breeding turtles het for albino question.
 

Hey everyone, I've been tossing around the idea of breeding albino red eared sliders since i have some space in my turtle room. My question is if I were to purchase a res that was 100% het for albino and breed with a normal res would I have likely have around a 50/50 het offspring? And if I bred 2 100% het res the offspring would be all albino correct? where does the 66% het come into play? Feel free to tell me i'm way lost...never payed any attention to the punnett square lesson back in highschool. thanks

100% het x WT (normal) = each egg has a 50% chance of hatching a 100% het

100% het x 100% het = each egg has a 25% chance of hatching a WT, 50% chance of hatching a 100% het, and 25% chance of hatching an albino

Since albinos are visually apparent, we can then remove them from any het or WT math. That takes 25% of the statistical probability out for the discussion of hets. You can then look at the remainder as being three chances instead of four among the remaining 75%. Two chances per egg of hatching a normal-looking 100% het and one chance per egg of hatching a normal-looking non-het (aka wild type / WT / normal). Since you cannot visually distinguish between these hets and non-hets, these are then regarded as 2/3rds hets (but hets are technically all or nothing in fact). Some people round down from 66.6 (repeating after division of 2/3) to 66% het and some people (like myself) round up (since it is at or over 5 for the next whole number) to 67% het when assigning the label for these normal-looking hatchlings. In summary, normal-looking offspring from het to het breeding for a simple recessive trait are labeled at 66% or 67% hets.

If there is an albino parent, all normal-looking offspring are 100% hets. If there is an albino parent and a het parent, an egg has a 50% chance of hatching out an albino instead of just a het. If both parents are albinos (with the same locus, as we assume throughout for this particular example), then 100% of the offspring will be albinos.

Ok it's starting to make alot more sense now. Thanks for taking the time to go into all the details! I would assume it would be easiest to start with albino adults and go from there rather than obtaining a het or two. Now to thin out my collection..

If you got an albino male and some het females, that would give you a nice blend. You would know by eye what every baby is genetically. If albino, then you know that. If green, then a 100% het due to dad. You can reduce expense by going with only hets, but then you lose genetic certainty. You can improve your albino production by going with only albinos, but that costs a lot more. It all depends on your goals and budget.

Yea I saw some good looking adult hets on here two or so months back. I'm currently saving up for this project and figure I'll need at least 5 or 6 thousand to get a nice start. Not sure what I'll decide on starting with but definitely wanted to clear up any questions. Really want to get ahold of 2 snow res but the prices are crazy. Have you ever heard of breeding a melanistic res? I heard it's not a hereditary trait but others are saying it is. I have an adult male Mel I'd love to breed sometime in the future but only if I'll get some Mel offspring...? Definitely don't want any normal res hatchlings lol

There is melanism that is adult-onset (especially in older males, but it varies) and not a heritable morph trait (normal across most members of the species) and then there is hypermelanism that is apparent right out of the egg (with dark eyes and so on in many cases) that is heritable. I have not had the pleasure of working with the hypermelanistic animals, but there are a few members of this site who have/do.

Unless dealing with a genetically hypermelanistic animal (which should be very dark from a tiny baby onward), I would not bother trying to work a melanistic adult into my breeding plans.

I have a snow male and yeah, I will probably have to produce my own to add a second snow male in a budget-friendly fashion in a year or two.

Oh alright that makes sense. With that being said i think ill forget about trying to breed him. I saw a post over the weekend of what looked like a juvenile melanistic female res and it captured my interest. Thanks for all your help explaining things. It's a huge help! :thumbsup:

Anytime. It helps us all as a keeping community for this sort of information to be shared. Prevents wasted time and keeps efforts efficient (or at least it provides for well-informed choices). Thanks for asking the questions to cultivate the conversation.