Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All,

Do many established breeders sell 50% or 66% het albino female ball pythons? They are not of high value but was still wondering since I would like to purchase a few. I know the small guys would like to have this type of business but how can I ensure I am buying the real deal from a small guy. References are hard to get when your only in your second or third year.

Thanks for looking

There are many breeders, big and small, that will sell you pos. het. albinos.

You will find that a great deal of the "newer" breeders are very trustworthy. If you would like a website that you can run checks on the people that you may be buying from, just email me and I will send you a link. If you do some research on the people you intend to buy from, there is far less risk in getting burned.

I have 7 poss. het females that I will be working with in the near future, and I would be a liar if I told you I wasnt a little weary after raising these girls for over a year.

The only possible hets that should not be sold are poss. het. pieds. The reason being is it has been said that true het pieds will have certain markings, and are slightly different than normals. Do not question my thoughts on this because this is just something that was passed on to me, and in due time, will be proven one way or another. It seems that alot of people are selling the "poss het pieds" that are in fact the non-hets of the litter.

If this isnt the case I guess I will soon be eating my words.
Only time will tell.

It is true that HET pieds generally look different, from what I have learned, but possible hets, either 50 or 66% will look normal and are just as good for taking a chance on getting pieds. I have a 50% poss het male pied and I know that I have a 50% chance that he is indeed het. The good thing is if he is het...I saved a whole pile of cash. On the otherhand, it will take several years to prove or disprove him out, but what the heck...it will be fun trying! Don't be afraid of possible hets. Yes, you are taking a chance, but if they turn out to be normals, you have not spent your life savings either.

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It is true that HET pieds generally look different, from what I have learned, but possible hets, either 50 or 66% will look normal and are just as good for taking a chance on getting pieds.

I'm sorry, but a "possible het" is either a het or it isn't. If hets look different (and I have no idea personally) then a "possible het" will look different too, IF it's a het. And if it looks normal, it's not a het.

The speculation is that it's a SPORATIC sign seen in SOME hets. There is precedence for this in the Burmese python Green and Granite pattern mutations. Some (most?) 100% hets look perfectly normal but for some reason some show an intermediate form of the mutation (leopard and puzzle in the case of the respective Burms).

I don't know yet if the striping at the edge of a white belly is a reliable sign seen in some het piebalds but it's unfortunate that it's also seen in some normals so even if there is something to it, it's far from perfect.

It does make some sense though. In pictures of piebalds I've seen (I don't even own a for sure het) it looks to me like the white is coming up from the belly. You also have those two dark stripes in the smaller patches of "normal" pigment in piebalds. Could the black lines on both edges of the belly of a het be the beginning of what would be those two black lines on top if the white from the belly had pushed up onto the top as in a homozygous piebald? Of course a lot of things that make sense to us aren't necessarily true. It’s just one of these things to keep an eye on, experiment with, discuss, and see what we can figure out.