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I bought a pair of 100% het pieds and a buddy did the same about 3-4 years ago from someone that will not be named at this point. My male died mysteriously a year ago so I put his male with my female and his male also breed his female. The two females produced 3 and 5 eggs respectively. All babies have come out of their shells with the last two out today and I have zero pieds. Did I get screwed? What are the odds here? I do plan on breeding them again just to be on the safe side next year, but I just have a bad feeling about this. Any similar experiences where this happened and the second year pieds or other recessive traits did show?

Well I had a friend that had a visual male Albino and het females. It took him 19 eggs till he hit on it. Let's see pics of your bellies. Het pieds have markers.

Oh and your het to het odds should be 1 in 4!!

I know it is 1:4. I guess the question is what are the odds of no visual pieds out of 8 babies?

You can't look at it as 8 eggs. You have to look at the clutches separately. To get a true feeling if they are hets or not you would need 8-10 eggs in each clutch to be more concerned or confident.
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-AnthillPython.com-

NP

If all three animals are het pieds then the odds of missing on 8 eggs in a row is (3/4)^8 = 10% (doesn’t matter how many clutches as long as all are hets). So you could have just been the 1 in 10 unlucky or maybe one or more of your animals isn't a het. The male would be the cheapest one to replace for next year just in case.

NP

No markers that I see. Just normal looking bellies. No clean white. What other markers are there?

Usually black bars running along their bellies closer to there vent

Thanks, I will take a look and post pics if I have questions.

Your chances are 8 out of 32 or 25% with one female, since you got 8 eggs from 2 different females it could be the "Ball God's" didn't want to play.
The 3 eggs you got from one female is not enough to prove that either is not a het and if you look at the 5 egg female that didn't throw Pieds, still not enough to prove. I know some breeders that have raised babies that they are sure are het's and still haven't produced the gene after 3 years.
Did either of you receive docs that guarantee the genes are pure.

Could be bad luck or bad genetics or mislead but not enough eggs to start naming names.....next year you could get all Pieds or still none.
Genetics works off of a 32 egg count as a guideline from one male and one female...but only a guideline.
Best chances to prove neither female is a het is to breed to a Pied male..but all you do at that point is increase the odds to 50%...still 16 out of 32...still no guarantee.
Travis
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LAIR OF DRAGONS

Just out of curiosity, why a count of 32 eggs? Just a bigger sample size so odds are more likely to normalize?

The "Law of Genetics" works off a 32 count...for example
If you had a ball python that laid 32 eggs from a breeding and lets say its your breeders. Het Pied to Het Pied then the law of genetics says:
25% or 8 eggs Pieds
25% normal
25% normal
25% normal
So 8 Pieds and 24 normals(66% het for Pied)once the pied gene is proven from the adults.

That's the 25% chance that the gene will show up..still not guaranteed and only used as a guideline.
The problem with BPs is you only get 3 to 12 eggs to try to hit the gene out of a 32 count. You could breed them together for years and every year is a new year so you may never hit the gene even though they are carriers.
Travis
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LAIR OF DRAGONS

It is highly probable that you wouldn't see 1 pied out of that small of a clutch even though it was two females. As some of the others said it is an odds thing (even with non-recessive morphs).

Last year I had a pied male mated to a 100% het pied female and only had 2 pieds and 3 het. for pieds out of 5 eggs. Only 2 of the hets. had markers by the way so that is not always a reliable indicator.

Let's look at it another way... One of my clutches this year was from a pastel (co-dom) female mated to a super pastel male (dominant) and a pinstripe male (co-dom). 5 eggs hatched out 5 pastels. Who was the daddy? More than likely it was the super but.... with those dang odds can I be sure?

The quickest way to prove the females out is a pied male. Remember even then you could still get all hets.
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-AnthillPython.com-

Looks like I need to find a pied male then.

When breeding het to het, each egg has a 25% chance to be the visual(homozygous), in this case pied. This does not mean that 1 in 4 WILL be pied. This is very important to understand. When we breed het to het it is a gamble if the 25% odds will hit on one or more in the clutch.

The past 2 seasons I have bred het lav to het lav and missed. 5 egg clutch last year and another 5 egg clutch this year.

I have smoked the odds on other clutches so.....

Example, last season I bred Pastel Het Orange Ghost to Pastel Het Orange Ghost. This yielded a 3 egg clutch and I was super bumbed! 55 days later I hatched 1.1 SUPER PASTEL ORANGE GHOSTS and 0.1 pastel 66% pos het orange ghost. Odds of hitting 1 SPOG was 1:16 (6.25%) on each egg..... Now explain how I made a pair....

If you bought from a reputable breeder than that breeder will take care of you and so will the animals you bought!

