Questions regarding genetics . . .

[peep_827]

Well, I have some genetics questions that I couldn't answer via general searching the site, so I will put them out there and see what I find out . . . I am really a newbie and am considering small-time breeding down the line. So . . .

1) I know normal is dominant. Is there anything you can breed with a normal (that you have no clue if it is het for anything) that will not produce all normals? And if you were to breed a particularly nice normal with another particularly nice normal are you likely to get the same, or who knows?

2) Having read that a beginner breeder should think about what they like and breed for that I have to admit that I especially like normals, stripes of any color, and ghosts. So my 1st question is, if you breed 2 ghosts will you get ghost babies? I read that ghost is a mix of anerythistic A and hypomelanism (hope I spelled that right, not going to dig out the book) so could you breed a ghost with either of those and still get ghost babies? What about striped ghosts?

Well, I guess that's enough questions for now. I want to get another snake, I hate it when Monty is digesting and I have to leave him alone . . . however decided that if I might eventually breed I ought to figure out what I want to do BEFORE I plunk down my $$ for a girl. OR decide Monty is a pet and buy 2 ghosts, I found a beautiful male ghost today, I'm so tempted to get him . . . then I'd have 2 boys!!! LOL Won't get far that way . . .

 

[Joejr14]

Well, I have some genetics questions that I couldn't answer via general searching the site, so I will put them out there and see what I find out . . . I am really a newbie and am considering small-time breeding down the line. So . . .

1) I know normal is dominant. Is there anything you can breed with a normal (that you have no clue if it is het for anything) that will not produce all normals? And if you were to breed a particularly nice normal with another particularly nice normal are you likely to get the same, or who knows?

2) Having read that a beginner breeder should think about what they like and breed for that I have to admit that I especially like normals, stripes of any color, and ghosts. So my 1st question is, if you breed 2 ghosts will you get ghost babies? I read that ghost is a mix of anerythistic A and hypomelanism (hope I spelled that right, not going to dig out the book) so could you breed a ghost with either of those and still get ghost babies? What about striped ghosts?

Well, I guess that's enough questions for now. I want to get another snake, I hate it when Monty is digesting and I have to leave him alone . . . however decided that if I might eventually breed I ought to figure out what I want to do BEFORE I plunk down my $$ for a girl. OR decide Monty is a pet and buy 2 ghosts, I found a beautiful male ghost today, I'm so tempted to get him . . . then I'd have 2 boys!!! LOL Won't get far that way . . .

If you're breeding a normal with no hets x a non normal snake, you'll get all normals. Normal is dominant over everything. Corns need to have both recessive gene expressed in order to show as that particular morph.

There are traits such a bloodred that are co-dominant, but the snake will not look like a bloodred, but you might see that it is somewhat diffused, a non-normal checkering belly pattern, etc.

A ghost x anery a will result in all of the babies being Anery a, het for hypo.

A ghost x hypo will result in all hypo babies, het for anery.

You could breed a ghost x anery het hypo, and you would get some ghosts.

Hope that helps.

 

[peep_827]

That does help!!! I hadn't thought about co-dominant traits. Hmmmm . . . I'll have to investigate that more.

Would ghost x ghost make more ghosts? Or would I need to find an anery het hypo to get ghost babies?

I was looking at ghosts today, boy they are not all the same! I am worried if I got that male ghost I like I'd have a heck of a time finding a nice girl for him. LOL All the ghost girls I saw today had very gray backgrounds, I don't like those as much as the ones with the very light backgrounds. I guess to each their own, right?

 

[TBurkeIII]

bloodred is not a co-dom trait...they have potential to express some traits of bloodred as hets but that does not necessarily make them co-dom. a great way to learn genetics would be to check out some books or hang out on the forum for a while and hear what the experts have to say. sometimes it can get real complicated. Serp has a genetics book out that gets updated quite often and i hear it is real good.

 

[hediki]

1. you can mix normals with bloods and they'll come out lookin like bloods.
2. what joe jr said

 

[TBurkeIII]

yes you can...i have some of exactly what you are talking about, but like i said that does not make them co-dom.

 

[hediki]

That does help!!! I hadn't thought about co-dominant traits. Hmmmm . . . I'll have to investigate that more.

Would ghost x ghost make more ghosts? Or would I need to find an anery het hypo to get ghost babies?

I was looking at ghosts today, boy they are not all the same! I am worried if I got that male ghost I like I'd have a heck of a time finding a nice girl for him. LOL All the ghost girls I saw today had very gray backgrounds, I don't like those as much as the ones with the very light backgrounds. I guess to each their own, right?

and a ghost x ghost will make ghost and a anery will will make 1/2 ghost and 1/2 aney het hypo

 

[TBurkeIII]

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17539&highlight=bloodred

this thread will show a het bloodred...notice the belly pattern...it is still a normal, not a bloodred. if bloodred were co-dom than this would be considered a bloodred, which it isn't

 

[TBurkeIII]

i don't want to sound repetive hear but ask some guys who write the books...and have been doing this for a while now, you are recieving some wrong info hear

 

[hediki]

i don't want to sound repetive hear but ask some guys who write the books...and have been doing this for a while now, you are recieving some wrong info hear

yea the morph guide is good to get, but do you mean by

you are recieving some wrong info hear

?

 

[peep_827]

Tom - Thanks for trying to clear this up for me. I understood that normal X bloodred would come out w/bloodredish normals, right? That would actually be het for bloodred? I think it's a neat idea. I'm just curious. I think Monty is a beautiful snake, I might just get him a normal g/f and see what happens. Interestingly I went to several stores today and saw NO normals and 1/2 dozen ghosts. I thought normals were the most common? If I am going to breed I'd like to do something interesting (not in it for profit, however I would like to produce babies that would sell so I don't get overrun!).

