Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My snow recently just laid a clutch of 6 eggs after an unintentional breeding. Only thing is, she was with 2 males, a candycane and ghost (DERP!!!). In any event, any chance I will be able to tell the father just by looking at the babies appearance?

Thanks,
Chris

CandyCanes are a variation of Amel, so if he was the Daddy, then they'll all be Amels het for Anery.

If the Ghost was Pop, then they'll all be Anery with hets for Amel & Hypo.

So if neither parent has any other hets, then you should be able to tell. However, life will get very interesting if one or both parents are carrying hets that you don't know about!

Hatching time's going to be an adventure. Let us know how it goes.

The breakdown would look like this:

All amel babies would have been sired by the candycane.

All anery babies would have been sired by the ghost.

HOWEVER....

Amel and anery are probably the most commonly distributed mutant genes floating around in all of "corndom." So, it is entirely possible that one, or the other, or both of these males has compatible hets in common with the female. That being the case, it will be impossible to tell which of the males sired a hatchling if it comes out a snow...either of them could be het for the other snow component they are not expressing.

Here's another kicker. Both of the males may have fertilized her eggs! Let's say out of the six, that you get two aneries, two amels, and two snows. In that case, the aneries are from the ghost (and het for amel and hypo), the amels are from the candycane (and het anery), and the snows are from who knows which one?!?

Have fun with them...however they come out!

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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Wow! Very interesting and helpful. Thank you all so much. They should be hatching soon as they have been incubating for a few weeks now...I will be sure to let you guys know what happens.

Thanks again,
Chris