Crossbreeding piebald with albino balls

I was recently reading an add in kingsnake.com where they were advertising offspring of the breeding of a piebald to an albino ball python. If I remember my genetics 101 correctly, the offspring should look all normal, but carrying both recessive genes. Again if my assumptions are right, 4years from know once you breed the heterozygous pair to each other one will get 25% albinos 25% piebalds and 50% double hetero for albino/piebald. Maybe I'm missing something but in a moment where the price for both morphs has dropped this genetic combination doesn't make much business sense.

Best regards.

How true

To save you all the time in asking how much for a pair of double hets.....$30,000

Out of every 16 babies, you SHOULD get

9 - normal looking
4 double hets.
2 het. for albino
2 het. for pied
1 carries neither gene

3 - albino
2 het. for pied
1 non-Trait B carrier

3 - pied
2 het. for albino
1 non-Trait A carrier

1 - both albino and pied

$30,000!!!!

It makes no sense at all to pay $30,000 for that combination.

Al, I couldn't follow your rationale behind the 16 babies.

If you cross two heterozygous where aa are the albino recessive genes and pp the piebald recessive genes, according to my calculations you'll get 50% normals (heterozygous double carriers, ap), 25% albinos (aa), and 25% piebalds (pp). In a clutch with 8 babies you should get 4 double heteros, 2 albinos and 2 piebalds. There is no chance you can produce a ball that will not be carrying at least one of the two genes. If this is right, 4 years from now, at the rate the prices are falling, and under ideal conditions maybe you might be able to sell your offspring for maybe $15,000 (and I'm being generous!).

Best regards.

Daniel,

He is correct. You have a 1 in 16 chance of producing a Albino Pied when breeding the D.H. together. Its no different than the D.H. For Snows. You have a 1 in 16 chance on producing a Snow in a D.H. breeding. Not really sure how that all plays out on the aa and pp scale, but you maybe missing something. Im sure if you go to Tracy, Ralph, Mark Bell, NERD or the countless others, Im sure they could give you the correct break down. Now, I know your next response is going to be.. How many balls actually produce 16 eggs ?? And you would be right. NOT many. These are ONLY odds. Sometimes the odds are greater or less than any scale. Example: 1) To the best of my knowledge, all three strains of Snow Balls were produced by using Double Het breedings !! I know when Mike, hatched his, he only had 6 eggs (1 Albino 66% Het. Snow, 1 Axanthic 66% Het. Snow, 3 normal 66% D. Het. Snows and a SNOW). 2) I know a breeder who had a pair of Het. Axanthic's and breed them 3 straight years !! A total of 13 eggs total hatched in that 3 year span. NOTHING !! Now, according to the scale your going by, he should of had 25% Axanthics (meaning at least 3 Axanthics). It wasnt until his 4th year that he got one in a 5 eggs clutch !! I also know Tracy, one year told me of a Het. Albino breeding, where she had 6 eggs and 4 were Albino in that clutch. Those are better odds than a Albino to Het. breeding !!

Again if the parents BOTH carry BOTH genes then there is a chance that both of those recessive genes will be expressed in one of the offspring (1 in 16). And anyone getting into Hets should be aware that this is ONLY a scale !! I cant tell you how many people wanted a guarantee on exactly how many they would get in a breeding. You simply cant do it. Its only a scale of averages. Hope this helps.

Joe Dembinski

Hi Daniel,

I found the correct scale on a D.H. breeding and this is how it breaks down on the scale system.

mmrr = Albino Pied
MmRr = Double Heterozygous
mmRR = Albino
MMrr = Pied
MMRR = Normal
MmRR = Heterozygous Albino
MMRr = Heterozygous Pied
mmRr = Albino het for Albino Pied
Mmrr = Pied het for Albino Pied
MMRR = Normal


MR Mr mR mr
MR MMRR MMRr MmRR MmRr
Mr MMRr MMrr MmRr Mmrr
mR MmRR MmRr mmRR mmRr
mr MmRr Mmrr mmRr mmrr


For every 16 babies:

1 Normal = MMRR
2 Heterozygous Pied = MMRr
2 Heterozygous Albino = MmRR
4 Double Heterozgous for Albino Pied = MmRr
2 Albino Heterozygous for Albino Pied = mmRr
2 Pied Heterozygous for Albino Pied = Mmrr
1 Albino = mmRR
1 Pied = MMrr
1 ALBINO PIED = mmrr

Again if the parents BOTH carry BOTH genes then there is a chance that both of those recessive genes will be expressed in one of the offspring (1 in 16). And anyone getting into Hets should be aware that this is ONLY a scale !! I cant tell you how many people wanted a guarantee on exactly how many they would get in a breeding. You simply cant do it. Its only a scale of averages. Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Man, I get this all of the time with my corn snake sales! People whom have never worked with multi-het gene carriers have no idea how much Lady Luck plays in the results you will get.

