Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Below is a post from the Python:General forum but no one would answer so i figured I would try here.. I am thinking of getting into breeding maybe.

"Hello..
I am probably only guy on here that has a couple of reptiles and such and doesn't know what this means.. so would someone please explain what the following means exactly? (I don't breed any of my animals is main reason I don't know already)..

Like listed for sale it will say something like
"HETEROZYGOUS FOR GREEN" = Het. For Green(Brumese)
or "Het. for XXXX" And sometimes it gets into percentages and such? "50% het. for albino" or whatever the case may be.. but what does it all mean? TIA ; )"

When you get into the heterozygous stuff ou are simply dealing with the morph traits. If a trait is "het" it means it is carrying the recessive gene for the particular trait. So if it is for example het. green...then you breed with a green burmese you will get some green burmese offspring. We can explain this using an example like the gene for green urmese pythons is g and the gene for normal (regular) burmese pythons is N. If you were to breed a green burmese to a normal burmese you ould get a few difernt things in the clutch, but all would have g and N (Ng). This would mean all are 100% het. for the green gene. They all carry the gene for this trait but none will express it. It is not until you can have animals with two g's will you see the particular morph (gg). If you breed two green burmese pythons their genes will be gg and all the babies will be green burmese. This is a diluted example but it should help you understand. It is when you start breeding the "hets" with the greens or the normals when you start to get the percentages. Since you cannot tell if a normal looking snake has the gene to be a green you have to go by percentages. If a 100% het green is bred to a green you will get 25% greens, 25% normals, and 50% het. greens. Since you cannot distinguish the normals from the hets...you consider all the normal looking babies to be 66% possible hets. If you had a 100% het. green bred to a 100% normal, all the babies would look normal, but half of them should be het. for green. In this case you call them all 50% possible het. green. I hope this helps. I know it can be confusing but if you have more questions please feel free to ask.

THANK YOU!! Very nice explanation.. I don't think I 100% completely get it. It all seems ALOT more clear now though. Thanks again for the reply and you'll probably see a couple more questions about this from me later on. lol ; )

Ok.. so say I bought a "Het. for green" The snake would actually appear to be a "normal" phase and possess the green gene normal gene? or am I still very confused. And say I bred a 100% het. for green with a normal.. and 6 eggs were in the clutch.. roughly 2 would be normal, 2 would be green, and 2 would be het. for green? Hope you can understand this.. lol

Thanks again

A het green to a normal will give you half the babies being het. for green and half being completely normal. None will be green. So since you do not know which carry the gene, all are 50% possible hets. If you breed two hets together you will get some green, some normal, and some hets. Since you know the greens are green in this case then the rest of the babies are 66% possible hets.

Wow! I am so confused now.. lol I wont ask you to explain anymore(for now hehehe). Thanks for taking time you have though. I wanna make some green babies later b/c I can barely find them. I have been to a couple of shows local to me and none of them had any vendors with Green Burmese. I know I could find many great breeders online but I am picky and like to look at and hold the snake before buying.. So I will need two known hets for green if I read you right. Cheers! ; )

Green burm= green burm
het green burm (100%)= normal looking burm with genes for green
potential het green burm= normal looking burm with possible chance of green genes.

Green burm x green burm= all green babies
green burm x het green = some green and the rest normal looking 100% het for green.
green burm x normal burm, = all babies normal looking but 100% het for green.
het green x het green = some green, rest possible het for green
I don't think I want to touch the finer percentages...
Your best bet, may be to shell out for a green male and definite het for green female. Though two confirmed hets would also get greens, the normal looking babies will only be possibly hets. And I'll stop there since now I'm starting to get confused!
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0.1 chickens (Condor)
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave, Lucy & Amy)
0.1 Halflinger horse (Crissy)
0.1 Normal phase California Kingsnake (Sophia)
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human

Ok.. Very plain, I like!! lol I get it now.. I see Bob Clark has some Green babies for $200 which to me isn't bad.. couple of years ago only 1 of the pet shops here had two green babies and they had them priced $280 I DONT THINK SO!! : ) So, I might just get one from bob, and also get a 100% het.. see what I can come up with. Thanks for all info.. both really helped me have somewhat of an understanding to my original question. ; )

Hey. Why not spend the extra $100 and get a pair of green burms from Bob? Then you wont have to mess around with any hets. Only green babies! Food for thought.

Well.. I wouldn't have a problem with that, but I am trying to learn a bit more about these genetics, and how it all works in the snake world and I am one who wont really learn much without actually trying it. I like to take the difficult path opposed to the easy path as in taking the difficult one you will not have any problems with the easy one when you walk it. ; ) (Hope all that makes since to someone other than me, lol) Thanks for the input though.

if you do decide to go down the road of hets make sure you DON`T buy related hets or you decrease your chances of producing the recessive genes. I wont go into the technicallities, just ensure that they are unrelated to maximize your chances.

Phil
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1.0 Albino Burmese ,