Genetics Question?

[mister]

I have always been interested in getting an albino boa constrictor (a snow boa would be even better) but i have questions about the hets?

http://www.theboaphile.com/available1.php?catID=21&catName=Possible%20Het%20for%20Albino
On that page it says "These Boas are all 66% possible het for Albino." Does that mean that they will look more albino after the shedding if they are truly albino. Because the 66% means that if i buy that boa, i have a 66% chance that it will be albino? Right?

or does it mean that i would have to bread a male and female of those types of snakes, and i might get an offspring to be an albino boa constrictor. all help is much needed. thanks in advanced.

-Mister

[kasper22]

66% het refers to the chance of it being heterozygus (sp?) for ablinoism. Or het for short.

For ablinoism to be the visible triat they need two copys of the gene because it is recesive. This case would be homozygus and you would have an albino. If only one gene is present you have a het and the snake would apear normal. To get these genes one comes from each parent.

So to break it down. An albino bred to a normal female you would het all hets.

An abino bred to a het female you would get half of them as hets the other half albinos.

Albino to albino you would get all abino.

And this part really awnsers your question. A het to het breeding for every four babies there would be one albino two hets for albino and one normal. So out of the three normal babies two would be hets and one normal. 2/3 = 66% which is the chance that you get a het for albino.

And if you breed a het to a normal all the babies look normal and have a 50% chance of being het for albino.

I hope this helps clear this up some for you.

[mister]

Ok, that does help, but now i have a follow up question.

So if i would buy a male and female off of this page (http://www.theboaphile.com/available1.php?catID=21&catName=Possible% 20Het%20for%20Albino) and they had, lets say 4 babies for easy numbers.

One baby would be albino, one baby would be plain ole normal boa, and 2 would be 66% het for albino?

And my second question, how do i know which ones would be het for albino, or is it 66% because 2 of the 3 are possible het for albino?

[ratman]

If you bought two of them and bred them you would statisticly get one albino and two het for albino and one normal. The hets will look normal too so that is the thing; you can't tell which ones have the gene for albino so you if you picked out three babies statisticly you would get 2 hets out of the 3. Thus, you have a 66% chance of picking a het out of the normal looking babies. :'(

[The_Boaphile]

When I breed a het to a het Boa and have say 24 babies, normally around 6 will be Albino and ALL the rest might be het for Albino or carry the Albino trait. So 18 normal appearing babies. Of these 18 on average 12 will be het and 6 not het. Nobody knows for sure which are which so it is said that the offspring are 66% or have a two out of three chance of being het for Albino.

So if you purchase one or a pair of 66% possible het for Albino Boas each of those two animals have a 2/3 possibility of being het for Albino themselves. Breeding any pair of these 66% possible het for Albino Boas together you have a 44% chance that they will in fact both be hets and so then you will get the numbers you mentioned. 1 in 4 Albino, 2 in 4 hets and one normal. Keep in mind the hets and the normals will in fact be indistinguishable though so for all practical purposes you will get 1 Albino in 4 babies but only if both of your 66% possible hets prove to be in fact hets.

Let me see if I can further complicate it. These are the numbers I ran years ago when I decided my best money spent was with possible hets myself. Say you raised 100 pair of 66% possible hets to adulthood. Let's also assume at five years of age you breed every single pair of these Boas successfully. So you will have 100 litters of baby Boas. Now let's further assume that each litter has exactly 24 babies in it. That would be 2400 baby Boas! Assuming the mathematical average, 44 of the litters will have albinos. 66 of the litters will have been pairings where one or both of the parents were not actually het. But 44 of the litters would be pairings that have two het for Albino Parents. So after taking the time and money to raise 200 Boas to adulthood and breed them you would be producing 264 Albino Boas this first year. Of course the numbers are not realistic. We are not talking Ball Pythons here, we are talking Boas. They just aren't that predictable unlike one of the most prolific and predictable Reptiles on Earth, Ball Pythons.

So bottom line if you are wanting to be positive that if you produce a good litter of babies that you will definitely be making Albinos you need to buy Hets and not possible hets. For many the possibility of producing Pastel Albinos has made the risk of purchasing possible hets worth it. I for one continue to keep plenty of great looking possible hets to breed myself. It's still my best investment.

There are only two ways to know for sure that a Boa is a het for Albino; 1. One of the animals parents were an Albino. 2. If after breeding a possible het for Albino Boa it produces an Albino, you then know that that animal is in fact a het. Those are the only ways to be 100% sure.

[mister]

Do you see 100% het for albino?  Because if you breed 2 albinos, the entire litter is albino, correct?

