Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well first things first I am not having much luck in the morph department i have 4 female albino blood pythons and 2 males 1 albino and one supposed 100% het for albino with genetic stripe. Outta these only 3 females have bread for a total of 5 clutches and a total of 32 live baby's, with 0 that is zero albinos! lol, and 1.1 stripers that came from the same clutch that i have held back but will not be ready for 2 more years and im not sure if inbreeding is ok for bloods or any herps for instance but i have heard it is done with balls..... well long story short im down sizing 1 male and 2 females the one that's unproven is going to a family member as a pet & selling the rest and im looking to get into the ball morph part of the hobby. My big question is that what morphs make what other morphs and do they have to be bred to hets or the strait morph has be bred to strait morph for best results, or het to het, or strait morph to het; and what dose the percentage of the het matter?(sorry that last sentence was a mouth full). Sorry if i was a lil long winded but i like to gather as much info as possible and also if anyone has a answer to my blood issue because i had a few friends in the hobby tell me its just bad luck and that prob one of my dud eggs were the albino or albino stripe but is it really that much luck or is there ways to be more successful in getting my desired outcome. Thank you in advance for any help.

All the ball python morphs would require a book. List of nearly 500 ball python morphs -- http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/

I gather that you want to produce albino, genetic striped blood pythons. You are half way there.

On the bright side, you got three clutches of eggs and 32 babies from four females. IMO, not shabby at all! Perhaps the fourth female is a little too young or too small to breed.

Was the albino male used at all? From the non-albino offspring, I would assume not. If he sired any of the offspring, then he is an albino and the female(s) mimics albino. Or he mimics albino and the female(s) is albino.

Was the "supposed 100% het for albino with genetic stripe" male a genetic stripe, or did he have a normal pattern? If he looks normal, then the two genetic striped is about the expected number. IMO, he is either not het albino or not het for the mutant gene the females have.

I hope you marked down which female produced the genetic striped babies. She has the highest priority to mate to the albino male next breeding season.

Genes come in pairs, like stockings. Each baby gets one gene from each of the father's gene pairs. And each baby gets one gene from each of the mother's gene pairs. This reestablishes the gene pairs in the baby.

A homozygous snake has two copies of a given gene in a given gene pair. IOW, the two genes are the same. A heterozygous (het) snake has a gene pair in which the two genes are NOT the same. There are several ways to make a heterozygous gene pair, but most hets have a mutant gene paired with a normal gene. In other words, there is one copy of the mutant gene in the gene pair.

Almost all albinos have two copies of the albino gene in that gene pair. And as far as I know, genetic stripes have two copies of the genetic stripe gene in that gene pair, which is not the same as the albino gene pair.

If both parents have two copies of a given mutant gene, then all the babies get two copies of that mutant gene.

if one parent has two copies of a mutant gene and the other parent has one copy of the mutant gene, then expectation is that half the babies have two copies of the mutant gene and the rest have one copy of the mutant gene.

If both parents have one copy of the mutant gene, then expectation is that 1/4 of the babies have two normal genes, 2/4 of the babies have a mutant gene paired with a normal gene, and 1/4 of the babies have two mutant genes.

So everything else being equal, you want parents with the highest possible number of mutant genes in the relevant gene pair or pairs. In practice, sometimes everything else is not equal. But those go on a case-by-case basis.

100% het = a long way of saying het. Proven heteterozygous by breeding test, by pedigree of by some other test.

66% het = may or may not be heterozygous.

50% het = may or may not be heterozygous.

The principles of genetics apply to corn, fruit flies, mice, ball pythons and blood pythons. I would suggest learning those principles from something like Pritzel's Genetics for Herpers (do an internet search for it).

Hope this helps a bit.

thank you very much this was very informative, i found out because i started really reasearching and showed a few pics of them at to a freind that owns a pet store and said my 2 of my girls are tee positive and my one albino male was a tee negitive but couldnt tell with the het striped male. and he said the one way i should had know was due to the price difference i paid for them. but from what it looks like i will need to make sure i have a bit more knowledge before i jump into the ball project.