Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i recently got some ball pythons from a high end dealer the parents were morphs but the ones i have aren't does this make them het for morphs? im not sure what types of morphs any of them are would i have to breed two that were both het for the same kind of morph to get a morph or could i breed them with other snakes and still get morphs
thanks bc

It all depends on the morphs. Different morphs are caused by different genetics. It is unlikely that breeding these snakes with normals would result in a morph unless the normals were het for a morph. However, depending on the genetics of the morph, it might be possible. NERD has some great articles on genetics. http://www.newenglandreptile.com/care.html
I recommend you contact who you got the snakes from and find out exactly what morphs each of the parents was. Then we could help you figure out what you have and what you can do to get offspring of that morph.

the place i got them from just takes the morphs and then throughs all the others in with each other so it is impossible to tell whose who however some of them do have the same colors (mostly a peach color towards there belly)so is it likely they share the same genetics

throwing multiple morphs, hets, and normals together is a horrible way to breed because you have no idea of what the hets are. This is the problem you are now in.

I will give you an example. Lets say that you have an albino male, a piebald male, 1 female het for albino, 1 female het for pied, and 1 regular female. You throw them all together and get 3 clutches of eggs. If you see any morphs it means that the morph male happened to breed the female that is het for that morph. BUt you could also get no morphs at all. You could have babies that are het for both (worth some big bucks), or you could have hets for either trait and you have no way of telling them apart!!! If you are working with dominant or codom traits or if you have more normals involved, this can get incredibly complicated!

What you need to do if you want to continue the project you have now is perform breeding trials. This is the only way to find out what you have. The first thing to do is contact the breeder and see what morph genes MIGHT be involved just so you have a balpark to start with.

Then you have to start breeding your snakes. If all you have is tons of unknown possible hets this will take you several seasons to figure out. The proccess could be helped out by using one known morph and one unknown if you have other snakes that you do know the history on. IE if the breeder says they might be hets for albino or pied, and you have an albino or pied or a known het for either you should start with those.

Each year breed females to ONLY ONE MALE and make sure to record it. When you get morphs you will know what that pair is het for. Keep in mind that snakes can be het for more then one morph. Start off by breeding the snakes that look the most similar to each other.

and stay away from that breeder!

and you should read nerds genetics guide so you know how the inheritance patterns work for the genes you might have.

I really doubt that a breeder would sell you a het albino, hypo, piebald, or another recessive morph as a normal. They could sell the het for more money, especially females. You probably bought mormals that were the result of breeding a codom morph. If this were the case your balls would not be hets, just normal wild type.

You should contact the breeder to find out exactly what you have, and if they are the result of a codom breeding.