So back to the litter of 4.  The one is albino, and the other three, two are hets and one is normal.  What if all three of them are male, or all three of them are female?  That is possible correct?  How do you determine the sex of a boa?

And thank you to everyone who helped, especally Jeff for that great explination. I look forward to owning my own boas some day, hopefully albinos. :)

[The_Boaphile]

"Do you see 100% het for albino?" I have no idea what that question means but yes. When you breed an Albino to an Albino all the resulting offspring are Albinos. Breed a het for Albino to an Albino and half the litter will be Albino and half will be het for Albino. Breed an Albino to a normal that isn’t het and all the babies will appear normal but will in fact be het for Albino. Breed a het to a het and one in four will be an Albino and I guess we discussed that at length already.

Good luck!

Jeff

[Darrin_Brasher]

1.1 definate hets or an albino X definate het is your best bet . 1.1 albino isnt a good idea . Albinism is a genetic defect to begin with . That being the defect we see . There is ofcourse the possiblity of hidden defects that could show in ways one would not be pleased with. Breeding albino x albino compounds the defect and makes for a weaker strain .

[SnakePool]

From my understanding, albino to albino cause all sorts of birth defects.

Get yourself an albino and outcross the bloodlines so you don't end up with a weak bloodline.

[mister]

"Do you see 100% het for albino?" I have no idea what that question means but yes.

Sorry, i ment to say, do you have...

Are snakes like humans where you cant imbreed? Like a father snake to a daughter snake, etc. ?

[SHAWN_BOORMAN]

Who says we can't inbreed? (KIDDING)

[Darrin_Brasher]

Line breeding is perfectly acceptable . I have been line breeding the same strain of rats for 11 years now . No defects .

[ash]

I have heard you can have blood work done to see if a boa carry's the albino gene ,is this true?also I have 50% poss het if I breed her to a 100% het male ,and she carried the gene would i get a albino?thanks,,jeff

[Darrin_Brasher]

Im not sure about the blood work . Seems like it would be quite high to isolate a genetic marker for a particular mutation and then draw blood and do the same for each snake of a clutch might cost more than the snake itself is worth .

[mister]

Line breeding is perfectly acceptable . I have been line breeding the same strain of rats for 11 years now . No defects .

So i could breed boas from the same family?  (Imbreeding)??

[beastie]

Mister -

just to clarify for you (but i think you already have it...):

any form of 'het' for albino (100%, 66%, etc) boa will appear absolutely normal it's entire life, no changing after sheds, etc. all hets do is have the ability to produce actual albinos, which are quite visibly albino at birth.

now to that last question...

you sure could inbreed, and it's done quite often.

of course, the people doing are trying to isolate specific genes such as albinism and others... which, if you bought unrelated hets, you wouldn't need to worry about it... i.e. - if you bought hets, and they produced an albino, then you wouldn't need to inbreed a second generation. you could breed that albino to an unrelated normal boa, produce 100% hets, and cut down on defects. of course, if that albino were male, you could also breed it back to a sibling at the same time, produce more albinos from the same line, and then breed those albinos to unrelated normal or het boas.

with albinos it's pretty much a good idea to outbreed every other generation at least...

in conclusion:

Listen to Jeff!!!

Buy your hets from Jeff!!!

Buy me a het from Jeff!!!


:P



bc

[mister]

I want a boa that looks like this. (http://www.theboaforum.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=boapics1&action=display&num=1059604394)

Can Jeff get me that, if so, Jeff will be the man i will buy from. Even if he cant, ill probably still buy from him :)

[Darrin_Brasher]

Yes , and no . I wouldnt call it imbreeding rather line breeding or selective breeding . The father to daughters or mother to sons. Crossing brother x sister 1st gen doesnt cause a problem .Going past that youd be getting into problems . If you wanna see an example of this look for some pics of the leucistic texas rat snake. It was certainly genetically butchered by many showing up with extremely big eyes .

[Randy_T.]

I thought I would mention this to you since alot of people neglect to explain fully. when you Breed the hets together each neonate (baby) has a 25% chance of being albino, 50% chance of being het and 25% chance of being normal, so in some rare incidents you can produce more then the normal number of albinos, and also sometimes produce 1 or no albinos. Later Randy T.

[mister]

So i could do brother to sister BUT NOT mom to son?

And that is why you get 100% het albino.  :)

[Randy_T.]

you can breed a neonate back to one of the parents, that is what line breeding is. :'(

[mister]

So you can do parent to siblings, but not siblings to siblings?

And one more question. If you breed a normal boa to an albino, will the offspring be 100% het albino?

Thanks for all the help from everyone.