In the scenario mentioned above, the way you need to look at it is that EACH baby has a 1 in 16 chance of being double homozygous. The analogy I often use is that if you take a coin and flip it 15 times and get tails all 15 times, does the 16th toss HAVE to be heads? That's right, each toss is completely independent of the rest of the tosses. Each egg hatching out is it's own set of statistical probabilities.

In real life, however, it has been my experience that the more you want a gene combination to happen, the less likely it will do so. And the existence of deposits on those wanted results reduces your chances even further.

I'll take a shot at posting a punnet square, hope the table formatting isn't too bad.

a = albino
p = piebald
caps = the normal trait as usual

So:

AAPP = Normal
AaPp = Double Het Pied
aaPP = Albino, het nothing else
AApp = Pied, het nothing else
AaPP = Het Albino
AAPp = Het Pied
aaPp = Albino, het Pied
Aapp = Pied, het Albino
aapp = Piebald Albino (which could take years and years for ball pythons, just like snows did)

Here's the double het square:

<table border="1" width="80%"> <tr> <td width="20%"> </td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">ap</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">Ap</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">aP</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AP</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="20%"><font size="2">ap</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">aapp </font> <p><font size="2">(albino pied)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">Aapp </font> <p><font size="2">(pied het albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">aaPp</font> <p><font size="2">(albino het pied)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AaPp</font> <p><font size="2">(dbl het pied albino)</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="20%"><font size="2">Ap</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">Aapp </font> <p><font size="2">(pied het albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AApp</font> <p><font size="2">(pied)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AaPp</font> <p><font size="2">(dbl het pied albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AAPp</font> <p><font size="2">(het pied)</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="20%"><font size="2">aP</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">aaPp</font> <p><font size="2">(albino het pied)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AaPp</font> <p><font size="2">(dbl het pied albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">aaPP</font> <p><font size="2">(albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AaPP</font> <p><font size="2">(het albino)</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AP</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AaPp</font> <p><font size="2">(dbl het pied albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AAPp</font> <p><font size="2">(het pied)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AaPP</font> <p><font size="2">(het albino)</font></td> <td width="20%"><font size="2">AAPP</font> <p><font size="2">(normal)</font></td> </tr></table>

Hey guys!

I have set up a bazillion new discussion forums, and one of them is about Ball Python genetics and morphs. Would you all be terribly upset if I moved this and other pertinent threads in this forum over there? It sure would do my heart good to see at least some of those forums getting some use.

Thanks!

Works for me, but does the board leave a pointer to the new location in the originating forum? I know some of these kinds of boards do, and it'd probably be helpful if the thread starter comes looking for his thread. =)

No problem Rich. I think this thread has some use for someone trying to understand genetics in what I like to call "man made morphs" as well as a single simple recessive mutation (albinos, Pieds, blue lighting vent holes, etc). Thanks for adding that coin toss example !! Sometimes its hard to put into words on how all these combos come out. If you think double hets are hard to describe, try the triple and quad hets !!!! Ouch !!! Someone will just have to give me a call on those. Too much typing for me.

Thanks,

Joe Dembinski

Thanks for the very well laid-out responses. After looking at the combinations plus the odds (luck = statistics!) of those happening, crossbreeding the two morphs doen's make much sense from a business perspective. Let me rephrase that, it does only if you are the one selling 2-3 pairs at $30,000 each. It doesn't make economic sense for the person that buys the babies. If you are going to invest $30,000 in a pair of snakes IMHO you are better off buying a pair of albinos for $5,000 and a pair of piebalds for $25,000.

Just my thoughts.

Go ahead R.Z.

We will find it

The way I see it, if you buy an albino and a pied, you still would have to breed them together, keep the double het babies, and when they are old enough, breed them together and hope for an albino pied. If you buy the double hets, you're that much farther ahead of the game. Or, you could always breed the double hets to an albino, and get some albinos that are poss het pieds. Those babies would give you a better chance of getting pied albinos when they are bred, if they are true hets. Either way, it's a lot of work to hope you luck into getting what you want. But if you want to make albino pieds, or any other combination, that's the only way to do it.

Buying double hets does save several years on a project, but are they worth $30K? Considering the average clutch size for balls seems to be around 4 to 6, and we're working with a one in sixteen chance of getting that albino pied, it's not likely to happen. The rest of the possibilities are either albinos that are possible het pied, pieds that are possible het albino, and about nine normals that might be het for either or both, and have a low chance of being normals. Are any of the other possible results besides pied albino going to be worth enough in three years to earn back the money on the parents?

That's tough to say, b/c some hets and even possible hets command insane prices in the ball python market. Still, it seems to me there are better ways to invest $30k into a breeding project. Putting that much money into a single pair of animals is taking on a huge amount of risk.

It'd probably be better to buy several albinos and several pieds and make several sets of double hets yourself to breed together, as that one in sixteen chance is a lot more likely with the more eggs you can hatch out. You'd lose time on producing that albino pied, but have a lot better odds in the long run. Plus, you can sell your own excess double hets off for a nice price.

Brian,

Those were my thoughts when I posted this thread. It doesn't make much sense from strictly a business perspective, unless of course you are the one selling the double hets.

Best regards.