene, to contribute. It's a coin toss as to which one will wind up being contributed in the eggs/sperm. The odds of an egg with a mutant gene meeting a sperm with a mutant gene are about 25%. The odds of there being 2 normal genes is also 25%. The rest will get one normal gene, and one mutant gene.

So, 25% of their offspring will be albinos, because they didn't inherit any normal genes for the mutant gene to recede behind.

The rest will all LOOK normal, but a third of them will actually be het for albino. Since we don't know which ones, we call them 66% possible hets. There's a 2/3 chance that they carry the albino gene, but you can't be sure until you breed them to another animal with the gene, and see what pops out.

[saber2th]

The rest will all LOOK normal, but a third of them will actually be het for albino. Since we don't know which ones, we call them 66% possible hets. There's a 2/3 chance that they carry the albino gene, but you can't be sure until you breed them to another animal with the gene, and see what pops out.

But how do you know if a snake is 100% het or 66%?

Thanks,

Dave

[seeya205]

But how do you know if a snake is 100% het or 66%?

Thanks,

Dave

A snake is 100% het if the one parent is recessive and the other is a normal(ex: albino X normal), 66% het is from a het to het pairing and a 50% het is from a het X normal pairing. You cannot tell which is het because they all look normal. Some say some het pieds have markers but that does not mean they definately are het pieds!

[Akren_905]

I asked the wrong question the second time around. say theres a normal baby blue eyed with lighter yellows in the sides and a gold back line, it came from 2 normal parents black backed, but one had blue eyes. If that baby did its mom would it be on the way to a morph? it had to start liek that or there would be no morphs out there becuase recessive gene are poopluck and seem to be annoying from most breeders ive talked to in person, so this has to be dominant or co dom right, its seems all morphs had to start liek this or there would only be normals and annoying recessives.

[dr del]

Hi,

From my limited understanding mutations in random genes can happen at any time when breeding. Think of them as copy errors by a slightly deaf typist.

Many of them will have no noticeble affect on the animals viability, some will result in the death of the animal before it can breed to pass them on and some will be a positive benefit to the animal.

Some of them will only have the above effects when both genes in the same location are the same mutation ( recessive ) some will be partially expressed in a single copy and fully expressed in a pair (co-dom ) and some will be fully expressed with only one copy of the mutated gene ( dominant ).

Now we will only know about the ones that either affect the animal visually or that cause the animal obvious physical problems.

All the above is background to answering your question I promise.

So, in your question scenario, the very first thing you would need to know is if the visual differences you see are genetically reproducable. This isn't as easy as it sounds because line breeding for looks can have a large effect on an animals appearance as well.

To do that you would probably start by breeding the offspring back to its mother and to an unrelated normal. If the babies from the normal look like the father then it might be co-dom or dom, if they all look normal it might be recessive or non genetically reproducable. You would then breed a pair of these second generation babies back to their father to see if it might be recessive.

If the babies from the mother look like the father it might be dom and if some look like the father and some like something new it might be co-dom.

The problem is both parents of the animal you are working with might be completely normal and it was a chance mutation that created the offspring with the look.

It doesn't have to be a gradual change form normal to morph over generations it can be one mistake in one egg and presto chango you have a new ball python morph.

But, since children tend to look like their parents, you have to be prepared to accept it is simply a look that arose form many, many genes combining from each parent and you will never be able to have it produced reliably again.

So far nobody has seen a morph spontaneously pop up in a clutch of eggs that I have heard of but that is simply a matter of odds and time.

Mother nature has bred a lot more clutches over a longer time than we have.

Also recessives aren't the bad odds you think as populations might not move all that much from their locations and as long as the mutated gene didn't hamper the animals ability to survive and breed it could easily spread to a fairly wide number of animals in the group over time.

The fact every recessive we know was caught in the wild proves that.

I am surprised that more morphs aren't recessive in fact as this means the het form is less likely to have any serious effect on the animal.

So if the mutation had a really bad impact on the animals ability to live and breed then a greater number would never pass it on if it was co-dom or dominant. Only the recesive hets would be able to pass it on to the next generation.

I suppose it would balance out slightly once enough het to het breedings were taking place?


dr del

[Akren_905]

Wow that was amazing thanks, now its much much more clearer.