Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am looking at possibly purchasing a 100% het. I am looking at either an orange Ghost, Albino or Pied. At the moment, I am only thinking about getting a male. I actually have a few questions... first, if they are saying that it was produced by breeding a say Albino to a normal, is teh offspring GUARANTEED to be 100% het (as in it DOES have teh albino gene) and second, is it even worth breeding a 100% het to normal female to get Hets to breed back to the 100% het male down the road. I know this is teh long way to go and maybe not the most economical route to go, but seems like it might be a good project to get experience in the first place.

Thanks in advance for the answers...

Sean

Ps... my only other Ball besides my normal females (one attached below) is a Young Pastel Male.... **pretty common these days**

if its a recessive gene like albino or PIED then yep its 100% guaranteed het. no chance in hell it wont be a het.

no i dont think its worth breeding a 100% het to normal female to get Hets to breed back to the 100% het male down the road. because you would not know which one would be a het or not.

what i think is a good idea is too breed your pastel male to any or all of your normal females if theyre big enough (most can go at 2 yrs, 1500 grams) your male can be ready after 6 months/ 800 grams.

50% of your babies will be pastels you can sell them or trade them depending on how many for a 100% het female or a albino or pied female.

goodluck sean

I think if his current budget only allows him to purchase a 100% het, say for pied, it's a great way to go. Sure, produce some 50% poss. het pieds, sell off the males, raise all the females. Breed them back to his 100% and he has a very good chance at producing pieds for very little investment financially. But sure, he can breed the pastel to his normal female now but let's say he gets 4 eggs and two pastels. This isn't going to get him very far if he can even move them at all......guess how many people are still sitting on 05' pastels for sale????(yes, lots of pieds still available too) But, say he gets 800 for two male pastels and then purchases a 100% het female to go with his 100% het male. He now has to raise 1 100% het female and have a shot with one litter. If he bred a 100% het male to that same female rather than the pastel, he sells the males, but is raising hopefully a couple females to breed to, and they could both be hets. The time frame should be within the same boundaries, but hopefully he'd end up with more than 1 female to shoot for pieds with. By the way, I would take a shot in the dark saying a pied is going to still be worth more than a pastel 2 years from now. Of course this is just my opinion, but I really don't think it would be a waste of his time as long as he has a GUARANTEED 100% het to start with! Take care

Paul

yah, I would say dont waste time breeding that pastel. Pastels in 2 or 3 years will be $100 easy, while pieds will be $2k still. Recessive traits hold value alot longer because its not easy to produce them. You MUST have a het or homo female and male to produce a piebald, albino, ghost... while you can produce a handfull of pastels with one pastel male thats a year old. If your short on money, buy a het male, if you have some to burn, buy a het female. Het males are always easy to find, even of breeding size... go for the het females. I would never sell any of my het females. Lets say you got an 05 het pied pair for $1500. Two years from now you will be breeding and may produce a pied. How much will a pied be worth 2 years from now? Atleast $1500, I would say more like $3000. Soon they will be worth more because of the neat combos, which will help offset their normal yearly drop in price. So now every year you can breed your hets and statistically produce 1 piebald... the first year trade that pied off for something else or trade it for a male from a different line, and now you have a male piebald to breed to your het female and now you get half pieds and half 100% het pieds PLUS all the 66% het females you produced you can breed to your male piebald and prove them out, but also all the offspring will be 100% anyhow. So end result, 5 years from now you are up to your eyeballs in poss het pieds, het pieds, and pieds, all for $1500 now. IMHO a much better investment than a het male alone. poss hets are worth nothing if you are a no name, so dont even count on that.

Its a hard thing to make up your mind on.

AMEN to that last statement-LOL! Heck, 100% hets can be hard enough to sell without your own cult following, but poss. hets your just as well off to sell as normals just to keep your feeding bills down a little bit(as far as selling those poss. het males). Take care

Paul

Yah, all my poss het males get sold as normals. Its a hidden little suprise if it does ever get bred.

Yes anything homozygous (shows the recessive trait) bread to a normal will produce all 100% het for the trait, and nothing else. Think of a recessive trait as being a 2 piece puzzle... if you have both you are complete (homozygous), usually it for albino you would say AA for a homozygous. A heterozygous animal would have 1 piece of the puzzle (Aa or aA), and a normal would have no pieces of the puzzle (aa).

So on to the next question, is it even worth it to buy a het male? Well, that depends on what your goals are and how fast you want to reach them. If you breed a het male (Aa) to a normal female (aa) you need to look at a punnet square to see what the chances are of producing anything.

