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I have been trying to figure out some selective breeding questions, and would like someone to explain how a true breeding homozygous albino strain is produced from one original specimen. Thanks in advance for any explanations.

>>I have been trying to figure out some selective breeding questions, and would like someone to explain how a true breeding homozygous albino strain is produced from one original specimen. Thanks in advance for any explanations.

All you need is one Homozygous animal of either sex, and a normal animal of the opposite sex, and a lot of time on your hands too.

First say you have an albino male, which you breed to a normal female. The resulting clutch would all be normal looking, but at the same time carrying the gene for the albinisim, in other words "heterozygous" or "het" for albino.

Hopefully you got lucky enough to ge a female hatchling, which you then raise for a few years to get her to breeding age and size, and then breed her back to the original albino (her dad). The resulting babies would be half homozygous albino (same as the dad) and the other half normal looking hets for albino.

By this time you should have a handfull of albinos and a bunch of normals het for albino which you then raise to breeding age and breed to each other again and so on.

Just gotta have the one mutation and a normal, and lots and lots of time and patience.
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"Colubrid-aphilia", adj; An inordinate love of Colubrids.

Thanks for the explanation, I also looked at some mendelian inheritance charts, and sort of figured it out. to recap; breed my albino to a normal, the resulting offspring are het for the albino trait but look normal, then backcross one of those to the original albino progenitor, the resulting offspring will have some homozygous albinos and some normal looking hets. So a minimum time frame of two generations (once the origianal albino is mature).

As described the resultant homozygotic albino (F1 X P1) is close to being an F2 (F1 X F1) and far from being pure. To "clean-up" the genetics you would need to outcross the albino animal again to an un-related normal animal. If you had a male you could breed him to several females and then breed the F1's from the varying clutches (not siblings) to produces a much cleaner animal (genetically) in your quest to creat a "pure" homo strain. This process does take a long time and most people skip a step or two because they can't wait.

Matt
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www.theselectserpent.com

OK, so a more reasonable time frame for producing a pure strain is at least 4 generations once my original is of breeding size. I am more interested in doing it properly that doing fast.

Matt,

Maybe i'm being too simplistic but i don't get exactlhy what you're saying. Can you elaborate?

I'm interpreting the questioner to mean "pure" for albinism. And once a subsequent generation produces albinos from breeding het back to parent, those babies have exactly the same albino gene as the initial animal, i.e., "pure". Or so it seems to me.

Anyway, help this dunce out, explain a little further. Sounds like somethign the locality breeders "get" that I don't.

thanks
terry

>>As described the resultant homozygotic albino (F1 X P1) is close to being an F2 (F1 X F1) and far from being pure. To "clean-up" the genetics you would need to outcross the albino animal again to an un-related normal animal. If you had a male you could breed him to several females and then breed the F1's from the varying clutches (not siblings) to produces a much cleaner animal (genetically) in your quest to creat a "pure" homo strain. This process does take a long time and most people skip a step or two because they can't wait.
>>
>>Matt
>>-----
>>www.theselectserpent.com

>>Matt,
>>
>>Maybe i'm being too simplistic but i don't get exactlhy what you're saying. Can you elaborate?
>>
>>I'm interpreting the questioner to mean "pure" for albinism. And once a subsequent generation produces albinos from breeding het back to parent, those babies have exactly the same albino gene as the initial animal, i.e., "pure". Or so it seems to me.
>>
>>Anyway, help this dunce out, explain a little further. Sounds like somethign the locality breeders "get" that I don't.
>>
>>thanks
>>terry
>>
>>
>>>>As described the resultant homozygotic albino (F1 X P1) is close to being an F2 (F1 X F1) and far from being pure. To "clean-up" the genetics you would need to outcross the albino animal again to an un-related normal animal. If you had a male you could breed him to several females and then breed the F1's from the varying clutches (not siblings) to produces a much cleaner animal (genetically) in your quest to creat a "pure" homo strain. This process does take a long time and most people skip a step or two because they can't wait.
>>>>
>>>>Matt
>>>>-----
>>>>www.theselectserpent.com