Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I rescued a new female ball this week. She as had a few bad sheds but looks like she is in fairly good condition and she is big enough to breed this season. As I was leaving, after picking up the snake, the guy asked if I was going to breed her- I told him probably and he said "well I should tell you then she is poss het pied." I turned her over and looked for the pied marker and there isn't one but I know of a lot of het pied without the marker that have produced pieds...So now what? My original plan (when I thought she was just a normal) was to breed her to either my spider or my pastel. But now I am curious and am thinking about getting a het male to try my luck. I know my chances are very low of producing a pied but...

I can only spend around $200 at the NH expo. I could either get a ready to breed het pied to try and proove my 50% het or I could pick up a couple of extra females to breed to my spider, pastel, and het albino males.

What would you do in this situation???

If I opt to get more females who should I breed the poss het to?
het albino? spider? or pastel?
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Ball Pythons
0.3 Normals
1.1 yellow belly
1.1 het albino
1.0 spider
1.1 pastel

Any chance he mentioned who produced her? If it were me I'd take it with a grain of salt and move forward with your original plans and hold back some males to breed back to her -- with any luck you might get a pastel pied trying to prover her out. But if it's something you'd like to try to prove out then pick up a known het male and go for it.

Good luck.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

I would agree. I would just run as normal just because it may be a 100% possible het or it could be a 50% het, or just a normal. Keep running as a normal and maybe down the road as already said you may prover her out. On the other hand you could get a male het pied and if she doesn't prove out you could still hold the females back for the father 2-3 later you would may see some pieds. Recessives are cool but they take time and het to het takes even more time. It all depends on what you choose for a set up as you roll the dice.

As I said though I would just run as normal, because you could be getting pastels or spider vs. a handful of normals.

matt