Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am thinking about breeding ball pythons in a year or two. I am always on this board and it seems really rewarding to see your babies hatch after all the time and hardwork.
Anyways, I have been doing a little bit of research, but Im still a bit confused . I'm thinking of two different ways to do this. (1) Get a 100% het for albino male and breed it with my normal female (ill have to have her sexed first). Then breed the babies back to the dad. 50% of those would be hets, right? What % hets would those be? How many times would I have to breed back to the dad before I got any albinos? Or I will get another 100% het male to breed with them so I don't inbreed to much.
(2) Get a 100% het for albino male and a 66(-)% het for albino female and breed them. Would I get any albinos out of that?
But female hets seem to be pretty expensive so I'll probably stick to plan 1.

How did you guys start off without spending a jillion dollars? It's going to be expensive already with the setups and incubators and everything.

Thanks for any info.
Jennifer

well it's been 2 years about 5 or 6 thousand dollars & no babies..lol
they just haven't been up to size yet & i haven't really pumped fed so they are getting there a lil slower.....

now as far as a money back the quickest i would say grab a pastel male & some females but right there you're spending 750 to a grand for the pastel......

if you get a male het & breed to normal female 50% of the litter will carry the gene....so 2 out of 4 would carry....now breeding back to the father wont cause horrible inbreed mutation...it doesn'y effect snakes as quickly as humans where you would get a deformity in the 1st birth. Now you could get an albino quickly or it could take awhile.....say you have a clutch of 2 males & 2 females.....now if the 2 males are hets that would mean the females are normal so breeding them back to the father would just give you another 50% het clutch. So it's all up to you I would say spend a little money & get yourself that 66% female as well... this way you can breed the het to your already acquired normal & the 66% female giving you 2 clutchs which would increase your odds of having a daughter with the gene that you can breed back to him.
if you need anymore help feel free to post or email me

and you still should get the 100% het male. Now, you can breed him to multiple females and if you do, one option might be to breed him to a 66% het and breed him to a normal female. Let's hope the 66% turns out to be het. Then you might actually get some albinos. Now, the offspring from your other breeding still produces 50% het. Grow them up and continue. But you still need that male.

You could get lucky - did you see that post about the 50% stripe earlier?

Do you have time or money? That is the big question.
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Jay A. Martin

well...lets really answer her question...you see all this 50% and 66% is confusing to those that do not understand genetics.

She asked how many would come out ALbino form a 50 % het female...UNDERSTAND that the 50% het may not be het at all...it could also be considered a 50% normal as well.

And the % given for offspring is all just possible...there could be 0 hets or all hets in the offspring from 4 eggs. there could 1 het or 3 hets or maybe 2 hets...out of 4 eggs.

Michael Enriquez