# Which to breed with



## arranthesnakekeeper (Apr 19, 2008)

I have male 100% het albino Royal Python and am looking to breed him but am not sure what morph to breed him with. I am looking for a breed which will give the babies a nice, vivid colour and a good price tag. Can you help me out and how much the female will be.

Arran:no1:


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

You won't get any albinos unless you breed him to another albino or albino carrier.

The best you can hope for in first generation WITHOUT an albino female (and even then you'd only make, on average, half albinos) is any of the dominant or codominant genes - spider, pastel, pinstripe, mojave and so on. 

Good luck finding an adult female that you won't be paying a *very* hefty price tag for  For an adult breedable female of any morph, start budgeting for a _minimum_ of £1000. 

If you're looking for more of a three-year wait for the babies, you could budget to spend that same thousand pounds or so on a combination codominant morph like a Bumblebee or a Lesser Pastel...


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## arranthesnakekeeper (Apr 19, 2008)

if i breed him with a het patel what babies will i get


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Make sure your "het pastel" is VISUALLY a pastel. If it looks like a normal, it probably is - and doesn't carry the pastel gene.

You'd expect half pastels and half normals from that breeding if it IS a pastel, and they'd have a chance of carrying the albino gene invisibly.


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## arranthesnakekeeper (Apr 19, 2008)

dont hets look like normals but carry the genes of whatever genes it has because my royal does not look like an albino and it is 100% het albino


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Not necessarily, Arran.

Pastel is what's called a "codominant" gene - it shows if you have one copy as a Pastel; it is a super pastel if the animal has two copies. The only way the animal will look normal is if there is NO pastel gene there at all.

Albino is a recessive, so you HAVE to have two copies in order to have it look like an Albino.


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## Athravan (Dec 28, 2006)

Codominant genes do not have a het, the visual is the het, with a super for if both parents are the same. If you see a het pastel you are being conned, there is no such thing, het pastel is pastel, pastel x pastel = super pastel. 

Albino is recessive, which is "invisible" until you have two parts.


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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

Athravan said:


> Codominant genes do not have a het, ...


This is not correct. A het has two different genes in one gene pair. A pastel mutant gene paired with a normal gene fulfills that requirement.

The appearance of the het form determines whether the mutant gene is dominant, codominant, or recessive to the normal gene. A het albino looks normal, so the albino mutant gene is recessive to the normal gene. A het pastel snake (AKA pastel) does not look normal and does not look like a homozygous pastel (AKA super pastel) snake. Therefore, the pastel mutant gene is codominant to the normal gene.

See also the sticky titled "Genetics questions you were afraid to ask" in this forum.


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## Athravan (Dec 28, 2006)

Like I said - the visual is the het - I should have been more clear, codominant genes do have a het, which is the visual, but do not have a het like albino, an "invisible" recessive het which the OP was referring to. 

But here in the UK, we do not advertise things as a het pastel, when you are receiving a visual pastel. People have bought het pastels in the past and been sold pastel siblings which are normals spending several hundreds on a snake that is basically a normal! In the UK if you are buying a pastel, you buy a pastel, or a super pastel... don't pay money for a het pastel unless it is actually a pastel.


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## Mason (Jan 21, 2008)

paulh said:


> This is not correct. A het has two different genes in one gene pair. A pastel mutant gene paired with a normal gene fulfills that requirement.
> 
> The appearance of the het form determines whether the mutant gene is dominant, codominant, or recessive to the normal gene. A het albino looks normal, so the albino mutant gene is recessive to the normal gene. A het pastel snake (AKA pastel) does not look normal and does not look like a homozygous pastel (AKA super pastel) snake. Therefore, the pastel mutant gene is codominant to the normal gene.
> 
> See also the sticky titled "Genetics questions you were afraid to ask" in this forum.


very true and techincally correct however that terminology is not used in the UK. Or at least not in the correct way, it's only ever used to con people out of a bit more cash than a normal for a "het pastel" that is visually normal, ie has nothing to do with the pastel gene except Dad was one...


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## pied pythons (Jan 18, 2008)

As Athravan stated; if you find a ''het pastel'' you are being conned as they don't exist.

Paulh is refferring to dominant recessiveness; a visual het from a co-dominant morph (for example a pastel could be called a heterozygous form of a super pastel). Although as mentioned this is not a term usually coined in the Uk; where any ''hets'' are of reccessive strain.

Your best bet is to buy yourself a well grown on subadult or adult visual morph such as a spider, pastel, mojave etc if you are looking to produce royals of a morph in the first clutch.

However, it is also well worth trying to get hold of a female het albino. By breeding two hets together, hypothetically 1 in 4 hatchlings will be a visual albino. Although in reality you may get more than one albino, or none at all; it all depends on how the genes ''fall''.

You could also consider getting a visual albino female to breed your het to; the percentage of visual offspring should be higher; plus you would then have the bonus of a visual female to use in subsequent breedings. (a male albino will be able to breed to numerous females, yes; but an adult female albino can breed to any suitable male to produce offspring which could reach breeding size in potentially a shorter timespan than breeding a female hatchling up for 3years to breed back to her.)


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## pied pythons (Jan 18, 2008)

I meant to add; the suggestion of getting an albino or het to pair with your male was to make use of his albino gene. As you were looking to produce visual offspring in the first generation (F1), going down the route of a dominant/codominant morph will just further delay and dilute (as such) the albino gene.

For example, if you were to breed your male to a pastel female; the offspring would all be '50% het albino' and half would also be visual pastels. (half pastel 50% het albino; half normals 50% het albino).

Therefore you would need to keep a larger number of the females back for a higher chance of actually getting one which was het albino. (50% basically just means that half the litter will be het albino, half will be completely normal, but as there is no way of visually determining which are which they are all termed 50% hets; as in a 50% chance).


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## arranthesnakekeeper (Apr 19, 2008)

*thanks but?*

emm when u said pastel did you mean super pastel or just pastel and should i get a baby, sub adult or adult. whichever one is best how much will it cost


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

pied pythons said:


> As Athravan stated; if you find a ''het pastel'' you are being conned as they don't exist.
> 
> Paulh is refferring to dominant recessiveness; a visual het from a co-dominant morph (for example a pastel could be called a heterozygous form of a super pastel). Although as mentioned this is not a term usually coined in the Uk; where any ''hets'' are of reccessive strain.


The problem is that Heterozygous only means "the genes of a pair are different" - and has nothing to do with whether a gene is recessive to wildtype or not.

The use of "het" to mean "invisibly carrying a recessive gene" only is technically incorrect and leads to misunderstandings about dominant and codominant traits (and people wind up wondering "If spider is dominant why haven't I gotten ALL spider offspring?") and the difference between dominant and homozygous.

A pastel IS het for the pastel gene - two copies makes a super.
A normal het albino is *also* het normal-not-albino.
Most Spiders are likely to be het spiders.

To be completely honest, if you want visual albino offspring, you'll need to breed to a het or visual albino.
If you don't CARE about the albino babies, then breeding to a codominant gene like a pastel is going to be a quick way of getting visual offspring - you can get one in the first generation rather than having to wait and hope!


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