efficient breeding for double homo.

[marchettid]

Suppose a breeder wanted any double homozygoes hatchling cornsnakes. For example: BloodredXCaramel. What is the best way to achieve these results, without getting all BloodredXCaramels, based on the following 2 breeding pairs:

Male = Bloodred, het. Caramel
Female = Caramel, het Bloodred

Offspring predicted as:

---------------------------------------------------
1/4 Normal(het. Bloodred, het. Caramel)
1/4 Caramel (het. Bloodred)
1/4 Bloodred (het. Caramel)
1/4 Bloodred, Caramel

OR

Male = het Bloodred, het. Caramel
Female = Bloodred, Caramel

Offspring predicted as:

---------------------------------------------------
1/4 Normal(het. Bloodred, het. Caramel)
1/4 Bloodred (het. Caramel)
1/4 Caramel (het. Bloodred)
1/4 Bloodred, Caramel


Both pairings have the exact same predicted offspring percentages. Which would you choose, and why?

 

[tyflier]

I would choose the first pair. Why? Frankly, because I don't like to buy normals just for the hets. If I was going to make the purchase based on desireable offspring, I would rather start with "more desireable" parentage.

Now...I know some people are gonna be upset by that, and plenty are gonna say "But normals are so varied and so pretty", and blablabla...and I agree, they ARE extremely variable AAND pretty.

But I love to look at my snakes, I love bloodreds, and I love caramels. So, given those choices(and money being no object), I would purchase the parents that appeal to me both in terms of phenotype AND genotype.

just my $.02...which after inflation isn't worht a whole lot .

 

[marchettid]

I would most likely choose the first pair as well. BUT, even though the percentages are the same, is one more likely to produce the double homozygous than the other. I would think the second pairing would have the best chance, because the female is guarenteed to pass both genes.??...

 

[toyah]

I would most likely choose the first pair as well. BUT, even though the percentages are the same, is one more likely to produce the double homozygous than the other. I would think the second pairing would have the best chance, because the female is guarenteed to pass both genes.??...

One is no more likely than the other to produce the desired results.

 

[Flagg]

Are you buying these snakes or already have all 4 and are deciding which to keep?

If buying them, I'd buy the 1st pair as 2 single homozygous snakes with hets would probably cost a lot less than the double homozygous female.

If I have all 4 and am selling 2, the 1st pair as well for basically the same reason, I'd make more money selling the double homo female.

Also, the single homo male is worth more for breeding to other females than the normal male with hets.

 

[Blue Apple Herps]

I would most likely choose the first pair as well. BUT, even though the percentages are the same, is one more likely to produce the double homozygous than the other. I would think the second pairing would have the best chance, because the female is guarenteed to pass both genes.??...

No. The 2nd pairing does not have a better chance. Yes, the female is guaranteed to pass a copy of the gene, but the male is no more likely to pass the copy of either more than the first pairs are likely to pass their hets. Strictly statistically speaking, both pairs will produce the exact same babies.

As for me, I would choose the 2nd pairing. Having the female homo for both would allow for a higher percentage of homo bloodred caramel if you bred one of the offspring back to the mother.

 

[paulh]

As others have stated, both pairs would give the same breeding results, so there is nothing to choose between them on that basis. For me, the choice would depend on non-genetic considerations -- price, age, physical condition, mellowness, etc.

 

[Susan]

For my choice, it would actually depend upon which pairing is more readily available for purchase. For your particular example, you probably have a much better chance of locating the first pair as caramel bloodreds aren't very plentiful. And if it was the example given by Flagg, of which pair to keep of the 4 snakes, I would actually keep the double homozygous female and pair it with the bloodred het caramel male, giving me a 50/50 double homozygous/bloodred het caramel clutch! I also would prefer the first pair as they would be better suited for other pairings, IMO, than a normal double het. And on a personal note, I have to actually live with even worse odds for the double homozygous offspring as all I have is a pair of double hets for caramel bloodred!

 

[Vinman]

you can buy my breeding trio of hypos that are het for blood , amber and lavender. last year I produced a amber bloodred and two hypo lavender blood one of those might be a amber/hypolavender bloodred. they are in the forsale sec. under mystery project

 

[marchettid]

I dont plan on actually doing this breeding project, it was just a hypothetical scenario. Found the idea that two rather different pairings could produce the same percentage of offspring. I think I would choose the first pairing as well.

 

[Ssthisto]

I've done something very similar with leopard geckos - bought an albino het blizzard and a blizzard het albino as a pair instead of a het albino/blizzard and a "blazing blizzard" double homozygous.

In that respect, I'd go with the first pairing too, because I get two visual morphs instead of one double morph and one normal het.