Best of luck to you next season! It is luck that keeps us driven in this hobby!
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Best regards,
AlanColesReptiles

Yeah, the breeder that I bought from has fallen on hard times so I heard and has moved out of state and supposedly left all his animals with a friend. His website is shut down and phone numbers disconnected. Guess I am stuck with what I have. I need to decide if I should get a pied male to prove out the females. Increase my odds anyway. Thanks for your help.

As has been stated earlier, some times you just get bad odd's.
Here's a few examples with some of my stuff.

Het Lav x Het Lav-1st clutch was 8 eggs and all were visual normals. 2nd clutch was 6 eggs with 2 lavenders.

Double het snox x double het snow was 6 eggs with no visual morph's of either parent.

Hypo x h. hypo clutch with 5 eggs and no visuals.

Het albino x h. albino with 6 eggs and all albinos.

If you use het's only and don't get a visual after three breedings then I would think there is something amiss.

Three breedings huh. Okay then. Maybe next year is the year.

The chances of getting pieds out of a het pied x het pied are 25% normals, 50% het pieds and 25% pieds. That means that EVERY EGG has a 1 in 4 chances of being a pied. This does not mean that 1 in 4 WILL BE a pied. This is very important to understand. It is just a matter of chance.
All these numbers are based in a theoretically infinite number of combinations. Therefore, the larger the clutch the closer to the theoretical percentages.
It's like the chances of a tossed coin being either heads or tails. When we toss a coin, there are two possible outcomes. It can be a head or a tail, which are both equally likely. Therefore, the chances of a tossed coin being either head or tail are 50% (1 in 2). That doesn't mean that you will get one head and one tail for every two coin tossing events. However, the more you repeat the tossing, the closer you will get to the 50% head and 50% tails. A similar reasoning applies to het pied x het pied pairing.
BTW this year I bred two possible het pied males to two possible het pied females. The first female laid 6 eggs which died due to a temperature mishap. The second female laid 4 eggs which are due to hatch in a couple of days. What are the chances of me getting one pied out of this clutch? One in four, but as I said before, that doesn't mean that one out of the 4 eggs WILL BE a pied. (I am just keeping my fingers crossed).
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Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus...

NP

"...The second female laid 4 eggs which are due to hatch in a couple of days. What are the chances of me getting one pied out of this clutch? One in four, but as I said before, that doesn't mean that one out of the 4 eggs WILL BE a pied. (I am just keeping my fingers crossed)."

I hit on two pairs of possible het pieds this summer. The same 66% chance het pied male fathered both clutches but the moms where only 25% chance however all head great markers so no great surprise that I got 3 pieds in the 7 egg clutch and 2 in the 5. If both of yours turn out to be hets then your odds of getting AT LEAST 1 - (3/4)^4 = 68%

So what are great markers? I saw a video about the black lines down near the vent. One of my females has this. The male doesn't but the video I saw also said that there are plenty of het pieds without this marker.

Here is the better markered of the two 25% chance het girls I proved this year who incidentally produced the higher white pieds:

I look for the last third of the belly to be white three scales wide bordered by thick continuous black lines.

Sure your male could be a het even without the markers but why chance it when you could replace him with a 100% het with the markers from a reliable source for so little. Your adult females are just too valuable to risk another year on that male that struck out last year, is from a questionable source, and doesn't even have the markers to reassure you.

Not quite...If both are het pieds (piPi, pi being the pied gene and Pi being the normal allele), then the odds are 1 in 4.

...........pi.....Pi
-----------------------------------
pi.....pipi...piPi
-----------------------------------
Pi.....piPi...PiPi

pipi Pied 25% (1 in 4)

piPi Het pied 50% (2 in 4)

PiPi Normal 25% (1 in 4)
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Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus...

I believe that the Punnett's Square is a representation of the different possible outcomes for a single egg. So the 1 in 4 chance is the chance per egg. To find the chance per clutch you need a formula like mine. Basically I'm taking the chance of not getting a visual from each egg (3 in 4) and finding the combined chance of missing on all eggs in the clutch of n eggs as (3/4)^n. Since you either miss on all eggs or hit on at least one the chance of both together is 100% or 1 so the chance of hitting at least one is 1 - (3/4)^n

Yeah, what he said.

you have to breed again next year and even the year after that....they didn't lay alot of eggs ...so yes...you could just be having bad luck and missing the pieds.....you could have also been screwed over...but you won't know for like at least 2 more years.....good luck....!!!
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........JY

NP

I was proving out poss het pied girls last year using a visual Pied male. One female laid 11 eggs and produced zero pieds. I assumed she is a normal. One female laid 10 eggs and produced one pied. With 1 in 2 odds I defiantly expected more. This same female laid 11 eggs breed to the same male this year and ZERO pieds were produced.

You defiantly need more eggs to prove or disprove if they are hets.

Marshall
NoCo Reptiles

Thanks. I will keep trying and hoping.