Question about hets.

[DarkNTwisty]

I have a Mack Snow female that is 50% het for eclipse, blizzard, and tremper that has just reached 50 grams. I plan on breeding her when she reaches between 55 and 60 grams to my Mack Snow male with no hets. How do hets work? Will all the offspring be 25% het for eclipse, blizzard, and tremper or will they only be possibly het? Is there anyway for me to know without breeding them if they got any of their mothers hets?

 

[tb144050]

There is an easy calculator (which I will post at the bottom) but first I want to help you understand how it works. To begin, you have to identify the type of gene you are wanting to "track"...such as recessive, co-dominant, dominant.

For eclipse, albino (all 3 types), blizzard, and some other genes, the Leo has to have DOUBLE-recessive genes if you want the "effect" to be active/visible.


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For example:

capital letters are DOMINANT form, and lowercase are "recessive" form.

tremper = tt
het tremper = Tt (this isn't visible/active, but this one parent has a POSSIBILITY of passing on the desired "t" recessive gene or an equal chance of passing on the NON-albino "T" gene.

eg...a "tremper eclipse" has the genes: tt (for tremper albino) and ee (for eclipse).
eg...a "tremper het eclipse" has the genes: tt and Ee (so the eclipse gene isn't visible).
eg...a "het tremper het eclipse" = Tt Ee (the Leo doesn't display albino or eclipse).
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Now let's look at the future children of the "tremper het eclipse" (tt Ee):
When this Leo reproduces, the hatchlings will get only ONE of the "letters" for each gene....so this momma Leo may randomly give the following genes to the following hatchlings:

hatchling1: tE
hatchling2: te
hatchling3: tE
hatchling4: te
(NOTE: ^^ these are the FOUR combinations possible. Because the momma-Leo is double-recessive "tt", the results for hatchlings 3 & 4 are the SAME as h1 & h2.)

VERY IMPORTANTTTTT NOTE^^^^^^: Notice that only half the hatching-combinations will inherit the lower case "e" but ALL the children will inherit a lower case "t"?? This comes into play later.....

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Let's look at the possible genes donated from a "het tremper het blizzard het eclipse" (Tt Bb Ee)...there are more possibilities..

h1: TBE
h2: TBe
h3: Tbe
h4: TbE
h5: tBE
h6: tBe
h7: tbe
h8: tbE
etc etc etc....the hatching will receive randomly ONE of the parents gene for each trait.

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AT THE SAME TIME: The hatchling will receive (randomly) only ONE of each gene from the daddy..lol.

So from momma, h1 gets tbE. From daddy, h1 gets Tbe. Combined, the hatchling has: tT bb Ee. So it is "Blizzard het tremper het eclipse". However, the Blizzard is the ONLY visible and confirmable gene-trait. The "het tremper" and "het eclipse" can be there, but there is no way to know without testbreeding next year (or more) because it is NOT visible/confirmable as double recessive.


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Because the hatchlings have a possibility of carrying a non-active gene (but it isn't visible), we have to calculate the mathematical POSSIBILTY that the hatchlings might have a non-visible gene. UNLESS (see special note above) the parent was "confirmable" as double recessive. If the parent was a confirmable tremper, for example, the parent has "tt"..............so we absolutely KNOW that the hatchling is "het tremper" because the parent only has "tt" as available genes to pass on. Hence, the hatchling has atleast 1 "t" because of the "tt" of the one parent.

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Sadly, when you said "50% het for eclipse", that means that there is ONLY 50% POSSIBILITY that your mack snow female is "het eclipse" (Ee)...and also 50% chance that she got "non-het eclipse" (EE).

If you are lucky, she is actually "het eclipse" (Ee). If you are luckier, one of your hatchlings might get the recessive eclipse gene "e" (instead of "E").

However, sadly, even if you hit the genetic lottery, and she actually is "tbe" (truely "het tremper blizzard eclipse", after mating with your male with "no hets", All of the hatchlings with have NO visible/confirmable/active traits. Also, they will have a lower percentage possibilty that the recessive gene for each trait is being passed successfully.


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So to summarize, there is only a 50% chance your female is "het tremper", 50% change she is "het blizzard", and 50% chance your female is "het eclipse".....and a lower possibility that the hatchling carry the gene (something like 25% possible het tremper, 25% possible het blizzard, 25% possible eclipse).

But unless you breed her to a male that has "hets" (for any of the 3 genes), there is never any possible way to confirm the recessive gene traits, and it will only be confirmed if the hatchling randomly gets a recessive gene from each (such as ee).

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As for the mating of 2 mack snows, I think you can get "super snows"?? The calculator I link to will show you most all the possible combinations.

(I hope this is the explanation you were looking for...I'm sleepy and may have missed the point, but once I started typing...I couldn't stop until I explained it all....lol)

 

[tb144050]

Leopard Gecko Genetics Calculator

 

[tb144050]

Ok, so after playing with the Calculator, I see that "mack snow" is a Co-Dominant gene. This means that there has to be ATLEAST 1 Dominant gene for that trait if you want a visible/confirmable trait.

For mack snow, we will call it a minimum of "Mm". You said momma is mack snow "Mm" and the male is mack snow "Mm", soooo the possibilities are:

MM: (super snow)
Mm: (mack snow)
mM: (mack snow)
mm: (non-mack snow?? so...wild-type??)

^^so in summary, the four possible combinations from 2 mack snows are:

50% chance of a hatchling being mack snow
25% chance of SUPERSNOW (jackpot)
25% chance of "non-mack" (dud....no dominant trait received)

 

[tb144050]

50% chance of a hatchling being mack snow
25% chance of SUPERSNOW (jackpot)
25% chance of "non-mack" (dud....no dominant trait received)

I just used the calculator for "mack snow" x "mack snow" and I got the results above (quoted).

Then I typed in that the female was absolutely (in your case just "possibly...") "het tremper" "het eclipse" "het blizzard":

I got the same results as quoted above, but the results are completely broken down into about 20+ "het" combinations....which won't be visible anyway, so you won't know until test-breeding/proven.

 

[DarkNTwisty]

Thank you, that was very informative. I knew about the co-dominant genes and my chances of getting mack snow, super snow and normal, it was just the hets I was confused about.

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[tb144050]

Thank you, that was very informative. I knew about the co-dominant genes and my chances of getting mack snow, super snow and normal, it was just the hets I was confused about.

Sent from my HTCEVODesign4G using Tapatalk

You're welcome. There is a chance the female had an unseen copy of the tremper, eclipse, or blizzard genes. The hatchlings have even less chance of carrying those unseen single-recessive "hets", but they have no chance of displaying Tremper, blizzard, or eclipse UNLESS the male is "het ______" and you just didn't know it. (the gene may have been hidden for 2 or more generations, just similar to your female's diminishing chance of recessive genes ("hets"). Slim chance, but possible.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Snow is easy since you can see it but for the other hets there is no way of knowing without breeding. If I were in your situation I would label the babies by saying - mother was 50% het for eclipse, blizz and tremper and/or low possible het for eclipse, blizard and tremper as 25% het is misleading.

I say it's misleading because 50% het means there is a 50/50 chance mother may have each gene or she may not (they are not connected so she could have one gene or all three - you can't tell without test breeding). If she has a gene, the babies are 50% possible het for it. If she does not, they are 0% possible het. This isn't quite the same as having a 25% chance of having the het. Basically you're just letting folks know that it is a possibility and they should think twice before pairing with something a possible het may interfere with (like Bell albino or marble eye).

 

[trinity]

Nice replies you two.