Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm curious to know, let's say I had 18 babies that were 66% het's, does that mean that each baby has a 66% chance of carrying the gene in question, or does that mean that 66% of the 18 babies has the gene which would mean that 11 or 12 babies has the gene? Hope this question makes sense. Thanks in advance.

Approximately 66% of the babies would be het, and the only way to be certain is to prove them out in breeding.

When a person buys a 66% het,they're buying a chance - a 66% chance that this animal is a het.

each of the boas in general have a 66% chance of being a het , its quite possible you have 12 hets out of 18 babies , but it has been know to differ a great deal from that , so just look at each individual boa as having a 66% chance of being a het

buying a 66% het is a good way to get screwed. a Breeder or pet store can say a animal is 66% het and thats teh highest number they can advertise with an animal that isnt het for anything because there is no guarantee that a 66% het animal is het . . i say stear away from 66%'s or any %'s, its just a good way to pay extra money for a normal animal.
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Russ
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Apollo)
1.0 Guyana Red-Tail Boa (Ares)
0.1 Rosy Boa (Athena)

Melbourne, Fl

It's correct that it is best to think about that "66% chance" applying to each boa, and to NOT expect those proportions to work out as 2/3 of a group being hets.

What a Punnett Square will tell you, among other things, is that a het x het breeding will statistically produce the following genotypes:
1/4 Morph (homozygous, shows the morph)
2/4 Het (heterozygous, appears normal)
1/4 Normal (not heterozygous for the morph)

...where the fractions refer to the chance of producing each genotype from each egg (ova - each baby), and statistically where the proportions of the litters as a whole would pan out if you were to look at a significantly large number of identical breedings - there is no guarantee that any one het x het breeding won't produce all morphs or all normals... but the odds are not in favor of it.

Since nobody can visually tell the difference between the statistical 1/4 normal, and the 2/4 hets, the resulting babies from a het X het cross are only identifiable as:
1/4 Morph
3/4 Normal-appearing boas

Since it is statistically probable that the 3/4 of the litter that appear normal consist of 2/3 hets and 1/3 normal, all of the normal-appearing babies are referred to as "66% POSSIBLE" het for the recessive morph in question. In reality, each of the normal-appearing babies is ONLY either het or not - there is no such thing as a partial het! A lot of people do not fully understand this.

Remember that whenever you have "% possible" hets, the number is supposed to reflect the statistics involved... and that there are still humans (who may be greedy or unscrupulous, or even completely honest) behind the marketing of any animal you might wish to buy. From the way you phrased your question however, I am more inclined to think that you are perhaps a breeder trying to understand how to market a new boa litter. (?)

Good luck to you

~Rebecca
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0.1 Dumeril's Boa '04 (Courtney)
1.2 Ball Pythons
[1.0 '05 Orange Hypo (Specter)]
[0.1 '05 Het Orange Hypo (Sylvia)]
[0.1 '03 Normal (Sue)]
0.2 American Pit Bull Terriers (40lb darling lap dogs:Brandy&Mara)

after much dicusssions about this on this and other forums i asked the question ,if you breed a het x het pair and end up with more than the 1/4 albino you expect does that mean more of the albino line has gone into the visuals and less to the remainin hets

Ie breeding no 1 , het x het and you end up with 50% albinos ,the rest possibles ( this has happened before )

and breeding no2 , het x het and you end up with none or next to none visual albinos ( also been know before )

so would you say there is less chance that the normal looking ones in the first litter are hets , than in the second litter ? well the answer is NO , in both cases every single normal looking baby has just as much chance as being a het no matter from which of the 2 litters above , so each single baby stands a 66% possible chance of being a het , it normally does work out 2/3 of the normal looking ones ,but can be far from it ,thats the wonderfully word of genetics and probabilty

its like tossing a coin 20 times , if you was asked to bet on tossing all 20 and they end up heads you would almost certainly loose , but if all ready you had heads the first 19 times what is the chance of the 20th being a head ? well its 50/50

Thanks for the reply. I'm not a breeder yet, I'm going to be trying for my first time hopefully in less than a year. I'm looking at purchasing a possible double het and just wanted clarification on the 66% portion, I somewhat understand the Sqaure and am trying to learn more everyday. again thanks for the replys.

Just to let you know 99% of the 66% poss. dh. are not 66%, but 44% poss. double hets. They are marketed as 66% poss. het snow for instance, but actually are 66% poss. for albino and 66% poss. het for anery thus making them 44% poss. for both. Craig

It actually means both statistically. It just doesn't always work out exactly like the statistics. You should get 12 of the 18 babies as hets, but life is always like statistics. Likewise each baby has a 66% chance of being a het.
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Caden Chapman
slithering.serpents@gmail.com