Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If you do a pastel x pastel breeding you will, statistically, get 1/4 normals, 1/2 pastels and 1/4 superpastels, correct?

If a clutch of 4-6 is average sized, you can expect at least 1 super in the clutch. My question is, does this actually happen? I know statisics don't always come out true. If it does, there should be quite a few super pastels out there by now. Where are they all? Or is everyone doing pastel or super pastel x normal breedings? Are the breeders keeping the supers?

I'm wondering if I should expect/hope for a super pastel the first time I breed my 1.1 pastels.

Cheryl

Just remember regular (not super) pastels are heterozygous for the pastel gene so the same ratios come out as say het albino X het albino. The super pastels are homozygous for the pastel gene just like albinos are homozygous for the albino gene. The only difference is that you can see the het pastels.

The odds of you getting at least one homozygous pastel improve with the more eggs you get. I've linked a page with a chart of the odds. I originally made the table thinking of recessive mutations but it applies to any het X het breeding when figuring the odds of a homozygous as long as the homozygous condition isn't lethal.
Odds for any het X het including pastel X pastel

After reading that page, I realize I have to get out of the cornsnake mindset. With the large clutches corns have, you can predict the clutch outcome more accurately. Gotta learn to think "chance per egg"!

Cheryl