Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok--- I am still new, and learning-- please have patience, and please explain. (and I know I need one of those $60 books everyone has)

With poss hets..
Say I have 3 50% hets

how do the odds work?
I know its a 50/50 chance that its a het or its a normal.

do my odds increase by having all 3 from the same litter? ---

I guess what i'm saying is... could they all 3 be normal--- or all 3 be hets... is there some % between individual poss hets...

does any of that make sense?

B
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

You would have more luck with the whole clutch as you have a 50% chance with each one. The more options you have (aka animals) the more the possibility that you will hit on the het.

That's pretty much it. The more you have, the more likely you will have a het.
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www.HeathersHerps.com

-Ohh, what a Lady-

Balls for Life, Baby!

3 - 50%ers from the same clutch = exactly the same odss as 3 - 50%ers from 3 seperate clutches...

.

If there is no way to pick hets from possible hets short of breeding than any selection of possible het babies is random so your odds are the same if you pick the three from three different clutches or if mother nature just happened to pick the three from the same clutch. Often the Punnett square is misinterpreted as the distribution of a clutch rather than a distribution of the odds for each egg but there is no guarantee there are hets in any particular clutch of possible hets. The big odds variable is the number of possible hets. With three 50% possible hets there is only a 1:8 chance of all three being normals so a 7:8 chance of having at least one het.

Now if there are any sort of indicators as to which possible hets are more likely to be hets, such as the markings seen in many het pieds, then there is the chance for non random picks. If you only get to pick from the possible hets that the breeder or his buddies have already picked through then your odds might be lower than 50%. This might be a reason to buy a whole clutch but even then the breeder has already decided which whole clutches to sell so still no absolute guarantee of a random pick of possible hets.

a 50% possible het will be either a het or not...with the only way to proof it out, is to breed it to either another 50% het over a few seasons and hope you get a visible morph...or breed to a visible morph (easiest way to prove it out, if all normals are hatched, then you have a normal, if you get the visible morph, you have a het).

I think its pointless really to buy lots of 50% possible hets when it probably cost just as much to buy a pair of 100% hets. I certainly wouldn't pay more than the cost of a normal for any possible het...just not worth the extra 3-6 years of breeding to proof them out...easily to buy known 100% hets (from parents who have at least one visible morph, then the entire clutch will all be 100% hets no matter what).

Sometimes you can get lucky and buy two possible hets and have them both turn out to be actual hets...but the odds are really high for it to happen.
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PHLdyPayne

As far as the odds go, buying a 50% probability het is equivalent to flipping a coin. With the snake, there is a 50% probability that it is heterozygous and 50% probability that it is not heterozygous. With a coin, there is a 50% probability that the coin comes down heads and a 50% probability that it comes down tails. You could have all come down heads, all tails, or some heads and some tails.

Let's say you have a quarter, a nickel, and a penny. You flip each one in succession. Each one is going to come down either heads or tails. The result of flipping the quarter has no effect on the result of flipping the nickel. And the result of flipping the nickel has no effect on the result of flipping the penny. These results are independent.

The source of each coin has no effect on the result of the toss, too. In other words, the probability of getting heads stays the same whether all three coins came from Joe or whether one coin came from Bill, one from Jill, and one from Mary. In the same way, buying three possible hets from one clutch gives you the same odds as buying one possible het from each of three clutches.

Personally, I would buy from three different clutches to minimize the effect of inbreeding.

Buying five (instead of three) 50% probability het babies increases the chance of getting at least one het baby. But the odds stay the same whether all are purchased from one clutch or each possible het comes from a different clutch.

Paul Hollander

In actuality a 50% het is no different from a 66% het. The snake will either be yes or no for being a het. Yes, the odds are a tiny bit higher, but it still comes down to a 50% chance (yes or no) of it being either het or not. The problem is that a het looks normal. Unlike the YB (het ivory) has distinct markings which you can distinguish from a normal.

Paul,
You sure love using those coin analogies. But it really does help make sense for those. Great post nonetheless.

Pitoon

>In actuality a 50% het is no different from a 66% het.

Oh??? Like to play a coin flipping game with me? Here's the bet -- when the coin lands heads, you get $3. When the coin lands tails, I get $4.

Yeah, I'm a money-loving SOB.

Paul Hollander