Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am interested in starting to breed some boas. I am not clear on the genetics of boas, so I'm someone can help me out. Would it be better to bred an albino male to a het female, or het male, to an albino female? Does it make any difference?

Thanks,
Leslie Steinmetz

Leslie,

If I were to plan from the beginning, and if it is your goal to breed with limited money and limited time, and if it is your goal to raise them up for the purposes of breeding...

1. buy a female het...this year
2. buy a male albino...next year

Several reasons...
Most of the time, the males can breed when they are one year younger than your breedable female, if fed consistantly (I am not talking about powerfeeding).
Secondly, you will have more flexibility to use the albino male for other projects also.
Finally, I like to breed het females, whenever possible...you could loose a female during pregnancy (meaning, het costs less), and sometime, and only sometimes, hets are stronger than the double recessive form.

Good Luck,
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Dave Lee

one more point I have heard but cannot personally verify, Albino's can have a harder time thermoregulating due to their lighter skin color, not normally an issue but a gravid female needs to not only thermoregulate herself, but also the babies inside.

If that is true, then another reason to go with Male albino, female het.
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Thanks,

Dave "Rainbows-R-Us"

0.1 Wife
0.2 kids
4.12.100 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.1 Ball python
0.1 BCI "Elvira" normal from 1989
1.0 BCI albino / het-anery
0.1 BCI Hypo / het-albino
0.1 BCI Anery / het-albino
0.1 BCI Hypo (possible super)
1.0 BCI albino het stripe
1.0 BCI salmon hypo
0.1 BCI ghost

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

female albinos are 3-5 degrees cooler then hets so babies that are full term born from albinos oftern have more unused yolk in their bellies which hardens and cause the babies to die about a week after birth. I haven't see this about a couple of breeds posted it a while back (last season I tihnk)

The percentage gance of producing albinos is the same, however, if you have a male albino, he can be bred to more than i het female and spread the genes around. An albino female can only bebred to one het male and only one clutch (per year). more clutches means more chance of albinos. as far as albinos not thermo regulating well, if your cage is set up right, with a good heat gradient, this should not be a problem. it is not like they are in the wild where they depend on absorbing sunlight for heat, if you are worried, raise the hot end temp up a couple of degrees, if you have an adequate heat gradient, the snake will find the area where it needs to be.