Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i was looking at a breeder's website and noticed that they had pastel 25% het pieds. im trying to understand how these guys were produced to have have a 25% chance for being het pied... could someone help me with the genetics here? thanks!

I dont think that percentage is correct. I would bet its the offspring of a pastel x 50% het pied breeding or similiar combo. Im not sure what the actual percentage is but I think its different. Somebody will have a mathematical breakdown Im sure.

ep
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Occupants not paying rent:
1.1. balls
1.1 corns
1 everglades rat
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2.1 cats

I would bet someone bred a Pastel to a 50% Possible het Pied, and are calling the offspring Pastel 25% Possible het, which would be an automatic deal breaker for me.

Dave

N/P

I do not know who the breeder is, I also do not know all the facts about this ad, however, if someone was selling a Possible, Possible Het, as anything other than a normal, I would pass on buying anything from them. Hets, in my opinion, are Possible (66% or 50%) or 100% Hets. Anything else, in my opinion, is pushing the envelope, and a cheesy marketing gimmick, if not just plain misleading. Again, I do not know all the facts about this ad, and just making some assumptions, and I could be way off.....but a 25% Het sounds like a Possible, Possible het, which in my opinion is a "normal with a bonus."

If I were in need of a pastel and it had the possiblity of being het pied I wouldn't mind giving it a shot - might even fork out an extra $50 give or take depending on how nice it looked. Now if they were selling it for an extra $200 just because it was a possible possible - I think I'd pass.

Wonder if a pastel could have pied markers?
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.34.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.4 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.0 Lizards of unknown origin

I would not think of this as a scam or misleading. Misleading would be selling an animal and not giving the genetic history, now that's a scam. If I were to by this Pastel, cross it on to a project later down the road and ended up with a pied cross that might piss me off. This would definitely suck if the Pied cross screwed up what I was trying to get. If you were going to start a project and incorporated a 25% het. co-dom animal that was not ridiculously priced you may get you cross alot sooner. Just my opinion. Jon

I wouldnt consider it a deal breaker, but I certainly wouldnt pay a lot of extra money for it. Even a 25% chance is worth something, even if its not that much.

ep
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Occupants not paying rent:
1.1. balls
1.1 corns
1 everglades rat
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2.1 cats

I'm breeding a pair of 25% chance het pieds this year. I could have used my 50% chance het pied male but the 25% chance het male is a new bloodline for me and is an extreme example of ringer belly (I'm told some 25% chance het pied siblings of his look like low white pieds). I like my chances for producing a pied from this pair.

Possible possible hets are sticky on the nomenclature to be sure. Unlike 50 or 66% chance het pieds where your odds of having at least one always increase with your number of possible hets the extra generation of removal from a for sure het makes a group of sibling 25% chance hets an all or nothing shot depending on if their 50% chance het parent hit or not. Still, if you had a large group of random possible possible het pieds from a large group of random 50% possible het pieds about 25% of them would be hets. Same for a large group of offspring of random 66% chance hets X normal, about 33% would be hets. Without any extra knowledge as to if the 50 or 66% possible het parent hit or not those percentages are accurate and as good a name as possible possible het. Everyone just needs to understand the situation.

Good post Randy,and i have my fingers crossed for you.

The odds are there folks.They aren't great,but it is possible.
I bought two 50% het for caramel males in 04.Produced a clutch from each male and i now have two females from one,and four from the other(was five,but i traded.1)
So if only one of them (the sires)were actually het..Then by the odds i should have at least one het caramel female now(somewhere in there,maybe)....time will tell.

On a side note,there are wild possible possible hets all over Africa too.Which is another reason why everyone picks out the neat looking females from the spring imports(that and possible new traits).
The question is,why would people buy ch over 25% hets?The answer is,people can be untrustworthy,and the ch are cheaper.

Which is why i just bought my 50% males from a trusted source. (Thanks again Stu. )
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Charles Glaspie

Tanstaafl:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
An acronym created by my favorite author Robert A. Heinlein.

