Someone help me out.......

[Het4Something]

This has been bothering me for days. I am not very experienced in the whole genetics/breeding area, however i started thinking. In theory, is there a such thing as a "normal" ball python??? Is it possible that EVERY ball python has some dna that makes it het for something (pun not intended). Just because it may not have anything special about it, or come from extraordinary parents, does not mean that it dosent carry the possibility of being a new morph or an existing morph. Just because we havent proved it yet dosent mean it dosent exist. With the way breeding is these days soo many snakes are being combined and new morphs are being proved every year, but what i want to know is if you think that "normal" ball pythons are potential missing links to new morphs, and if a "normal" ball python is just a myth. Some feedback would be great.

[Kristy]

I had to vote yes, as in there are normals. Now I am not a genetics wiz by far so I could be totally off here. If every "normal" ball was het for something, then why don't they randomly produce more morphs out of nowhere? I could breed my normal male to 10 normal females, chances are they would all end up normal. If they all were het for something or another, we would have so many normals balls out there. There are many variations of normals though, and thats what makes them special.

So that is just my logical thinking. Basically saying that it could be possible, its just not probable.

EDIT: Hey we joined the same day

[Kristy]

If they all were het for something or another, we would have so many normals balls out there.

That should read, We WOULDN'T have so many normal balls out there.

[Swingline0.0.1]

I think I know where you were going with this... and in the wild I would say that every ball (that looks normal, that is) has an ever-so-slight chance of carrying something unique. Who knows who its grandparents were, right?

In captivity, with so many breeders out there, your chances are next to none for being 'het for something.' Is it possible? Perhaps, but if it was captive bred then whoever bred it knew its genetics.

Great place for an uber-experienced breeder to chime in- has anyone ever thrown a morph from supposedly normal parents?

Along genetic lines, I wonder if anyone has purposely bred large or long normals, sort of the opposite of the dwarf retics they are breeding... I would love to have a ball that got 7-8 feet, or one that got fat like a burm... I don't know if it's even possible, but it would be cool. I also wonder if there would be any genetic defects with them.

[hoo-t]

Het for something? Sure! Het for a recognized morph? maybe, maybe not. Just about every trait that we see in our snakes is genetic. Disclaimer - there are traits that are environmental, possibly caused by incubation anomalies, like ringers and other pattern/color anomalies. But, things like high gold, melanistic, black back, jungle pattern, reduced pattern.... those are all most likely genetic, just not necessarily genetically reproducible. Most of the morphs that we have were originally imported as wild caught snakes. That means that there are plenty of snakes in the wild that carry the genetics for these traits. With recessive traits, you can't tell by looking if a snake is a het. So, that CH snake that you picked up at a show/pet store could certainly be carrying the gene for ghost, piebald, clown, albino, lav albino, caramel albino.... But which one??? The only way to know would be to get extremely lucky, or breed child back to mom or dad. Of course, if mom is het for something, and you breed her son back to her and don't get anything, you may have missed the odds, or the son might not have received the gene (50% chance). In the last couple months there have been two different threads here about someone getting morphs by breeding their pet store/CH snakes. One got ghosts (hypos). Here's the thread...
First hatchling ever!

and one got PIEDS!!! Here's the thread...
WOW!!! I'm on top of the world!!

So it happens! Not to me (yet), but it happens!

Steve

[rabernet]

In the last couple months there have been two different threads here about someone getting morphs by breeding their pet store/CH snakes. One got ghosts (hypos). Here's the thread...
First hatchling ever!

and one got PIEDS!!! Here's the thread...
WOW!!! I'm on top of the world!!

So it happens! Not to me (yet), but it happens!

Steve

Make that three ('cause yet another got an albino pin)!

Something that you don't see everyday (***Dialup Warning***)

[hoo-t]

Make that three ('cause yet another got an albino pin)!

Something that you don't see everyday (***Dialup Warning***)

I was thinking that was the case, but I couldn't remember for sure!

Steve

[WingedWolfPsion]

Actually, your odds are probably even better with normal pythons coming from captive breeders...many people sell low-percentage hets as normals. It's not worth trying to market a 25% or lower chance het, so they simply go out as normals.
Some people don't even bother with 50% chance. I even know of a handful who don't bother to market anything other than a 100% het, and sell everything else as normals.
Granted, you have a lot of 'normal sibling to pastel or spider', but people who have been breeding ball pythons for many generations are more likely to hold back offspring with possible recessives than they are to hold back absolute normals.

Without a doubt there are ball pythons not carrying any recessives for color or pattern mutations.
Keep in mind that it's also possible for them to be carrying recessives for undesireable or even lethal defects.

[jkobylka]

I voted that there are normals. This would be hard to dispute. However there are definitely a LOT of animals out there that are het for this and that, even out of the wild.

An example would be the yellowbellies or het ivories. There are quite a few imported into the us as ch babies every year. Yet only one or two homozygous Ivories have ever been imported.

On the other hand some recessive snakes like pieds and albinos are much more commonly imported even in their homozygous form. Meaning that the there are far more hets for these traits out there in the wild than there are ybs... you just can't pick them out.

That may seem a little confusing but I hope you get the point.



Justin

[Het4Something]

i say this because i have a het hypo male that has IDENTICLE body patterns as a snake that was bought from joe compel and given to me....... so i was contemplating her being het, and if she possibly had some het in her, then maybe all snakes are het for something that just hasnt been proven yet because they havent been mated to a snake with that same gene. if that makes sense.