You could also breed him to a 100% het albino female. If you were to do this, statistically 1 in 4 babies should end up as an albino, 2 out of 4 will be het albinos and 1 out of four will be normal. You will not be able to differentiate the normals from the hets. Normal looking babies from this type of pairing are typically sold as 66% hets in that they have a 66% chance of carrying the albino gene.

To help you undersatnd this a bit better, you can diagram it out: your male has two copies of the gene that affects melanin formation, one from each of his parents. One of these genes (we'll call it "A" ) is normal and dominant. The other (we'll call it "a" ) is defective and recessive (recessive genes are denoted by lower case letters). By defective, I mean that this gene does not allow for the production of melanin (dark pigment).

Since your male is Aa he appears normal. When he breeds his sperm will only carry one copy of the melanin gene so his offspring will have a 50% chance of getting the "A" and a 50% chance of getting the "a".

If you breed him to a normal female: AA all she will be able to give her offspring will be "A".

You can diagram it like this to figure out the probabilities:



The center four combos represent the genetics of the offspring from such a cross. They have a 50% chance of carrying the albino gene (being Aa) a 50% chance of not carring it (being AA). Since all will look normal you won't be able to figure out who has what gene until you can breed them. These babies would be marketed as 50% hets.

If you breed him to a het female: Aa she will be able to give her offspring "A" or "a".



The baby who gets aa will have two copies of the defective melanin gene and will be an albino. The other three will appear normal and will have a 2 out of 3 chance of carrying the albino gene: being Aa. These would be sold as 66% hets.

If you breed him to an albino female: aa she will only be able to give her offspring "a".



Half of the babies would be albinos: aa and half would be hets: Aa. The normal looking babies from this cross would therefore be sold as 100% hets. Your male would have been produced from such a cross.

Hope this helps,
Alice

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