It could be the result of breeding a 50% het. Pied Pastel to another Pastel or to a normal. Hope this helps. Jon

this ad is from a very well known breeder (i dont think i'm allowed to say the name) and i find it very hard to believe that this breeder would even be dealing with possible het pieds in the first place... i guess i should have just gone straight to the source since it seems like it's not very clear how he produced these pastel 25% het pieds.

thanks for playing along

even the big boys deal with poss hets. check out RDR birthing records for the last couple years. every year he proves or disproves some poss hets. It is very possible to miss odds on a several small clutches when you do homo x het so I know I wait for 3-4 unsuccessful clutches before i label a female to be normal and not poss het.
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Josh Hutto
JKReptiles

2.3 het pied (RDR, alan bosch x 2, BHB x 2)
1.0 Spider Ball python (Ballroom pythons south)
0.1 High Contrast Albino (Gulf Coast)
1.1 het albino (ben siegel, Gulf Coast)
1.2 het citrus ghost(Gulf Coast line)
1.0 citrus ghost (Gulf Coast line)
1.1 graz pastel female
1.6 05 normal bp's
0.6 04 normal bp's
2.5 adult normal bp's (some need breeding to see if norm)
4 various corns
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (alan bosch)
1.0 american pit bull terrior
1.1 taco dogs (ankle biters)
1.0 grey cat
0.1 bearded dragons

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrior as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Obviously at least one person that responded to this post is looking at the situation in a negative way. Others are looking at it in a more positive manner. I think that we all need to look at the importance of disclosing as much information about our hatchlings as possible. Money aside, a pastel that's a possible possible het. Like others said, if the price is right why not? As long as you know what you are getting.

However, now that we are seeing multiple gene morphs it is very important to know exactly what you are working with. What if the breeder did not disclose this info and the normal looking offspring that are hets are sold as normals. You buy a couple of females, one is a het and one is a normal, raise them, and breed them to your 100% het for XYZ. You raise the females from those first two females and breed them back to the original male. Not a single visible morph hatchling is produced in a couple of clutches. You immediately have doubts in your male 100% het actually being a het. You've got 4-5 years invested in the project and THINK that you missed. You didn't miss, there's another gene involved and that changes all the percentages. You just have not produced enough hatchlings to see the desired results or even the hidden gene. Just imagine if you slam the breeder that sold you the male het! Also, you move these double het females into another project. Never knowing what you may really have.
I know that some may read this and think it will never happen, etc. Well, just watch this years corn snake production. Check the forums and classifieds. Balls are following a very similar path in terms of multi hets. A few years ago a friend produced a couple of clutches of lavenders. He also had a couple of snows and anerys in the clutch. He never knew about the albino and anery gene being present. He never knew he was working with multi hets. The next year it happened to me. Our stock was not directly related but the original breeders came from a very well known breeder of corns. He sells possible hets as normals and does not disclose the facts about his visual morphs being a possible het for another gene.

We actually had someone from our reptile society breed their two charcoals together and get 6 charcoals and 2 snows (they thought the snows were albinos though) They were never told that their snakes were possible het albino as well. I also know many people that sell their possible het males as normals without ever telling that the snake is potentially carrying a trait as well.
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Nita Hamilton
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Ball Pythons
ballpythonworld.com

I think that a 25% het is too sketchy! What.. are we going to breed two 25% hets and get a 12.5% het? Or two 33% hets and get a 16.5% het? If the 50% het is old enough to breed why not prove it out? IMO breeding a 50% het pied to anything other than 100% het for pied or pied is a waste of time and money. He could certainly make a nice paycheck if he proves it(the possible het pied) out het or he breeds it to produce pied...or even selling 50% hets for pastel/pied. Also, if people start buying 25% hets or what not I am betting bogus breeders will take advantage of this! They will prove their 50% clown to be normal, but start using it (and its paperwork) to produce 25% possible hets.

Now for my other point...maybe he (the breeder in the ad) just can't do a genetics problem?!