 

[TBurkeIII]

nothing personal to you hediki...so i hope you didn't take it that way.

a ghost to ghost breeding would produce all ghost

 

[hediki]

nothing personal to you hediki...so i hope you didn't take it that way.

a ghost to ghost breeding would produce all ghost

no i didnt, i was just wonderin wat it ment. i dont realy take things personaly all the time :cheers:

 

[Hurley]

this thread will show a het bloodred...notice the belly pattern...it is still a normal, not a bloodred. if bloodred were co-dom than this would be considered a bloodred, which it isn't

Are you sure you're using the term you mean to use?

If a trait is DOMINANT, then an animal het for the trait or homozygous for the trait look the same. They are both fully affected. In this instance, I agree with you that the example above is not a DOMINANT trait.

If a trait is CO-DOMINANT, then there are 3 types of phenotypes possible. 2 normal genes = normal animal. One normal gene, one mutant gene = an animal that shows some degree of the mutation, anywhere from barely there to almost fully expressed, but is NOT the same as the homozygous trait where the animal has both mutant genes. Diffusion (aka bloodred) IS a codominant gene. Normals are normals. Hets may show varying degrees of effect. Diffuseds (bloodreds) are diffuseds (bloodreds).

If you meant Dominant, rather than co-dominant, I agree. If you meant co-dominant, than I have to disagree for the reasons stated above.

 

[Joejr14]

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17539&highlight=bloodred

this thread will show a het bloodred...notice the belly pattern...it is still a normal, not a bloodred. if bloodred were co-dom than this would be considered a bloodred, which it isn't

Nobody said it wasn't a normal. And nobody is saying that bloodred x normal gives you bloodreds. That is not what co-dominant is.

I think you're mistaken.

If bloodred was totally recessive, you wouldn't see ANY effects of the bloodred trait. Yet, in most cases you do, like yours for example.

 

[TBurkeIII]

from what i gathered is that (bare with me on this) for co-dom if you breed a blood to a normal you get all normals het blood. some of those normals will show traces of blood red traits. if the animal were co-dom then we would be having SOME bloodreds born in that litter not all normals het blood. i know breeding boas that when you take an arabesque(pattern) gene which is co-dom in boas, and breed it to a normal you will have a percentage of the litter to be arabescque. now if you take a blood boa and breed it to a normal boa you will get all normals het for blood...but some of those babies will have some traits that can resemble a blood boa. that does not make it a co-dom trait. it is still recessive. anyway i might be having a brain fart for some reason right now forgive me if i am. thanks

 

[TBurkeIII]

from what i gathered is that (bare with me on this) for co-dom if you breed a blood to a normal you get all normals het blood. some of those normals will show traces of blood red traits. if the animal were co-dom then we would be having SOME bloodreds born in that litter not all normals het blood. i know breeding boas that when you take an arabesque(pattern) gene which is co-dom in boas, and breed it to a normal you will have a percentage of the litter to be arabescque. now if you take a blood boa and breed it to a normal boa you will get all normals het for blood...but some of those babies will have some traits that can resemble a blood boa. that does not make it a co-dom trait. it is still recessive. anyway i might be having a brain fart for some reason right now forgive me if i am. thanks

 

[Joejr14]

I dont believe that's true, at least that's not my understanding of what co-dominant means.

Basically, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, codominant means that two alleles are equally dominant, which results in somewhat of a blending effect. No animal that is expressing co-dominance will look fully bloodred. That would mean that bloodred is dominant over normal, which it is not.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Think back to when the churches used to insist that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it, and the planets went in little circles around a circle and went backwards from time to time, and how they invented this huge and elaborate and nonsensical system to explain the movement of the planets.

That is how "genetics" is currently explained in the boa world. Seriously. None of it makes any sense because none of it is based on an actual working model of genetics. They have gone off on such a bizarre path that it is impossible to follow, and it is useless to try to use it to describe reality. I'm not saying this to be insulting, I'm saying it because it is simply not possible to explain anything in terms of "boa genetics."

As far as "if you cross this to that you get such and such," none of it matters. This has nothing to do with dominant, codominant, or recessive. It is like trying to explain that nine is greater than seven by saying that nine times seven is sixty-three.

If you have two alleles at a given locus (let's call the locus A and call the alleles A⁺ and a^a) then there are exactly three genotypes:
1- A⁺·A⁺
2- A⁺·a^a
3- a^a·a^a

If A⁺·A⁺ looks exactly like A⁺·a^a then A⁺ is dominant to a^a.

If a^a·a^a looks exactly like A⁺·a^a then a^a is dominant to A⁺.

In all other cases, the two have some level of codominance. Codominant does not mean "equal," it simply means that neither one is completely suppressed. That could be 50/50, or it could be anywhere from 99/1 to 1/99.

That is all codominant means. It describes the relationship between two and only two alleles. There is no such thing as a codominant genotype. There is no such thing as a codominant phenotype. There is no such thing as a codominant snake.

By the real definition, the diffused (D^D) allele is codominant to its wild-type (D⁺) allele. The amount of expression can vary.

 

[peep_827]

Yeah, like green and hazel eyes are a codominant incomplete expression between the genes for brown (dominant) and blue (ressesive). I'm talking people's eyes, BTW, not corns. LOL Anyway, just trying to say, since I started this mess, I get it. Thanks everyone!!!