That means that their offspring will have a trait that they are recessive for. 100% het for snow means that that balls offspring will have snows.
Dan, that is not exactly correct. Being 100% het means that the snake carries the trait for whatever it is het for, it just does not show the trait. It looks normal. For the following explanation lets just say we are talking about a 100% het albino. If you were to breed that 100% het ablino to a normal, all of the offspring would look normal as well. There would not be any albinos. Each offspring would have a 50% chance of being het as well as a 50% chance of being normal. Now to produce the albino morph you would need to breed the 100% het albino to another 100% het albino. Each egg would have a 25% chance of being albino, a 50% chance of being het albino and a 25% chance of being normal. If you were to breed the 100% het albino to a albino, each egg would have a 50% chance of being albino or a 50% chance of being het. Confused yet???
oh my god. that TOTALLY confused me. I was always wondering what Het meant, and now I think that I just don't care!!! So .. a het albino is different from a regular albino because of the offspring he can produce. However, to get an albino, wouldn't you need two het albinos, or just some lucky parents?
Boyton, Albino is a recessive gene. Any time you are dealing with recessive genes, BOTH parents have to carry that gene for it to show in their offspring. A het (which is short for Heterozygous) carries the gene, only it does not show it. It is hidden. So just think of het as hidden. A Het Albino carries both the Albino and the Normal gene. Only it looks normal, not albino. Now a Albino would be considered a homo (which is short for Homozygous). Meaning showing the recessive gene. It is not hidden. Now if you breed a Albino to a Normal, none of the babies will be Albino because BOTH parents did not carry the Albino gene. They would all be Hets because one parent IS an Albino. That is the only gene it carries and it passes that gene to its offspring. If you breed a Het Albino to a Normal, again none of the babies would be Albino because BOTH parents did not carry the gene. In this case each egg has a 50% chance of being Het Albino or a 50% chance of being Normal. The reason all of the eggs are not garuanteed to be Het Albino is becuase the parent that was Het Albino carried both a Albino gene AND a Normal gene and it passed BOTH of those genes down to its offspring. So to produce Albinos we would need to either breed 2 Albinos together, or a Albino and a Het Albino together, or 2 Het Albinos together. In each of these cases BOTH of the parents carry the Albino gene. Which is a must to reproduce a recessive gene Make more sense yet?
Unfortunately in the herp world "Het" usually is a term meaning "Give me allot more money for a normal snake than you normally would" You just DON'T buy a het snake from just anyone. I have a buddy that bought 1.2 100% het albino BPs from the Barkers ( who is a very reputable source) and all he has produced from them are normals. So even from a reliable source it isn't all that reliable.
Ed, I have to disagree with that. Hets are a great way to produce your own morphs without spending an arm and a leg. Granted you have to get them from a reliable source, but I have personally NEVER seen two proven hets produce only normals. Did your friend buy ALL hets or did he buy some possible hets in that mix?
A little off this forum, but I'm glad that is all explained. My albino leo, bred with a normal, and I was hoping to get an albino female from the eggs. But if I do get a female, she would carry the albino gene, even though she would look normal, and then when she is big enought, I could breed her with my other albino male, and those eggs could produce albinos, am I getting this right?
Thanks for explaining it to me. I feel sorta .. dumb .. I was in bio honors and aced the class. Maybe I slept through genetics. Or maybe you guys should just call them hetogyzious, because as soon as I saw the word, it all came together. =D -Julez