Now if he bred a pastel to a 100% het pied you would see the following results:
Key:
Pastel= PN
Non pastel =NN
Pied = xx
Het Pied= Xx
Non pied= XX

So you would end up with:
25% Pastel Normal
25% Pastel het Pied
25% Normal
25% Normal het Pied

If you had a normal baby it would have a 50% chance of being het pied. If you had a pastel baby it would have a 50% chance of being het pied. Maybe he just looked at the punnet square and didn't finish the problem Probably not huh?!
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3.12 Normal ball pythons
1.0 Pastel ball python
1.0 Plains Garter
0.1 Rosy boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan Sand Boa
1.1 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat
1.2 Dumeril's Boa
-----My list is too long, so I'll stop here!
*Amy*

My point is, in my opinion there is no 25% Het, and calling a possible, possible het a 25% Het would cause me to have doubt about the person selling the snake, and their knowledge of genetics. If I am selling a Possible het, I put what percentage it is, 50, or 66, AND what the parents are. In a case where a Pastel was bred to a Possible Het Pied, I would not put any percentage down when selling the offspring, but would list the parents, to let buyers see that there is a possibility that the snake is a Het.

Between you and me it's either a het or its not - be it a 66, 50, 32, 25, 10 % - they are all a 50/50 gamble until either the parent or the offspring is proven one way or another.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.34.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.4 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.0 Lizards of unknown origin

With any possible het, the value depends on what the possibility is, that it is a Het. I would take a normal from a Het x Het breeding before I would take a normal from a Het x normal....and so on. Once you start naming percentages from possible het to normal, then you have gone too far in my opinion.

Dave

EmberBall I couldn't agree more with you!

50%, 66%, and 100% are named due to their presence on the punnett square. 25% is overboard! I can see the post now! Yes! I bought a 6.25% het for leucistic the other day...It's triple great grandfather was a 50% het! What do you think...should I buy it!

My two cents!
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3.12 Normal ball pythons
1.0 Pastel ball python
1.0 Plains Garter
0.1 Rosy boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan Sand Boa
1.1 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat
1.2 Dumeril's Boa
-----My list is too long, so I'll stop here!
*Amy*

{quote}With any possible het, the value depends on what the possibility is...{/quote}

So why not with 33% and 25% possible hets? I admit they are fundamentally different than 66% and 50% possible hets that have a direct link to a known het but as long as you understand that difference then these percentages are both representative and concise for describing the animals as a group. I guess you have to draw the line somewhere and even I might pass on a 16.5% or 12.5% without a pretty good marker or a darn close to normal price. Hmm, now you’ve got me wanting to make some 12.5% hets just for the challenge of trying to prove them out.

How do you get a 33% possible het, or a 25% possible het? I am talking about getting an offspring from a Possible het, that has not been proven, to a normal, and calling it a 25% Possible het...how is that? I am not talking about breeding double hets to double hets. I am talking about someone breeding a possible het to a normal, and calling the offspring anything but normals with a bonus, and people putting made up % in front or back or a made up number.

I know how you get a 50% possible het, assuming you are dealing with a definate het adult, and I know how you get 66% possible hets, but I do not know how you quantify any other percentages.

Dave

Say you have 100 50% chance het pied males. If they where randomly selected with no differences between the hets and the non hets (say for argument sake they all grow the same and are just as likely to breed and produce just as many babies and no one looked at any of them before you randomly picked them out of some larger group of 50% possible hets) then you would expect out of that large a group that about 50 where hets and about 50 weren’t. In reality it will probably not come out exact but the bigger the group the closer the % is likely to be to 50/50.

So, let’s say that in this group of 100 50% possible het pied males that 50 of these are het pied and 50 aren't. And lets say you breed each to one normal female. I'm betting out of 100 normals there might be an unknown het pied female but lets assume real normals for pied here. And lets say that each normal female produces 4 babies.

Would you agree that of the original 100 50% het pied males the 50 that where not het pied will produce 200 non het for pied babies? How about the 50 males in the group of 100 50% hets that actually turned out to be hets? Would you agree that on average their 200 babies would turn out to be 100 hets and 100 normals?

So, given that you don't know which 50 of the 100 50% het males where hets so you have all 400 babies grouped together and 100 of them are hets (half the babies from the het group of dads) it works out to 25% of the group of 400 babies are het pied. If you pick one at random without knowing anything about if it's father was one of the 50% hets that hit or not your chance that it's a het is 25%. Of course any % less than 100 is a guess as it if it's a het or not but 25% is our best guess as to the chance that this one baby is a het.