As you can see from the het x normal you will produce 50% hets and 50% normals statistically speaking, but the catch is you dont know whats het and whats not, so they are all called 50% poss hets. So then you have to raise up the females and breed them all to a het or homo male. Raising females can take a long time, and in my openion, raising poss het females is fine, but should not the the focus of your project. Thats why 100% het females are worth so much, and always will be.

That all said I do have several projects going with 100% het males, but when I produce my poss het females, I will buy a homozygous male to go with them when its breeding time, so I can tell with one breeding if they will prove out, this also will get me some cheap het females and later on when prices drop on the homozygous males, I can pick one up to breed to the females.

Well, you've already had some pretty good answers. Here's my take. EVERYONE is getting in on the quick pastel dollar. What does this mean? Basic supply and demand. Now, is it wrong? I have a few pastel projects myself, but I also have other projects going. Personally, I believe double-het projects are going to perform the best over the long-haul and provide a great chance at producing something few (not everyone) have.

If time is not an issue and you are simply doing this out of love of the animal and the challenge and excitement of breeding, then there is nothing wrong with hets. You have quite a few options with hets that can pay off well in the long run.

>>attached below) is a Young Pastel Male.... **pretty common these days**

And getting even more common.

One last thing. Many people suggest breeding your pastels and then trading the offspring for homo animals such as pieds or albinos. IMHO, this will be difficult to do unless you have lots of females to trade. Think about it: if someone already has albinos, pieds, axanthics, etc. they are likely to already have pastels (I know I do). Please don't interpret my words on the pastel. I have them and will have a few for sale in the '06 season. Just weigh all of your options and enjoy the hobby.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

I agree 100% with Jay here. The pastels are hard to trade off for much of anything as it is. Come next year or even the end of this season you are going to have the tuffest time trading off thoughs pastels. If you were lucky enough to produce a few females it might be easier on you but even with that it would be better for you to hold back the female pastels. With just one male your not going to be able to produce alot of things you want to produce such as supers. I say go with what ever you are going to like more in the long run. If there is a morph out there that you want to get that you just cant afford right now go for the het to normal. If you want the experience get a het and another female and produce both poss hets and Pastels. Enjoy the hobby and do what you think is best.
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Chris Farmer
Explicit Reptiles

I'm actually doing it the long way myself, but I've always enjoyed "some assembly required". I'm getting 3 or 4 100% het males this year (hypo, pied, caramel albino and clown). They will all breed with normal girls, and I plan to hold back all the female offspring and sell the males. If some of the girls don't proove out, the worst that has happened is I have some more breedable normal girls (which have value in their own right).

I may decide to get a pastel girl next year and raise to breeding weight and breed one of the boys to her. Then I'd have pastels that are also 50% possible hets (for whichever of the boys I decided to breed her to) and some normal 50% hets.

But, right now, I have more time than money, and I'll enjoy working with the animals in the meantime!

Yah, and you know I did just thought of soemthing that might make pastels sell better than anyone else, if its poss het for something. I would have a hard time passing up a pastel poss het pied male right now. I could breed that to my females and have some pastel pieds.

Another good responce I agree with. There is no wrong or write way to go about this. You just have to thinking about what your goals are and go for them.
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Chris Farmer
Explicit Reptiles

If you are not driven by the need to immediately produce your visual morph then there is nothing wrong with picking up a 100% het male (yes - it would be 100% if one of the parents was a visual morph, but make sure you get a genetics guarantee) - breeding it to a couple of normal females - holding back any female possible het offspring and then breeding them back to the father. If that is the route you are going I would go with the Pieds as possible het pieds seem to be easier to sell - especially if they have markers. If you end up female heavy you could also - consider selling your female poss. hets and just buy a 100% het.

I wouldn't necessarily rule out breeding the pastel either - there will always be a market for pastels - might not be a big money morph - but there are still plenty of people that are interested in working on supers and mixes - might be worth it just to get a female to hold back to breed in a couple of years when you get your pied.

Lotsa stuff to think about....
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

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I am actually thinking about picking up a few 100% hets based on the answers here.. maybe breed them to some normals, and in the meantime look for a nice Het female also. The reason i brought up the het males is because Het females are SOOO hard to find sometimes, it almost seems easier to just breed to a few normals and by odds, you are bound to get atleast ONE that proves out for you. The other reason is because i have never bred and "hatched" eggs.. Boas tend to do all the work for you, so i have never had to deal with Eggs... this is my first venture Into Pythons.. so hopefully, luck will be with me..

Thanks again for all the answers...

-Sean

>>The other reason is because i have never bred and "hatched" eggs.. Boas tend to do all the work for you, so i have never had to deal with Eggs...

You can always let mom do the incubating.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

http://www.3dpythons.com/PunnetSquares.html

Enjoy.

Mike at 3-D Pythons