Genetics guarantees?

[4theSNAKElady]

So this topic came up recently at work, and it got me wondering.....this is aimed toward all the honest breeders out there who guarantee genetics on there 100% het animals. So, say a person gets a 100% het clown,pied, ghost, etc. They raise it up, and breed it for two seasons in a row to a homozygous counterpart and produce no eggs that contain the morph? How long does the guarantee go on for? Do you refund their money and take the animal back? Offer them a homozygous instead? Tell them they have horrible rotten luck? I mean, by then the animal in question could be 5 years old! A het hatchling and a het adult esp female, have very different market values. What then? Keeping it simple, the example would be a person who legitimately bred said animals, had pics and proof of locks, mom on eggs, pipping, etc, but NO morph produced. I mean, im assuming that this possibly has happened, albeit rare....maybe they did have rotten horrible luck, or even as an honest breeder made a mistake? Just wondering if this type of situation has ever happened to you or someone you know, and how they handled it.
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[OctagonGecko729]

Yeah I'm not sure what the "guarantee" is for now that you point it out. The only "guarantee" is that your dealing with a honest person who is reputeable and that person bred a homozygous recessive.

[bcr229]

This is part of why I asked the question a while back: how many breedings/eggs/hatchlings do you produce from an animal sold as "het" before you prove it is or it isn't? With a female it's harder as well, since she may have a small clutch the first season, where a het male could be paired with multiple females each year so theoretically he could be proven out in a season.

[MrLang]

If you produced it from a visual, it's a het. The guarantee is that the animal carries the gene / is offspring of a visual, not that the person will produce visuals from it. It hasn't happened to me, but I'd just point out the person has bad luck and would not offer a refund or trade.

[Kodieh]

If you're unsure if it's a 100% het, don't sell it as one. If you got it out of a visual to nonvisual pairing, then it is assuredly a 100% het.

I remember Brian at BHB going through this one time, after three owners and like two or three clutches it hadn't proved out. The third owner actually went after Brian for it and he honored it. Now, what's a couple hundred dollars to him in the grand scheme of things? Maybe not much. But, don't buy hets if you aren't willing to roll the dice.

I've got a pair of 100% het VPI axanthics, any nonvisual animals from the pairing are pet quality normals. I won't take that chance of someone expecting a 66% het to prove out.

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[satomi325]

One thing that I'm always afraid of is retained sperm from a previous breeding.

I bred my mojave to my pin and lesser last year. They locked all the time for months. She never ovulated. I was thinking about breeding my clown to her this year, but I'm really hesitant to do so because I worry about retained sperm.

There are cases where a clutch is sired by both the current breeding males and males used in the previous season. I'm just worried about something like that happening to me in regards to hets. lol.


As for genetic guarantees, usually sellers give ~3 seasons to prove out that animal. And the buyer gets either a refund, partial refund, or discount on next purchase if the animal doesn't prove out and they want to pursue some sort of action. I don't think many people offer a visual animal as compensation. It's probably just easier to refund the buyer.

[MarkS]

In my opinion a written guarantee on genetics is worthless. It simply takes too long to prove whether it is or it isn't what the breeder said it was and there are too many variables that can either help you or hinder you in that proof.

About 13 years ago I bought a pair of het yellow ghosts. I didn't request it, but the guy I bought them from included a written guarantee that they would produce visual ghosts within 5 years. I raised them up and bred them at three years old. It didn't take. The following year I bred them again and got a small clutch of eggs but hatched no ghosts. The year after that I got a clutch of eggs but they all went bad. At this point, the guarantee did NOT prove out, but is that the breeders fault? Is it my fault? Or is it just the luck of the draw? It was kind of a moot point anyway because a few years after I bought the snakes the guy went out of business and disappeared from the ball python scene so I wasn't going to get my money back anyway. The following year (year 6) I produced a clutch of 3 nice looking ghosts out of 5 eggs, not bad odds after all.

In the end it really boils down to 'do you trust the breeder or not?' Because if you don't, no piece of paper is going to make it all better.

[OhhWatALoser]

Lets assume everyone is a good guy. It still might be different for every breeder. You would have to ask them what their guarantee actually means. Giving a set amount of years imo has too many factors that have nothing to do with genetics. Look at MarkS example, in the 5 years, he only produce actual offspring 1 year, its great that they proved out eventually, but what does non-offspring years have anything to do with it having the genetics or not? Thats really not fair to the breeder imo. I have also seen some breeder say after X amount of clutches I will do something. Well still a big factor would be the amount of eggs, what if one snake only produces 3 eggs a year for 3 years, while one snake produces 9 in one year, doesn't that give the same statistics?

What makes most sense to me would be to say after X amount of eggs from a visual x het breeding or X amount of eggs from a het x het breeding, I will do something . Missing a visual on a visual x het breeding after 7 eggs gives you less than a 1% chance of the animal being het statistically. 17 eggs for a het x het. It would depend on the breeder how many eggs they feel is enough to honor their guarantee. But then again for a het x het, I think you would want both animals to be from you, how do you know the other animal is actually het also?

[don15681]

]If you produced it from a visual, it's a het.[/B] The guarantee is that the animal carries the gene / is offspring of a visual, not that the person will produce visuals from it. It hasn't happened to me, but I'd just point out the person has bad luck and would not offer a refund or trade.

this is where a lot of breeders make honest mistakes. if the female is the visual then it's 100% het. if you use a visual male then no. my largest project is with the clown. all my females in the clown project starts as virgins and are dedicated only to visual clown males. this reduces my chances greatly that one of the hatchlings isn't het for clown. my worry is parthenogenesis or gynogenesis, so if my whole clutch is females and are just like mom, it will get my attention. the big mistake that many make is a female has a clutch of eggs, the breeder thinks they can go and breed it to anything they want now. even after a female has a clutch of eggs, she still can retain sperm. think about it, you know this happens a lot. I had emailed tracy barker of V.P.I. who confirmed this.

[4theSNAKElady]

this is where a lot of breeders make honest mistakes. if the female is the visual then it's 100% het. if you use a visual male then no. my largest project is with the clown. all my females in the clown project starts as virgins and are dedicated only to visual clown males. this reduces my chances greatly that one of the hatchlings isn't het for clown. my worry is parthenogenesis or gynogenesis, so if my whole clutch is females and are just like mom, it will get my attention. the big mistake that many make is a female has a clutch of eggs, the breeder thinks they can go and breed it to anything they want now. even after a female has a clutch of eggs, she still can retain sperm. think about it, you know this happens a lot. I had emailed tracy barker of V.P.I. who confirmed this.

Genetically, how can this be? I mean, If I breed an albino, (m or f) who has both copies of the gene for albinism,(therefore making him an actual albino) to another snake whos completely normal, why WOULDNT my babies be all 100% het for albino? All of the babies get a copy of the gene for albinism from one parent, and a copy of non albinism from the other parent. Is it different with clowns? ghosts? axanthics? Im cornfused....