Bottom line for me, and then I am going to stop beating the dead horse: With 50% and 66% Possible hets at LEAST ONE OF THE ADULT SNAKES IS A 100% Het, which gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling reguarding the offspring. Anything less, and you do not know if one of the parents is an actual het or not, so the whole line breeding could be with normals....

Your not putting a percentage down and you are providing all the details of the parents to the buyers. That's exactly the point that I was trying to make- Full Disclosure. It's up to you if you want to try and get a few extra $$$ out of it and if you want to use percentages. The chances are slim, very slim, but it could happen.
You call it a deal breaker. Why is putting percentages that are small any different than disclosing the same info without using the percentages?
If you go to the genetics wizard website and play around with multi het options, there's some pretty small percentages that pop up. Since balls produce small clutches in comparison to corns it may take a couple of years of selective breeding but that unexpected result just might pop up.

There is no such thing, in my opinion, as a 25% Possible het. That is why it would be a deal breaker for me, because it would sound like the seller is either trying to make a normal sound better, or they do not know their genetics, either way, a deal breaker just the same. Bottom line, I would not buy from ficticious ad number one, but would buy from ficticious ad number two.

1-Pastel 25% possible het for Pied.

2-Pastel, from a Pastel male x 66% Possible Het Pied female.

So do you agree that if you crossed pastel males to a large number of random (not selected for markers or anything else) and untested 66% chance pied females that 33% of the pastel (and normal) babies would be het pieds? I see where for each individual baby it would either be a 50% het or a 0% het depending on if the 66% het mom hit or not but without that information as a group they are 33% het for pied.

If I were shopping for charcoals for a pewter project I would definitely want to know that his charcoals are possible het for amel. I don't care if he tells me by percentage or by breeding results. Even if he raised and bred two of the charcoals and there were no snows in that clutch. I still would not be interested. That little bit of info would be the deal breaker. Regardless of how small the percentage is or how he states it. I don't want to add the amel gene to my pewter project. I would want as much info as is available, regardless of how small the percentage or possibility is.

I believe the Love's first bred the Pine Island female that founded the charcoal corn line to a snow corn. Not sure if there where other breedings but amel has been closely associated with charcoal (making blizzard corn) ever since. You would actually have to go out of your way to prove a charcoal line did not carry the amel gene. But I agree, as much info as possible is best.

Accidently using a het female for one morph, bred to a het male for the morph your actually after will not an any way affect the outcome of the morph your after. If you start line breeding babies from the clutches then you may start seeing some results you didn't expect. For example if I breed a het albino to a het axanthic which I thought was a normal, 50% of the offspring should still be het albino, 50% should be het axanthic and 25% double het snow. Now I breed all the female offspring back to the male het albino I'll still get albinos from the females carrying the albino gene.

Eric

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www.ESReptiles.com

Good point about how accidentally having a separate gene in a project doesn't effect the genotype outcome of the known gene you where working toward.

However, if you are breeding pairs both from this project that 2nd gene could affect your phenotypes down the line. Say you really liked the yellow and white contrast of the albino ball but didn’t care for the low contrast snow. If you started your albino ball project with an unexpected axanthic gene in a founder and then inbred you might produce some snows that you don't actually want (not the best example but depending on personal tastes snows could theoretically be a liability).

Haha! I guess I can see your point...But I agree again with ember ball. When you say 25% het, it sounds fishy to me. I teach biology and have a degree in biological sciences (not that that makes me special, but I am pretty good at genetics). I understand the mathematical probability behind it...I understand "full disclosure", but I don't understand why anyone wouldn't prove out their hets to start. They would be worth more money if they prove out and we would not be having this conversation If I have a 50% het albino why would I breed it to my pastel? It sounds goofy to me (unless you are super cheap and willing to line breed to eventually prove out the snake). So, if I see an ad for a 25% or 33% het I will assume that the breeder does not know how to do a genetics problem or is too cheap to prove out their het...or even worse..a bogus breeder who is looking to make an extra buck or two selling to uneducated buyers! Again my two cents
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3.12 Normal ball pythons
1.0 Pastel ball python
1.0 Plains Garter
0.1 Rosy boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan Sand Boa
1.1 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat
1.2 Dumeril's Boa
-----My list is too long, so I'll stop here!
*Amy*

