Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

Many years ago (mid-80's) I had a pet Ball, Reggie, for several years. I had to give him up for a stint in the USAF. Well here it is 20 years later and I've managed to talk the misses into letting me re-visit my past with some Ball Pythons. I know I would like to get a pair of 100% het. Albinos. I'm not really sure about the genetics portion of breeding morphs, but understand with 2 het. parents, there is a 50% chance at least "some" of the offspring will be albino. If I wanted to get a normal and possibly one other morph or one that is het. for a particular characteristic, which sex should be the morph or het? I'm guessing it should be the female and the male should be normal, just by the prices the females command. Can someone give me some advice concerning starting a small breeding colony... just two pair (one of which will be the het. for Albino). Any advice would be greatly appreciated for a newbie attempting to get back into keeping, and hopefully successfully breeding, Ball Pythons...Thanks,

Chuck H.

>I'm not really sure about the genetics portion of breeding morphs, but understand with 2 het. parents, there is a 50% chance at least "some" of the offspring will be albino.

Each baby has a 25% chance of being albino. Think of it like this -- take a four sided die if you have one, or a six-sided die if that's all you have. 1=albino, 2=het albino, 3= het albino, 4=normal. If you have a six-sided die, 5 and 6 mean roll again. The first roll has a 25% chance of coming up 1. The second roll also has a 25% chance of coming up 1. And so on. The more eggs you get, the more times you get to roll the die.

>If I wanted to get a normal and possibly one other morph or one that is het. for a particular characteristic, which sex should be the morph or het?

If you get a normal, then its mate should have one of the dominant or codominant mutants. Such as spider or pastel or yellowbelly, though there are others. As far as the genetics goes, it does not matter which sex is the normal because the results are the same either way. Having a male with the mutant gene is advantageous if you have several normal females to mate to him.

Good luck.

Paul Hollander