Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys

It's been a while since I took a genetics course, so to save me a few hard lessons and many sheets of paper drawing Punnett Squares, I have a question for those of you with experience.

I have a male redtail who is 100% het for albino (thanks to Dean Mayfield). My female is a pet store rescue with unknown lineage. Her appearance is pretty normal, though her saddles are a little thicker and more numerous with a good amount of small speckles--all in all, pretty normal despite the heavier saddling. I would hardly expect a pet store snake to be carrying anery, albino, salmon, etc. genes.

With this information, the question is, am I right in assuming I can expect ~25% of my litter to be albino? And if not, what am I missing in my figuring besides having unforeseen genetics (anery, albino, etc) in my female?

Thanks
NG

PS--feel free to launch into science talk about genetics, I'm a chemist with a few years pre-pharmacy work under my belt but not much recently in genetics. I'd be happy to look up terminology used that I'm not familiar with.

With the albino gene being recessive, both parents have to cary it in some form, wether it be het or homo. What you will produce (baring the female being het albino) would be a little of all wild trait animals with only 50% (statistily) being het albino.

On the other hand, if on an off chance your female turns out to be het albino (stranger things have happened) then you will get 25% albinos in their litter.

check out www.geneticswizard.com it will spell it all out for you.
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- Mike Fourquet

Cloaca Herpetoculture
www.CloacaHerps.com

Pet shops can and do have possible hets more often than you think. I know of a guy that's been selling possible hets to pets shops for several years. I asked him once how many possible hets he's sold over the years to pet shops and he said, "I've lost count, but I stopped counting at 500". He's got about 40 Adult boas and all he produces are Albinos, hets and possible hets. He doesn't bother even labeling the possible hets as possible hets anymore. Mostly because the Pet Shops always label them as "Colombian Boas". BTW he sells his possible hets for 30 dollars each, unless they're really colorful. He gets 50 for the colorful ones.

Now I know he can't possiblely be the only one selling possible hets to the Pet Shops. So......... When you do breed your female please come back and let us know what she has. If she has Albino babies, then you got lucky and got a Het from a pet shop. If she doesn't have any Albino babies, they'll still be 50% possible hets. That just means that each baby has a 50% chance of carrying the Albino gene. That doesn't always mean that "half" of them will carry the gene. Sometimes less than half will have it and sometimes more than half will have it. The only way to know for sure which ones will carry it is to breed them and prove them out.

BTW with the price of Albinos and hets going down you could always just buy a 100% het female to go with your male.
That way you'd be certian to get little Albino babies.

When you do finally get babies it won't matter what color they are. Seeing those little "wigglers" right after they're born gives you the BEST FEELING EVER!!!! It's so AMAZING to see all your work, and your boas work, in the flesh. You'll find your self wanting to hold them and just stare at them for hours. Of course, that could just be the way it is for me. I'd like to think that every body that breeds boas gets that natural "high" from seeing their baby boas for the first time.