Another way to look at it - you have a 50% pied you want to prove out (say female) - so you breed it to your pastel - you keep back the males to breed back to the 50% PH mom and you sell off the rest. If you are lucky you prove out your het pied in a couple of years with a pastel pied or normal pied or both - if not you've proven you possible is not a het but have the pastel project all along.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.34.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.4 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.0 Lizards of unknown origin

In this case we are talking about the piebald gene. You need to know that there are some of us who believe that piebald has co-dominant tendencies and that many het pieds can be identified visually. There is good precedence for sporadic visible hets of some "recessive" morphs where some hets look part way between the normal and the homozygous. In Burmese pythons some green and granite hets are cinnamon and puzzle which have definite green and granite tendencies respectively. To me the ringer belly on many het pieds looks like pied starting to creep up from the belly.

So, do I wait to produce a homozygous pied and grow it up to breeding size before I start a pastel pied project or do I cross a nice ringer bellied possible het pied female to a pastel a year or three earlier?

But this opens a whole new can of worms. I'm not sure if you can see the ringer belly in combination with the already white belly of a pastel but what if you can? Did the breeder keep pastels that looked more likely to be het pied and only sell the ones that looked less likely? I haven't seen the add that started this and don't know who the seller was so nothing about them personally just a general question to consider for this situation. And as long as the selection process was disclosed so that the buyer could decide if the odds where even less than 25% then even this situation would be legit.

I did see a picture of an awesome adherent patterned pastel het pied once but I think I've also seen a pic of one that at least dorsally looked pretty typical pastel. I've also heard that het striped pastels tend to look different than normal pastels so it could be that pastel tends to accentuate any co-dominant tendencies in at least some of the "recessive" morphs.

Agreed, you would still get your albinos. However, using your example, wouldn't you want to know that some of those females are double hets? Especially if you had a double het male!

What if the male turned out to be a double het but was sold as a het for albino because there was a small percentage he carried both genes, amel and axanthic. Too small of a percentage so the breeder never tells you, by percentage or by breeding results, no additional info is disclosed.You breed him to a normal female, keep the female hatchlings,raise them and breed them back to dad. You now get 1.1 albinos with the male being just albino and the female being an albino het for axanthic. Your next step is exactly what most of us would do. You replace your male DH sold to you as a single het with the albino male.

Well, you did get your albinos but I'll bet that you now wished you knew that some of those females were double hets.

More info about your stock, your breeders, and what's coming into your collection is better than no info. However small the chance is, it's better to know.

If a breeder wants to disclose anything under 50% it is their choice...I would love to know all the the genetic information on all of my animals...hey even myself! But, I wouldn't buy anything but 100% het...I guess I shouldn't argue this point any further. I won't buy a lottery ticket with hopes to win, and I wouldn't buy a 25% het with any assumption other than "it's normal". If I was doing a double het project ex. pastel x pied...the only way I would hope to achieve my goal any time in the near future would be to buy both morphs and start there

Again I agree...full disclosure is a good thing...but anything under 50% het should be taken as a grain of salt. I don't agree with people asking for more money on a snake that is more likely a normal than a het!
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3.12 Normal ball pythons
1.0 Pastel ball python
1.0 Plains Garter
0.1 Rosy boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan Sand Boa
1.1 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat
1.2 Dumeril's Boa
-----My list is too long, so I'll stop here!
*Amy*

If you are interested in the snake, you call the guy and ask what he means by "25% het." If he can give you the entire family tree of the animal, then you can decide whether the chance of catching a gene from that tree is worth whatever he's asking. If he can't give you the entire family tree of that animal, you have to decide whether he has any clue about genetics. If he doesn't seem to have a clue, you should consider the snake to be a normal and decide whether that normal fits your plans.

Most people admit to selling normal-looking hatchlings as normals if there's no place for them in a breeding program. However, many of these breeders are trying to produce morphs and are producing hatchlings from morphs and hets. One can assume that the average CBB ball python may have some recessive trait in its genes because relatively few people are breeding normal ball pythons to normal ball pythons just to produce more normal ball pythons. If you really have to know that it doesn't have some recessive gene, you're going to have to do major geneology. If you really have to know that it does have some recessive gene, you shouldn't count on a 25% chance.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.