Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am looking at purchasing a ball python morph, likely an albino. I know what a homogenious albino is. But what are the differences between the het. balls I am seeing.Basically my question is what is the difference between a 50% Het. a 100% het and a 200%( I didn't know this was even possible)Het? Will I get better results, more albinos, from any single het?

Except for genes on the sex chromosomes, genes come in pairs. One gene is inherited from the mother and one from the father.

Heterozygous means an unmatched pair of genes, usually one normal and one mutant. Homozygous means a matched pair, usually two mutant.

If there is a chance that a baby inherited a copy of the albino gene from one of it's parents the seller gives the chance that it's heterozygous. In reality, it either is heterozygous or it isn't, but the % tells you how likely it is that it is heterozygous since we can't tell for sure without breeding it.

So a 100% heterozygous is for sure heterozygous and has one copy of the albino gene (since it's recessive it takes two copies to be albino). It can produce some albino babies when bred to another animal that is at least heterozygous or is homozygous for albino.

There is no such thing as a 200% het. The percentages commonly seen advertised are 50, 66, and 100. If someone tells you a snake is 50% het for albino, the parents were a het for albino, and a normal. The offspring of these parents each have a 50% chance of inheriting the albino gene. A 66% het means that for each baby born of that clutch, you have a 66% chance that each baby is a het. So, either it is het, or it isn't het. The percentages just tell you how likely it is that it is het. Thus, with the higher percentages of het, the price goes up, because supposedly your chances of scoring a het are higher.
That's the short course, hope it helps. Search the old forums, there are some really good posts on there from a few months ago.
If I am wrong about any of this, someone please correct me!
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"I am a cop, and you will respect my authoritae!"-Cartman

thank you for explaining this to me, I am very apprechiative.