They are beautiful but how do you people identify a very low expression that has no pied marking has pied? And for the high expression how does one even guess what in it and put a price tag with a bunch of maybe it has this in it, with a good conscience …And it not just piebald i see many poss monsoon single gene animal at 800$+ for a maybe …
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Sadly any of the hot new genes will run a high price tag on possible hets. Sunset and Monsoon are currently 2 of the most popular new ones. It’s sometimes fun to gamble on a possible het… But when prices are that much for possibly nothing, I avoid the game entirely.
Piebald a lot of times will mess with the pattern of the animal a lot even if the white is very low expression. If the markings look especially funky and the white splashes a little higher on the belly that’s a good indicator.
With high white Pieds… It’s tough. Most reputable breeders will charge only for what they see. For example, my girl is a very high white pewter pied, possible sandblast. That was what I paid for. But now that she’s grown a bit, I think she also has leopard. Yellow belly is also possible but you can’t tell when all she has is a brown ‘hat’ on a white snake.
The same thing goes with snakes like BEL. You can sometimes see markings under a blacklight with them, but otherwise it can be hard. A male I bought as a super Mojave het pied is also very possibly super or single gene cinnamon or also sandblast. I suspect at the very least cinny. But I only paid super Mojave het pied price.
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yeah, i won’t be buying anything that is not 100% het with clear sign that it is, like seen the actual pairing. I was asking for pied because they do interest me but was wondering if it was normal for me to think that it wrong to make someone pay for something that may not be there at all. And for the poss het high-end stuff i think that big breeder has enough money in their pocket to confirm if it is or not.
I think it look really bad when it a big name charging big for a single gene animal that may not have what you are really paying for. If people have the money to get into these projects that worth a lot of money, they should 100% shed test instead of ripping people off. That interesting info for the pied .so the belly of the low expression pied tend to be higher with a funky jumble up alien heads. I have het red axanthic in my pairing … im not sure if enchi would be strong enough to make a 50% pied ,het red axanthic have tend to make high pieds and worst for red axanthic .
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They can’t just go and shed test it. Tests take many months to create and they already gave a line of other genes ahead of the new one. It could be 3 years before a sunset or monsoon test comes out.
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Sunset is out actually with RGI. Monsoon might still be in the works but I haven’t checked in for a couple weeks to see.
But even with testing available, there are still a lot of people that charge a little too crazily for possible genes. Even non-recessive ones. I just tend to ignore those sellers.
Heck. I was interested in a paradox BEL I saw at a show recently. And was instantly turned off when the person at the table couldn’t even tell me what BEL genes were involved. Just, “It’s a BEL paradox”. And they were asking 1k. Lol
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that not what they said int their videos of shed test they said they are about to have an accurate test that will be very soon out …Right now, it should be hold on. instead of gambling and getting potentially rip off. it bad for both party the client lose money, the breeder lose reputation and potentially a long-term future client.
I’m with you on that i will NEVER get a simple BEL for more than 500$…1k wtf!? just no! I can get a very nice snake or 2 with 1k.
I was more so making an example because I don’t follow RGI very closely. Either way some breeders charge way too much for a het even compared to other breeders
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Shed testing is a game changer. I’m anxiously waiting for a monsoon test to launch for my 2.7 possible hets.
Possible hets have always been controversial. I think most snake breeders are the glass half empty personality type that is most concerned that it might not be a het.
I’ve long been bottom feeding by buying possible het males for morphs were I couldn’t yet afford 100% hets much less homozygous. I started my piebald project with 3 possible het males around 20 years ago and have proven many possible hets picked based on het pied markers. I did recently have an albino that I thought might have been a 0% white pied but turned out to be a high expression het pied. Nice that we can now shed test for pied genotype.
More recently my original pos het monsoon male took an extra year to start breeding so his 7 holdback daughters with het monsoon markers are only just now reaching breeding size. 100% het monsoons are still too expensive for me but I’m optimistic I’ll soon be able to confirm through testing that I have multiple adult hets already because I took a chance on a possible het male 4 years ago.
Ultimately the free market system determines how much possible hets are worth. But with more gene tests coming online the days of possible het hacks for budget breeders might be coming to an end. It is interesting to me to see possible hets for sale for morphs that are already testable. I guess it comes down to price of testing and time for results vs how much results would change the price either way. There is also the potential for a shady breeder to test and still sell the negatives as possible hets. Hopefully no one would do that.
Actually… That would be something I’m curious about too. I’ve seen the good breeders update listings when they turn out to be negative…
@eaglereptiles is this already on the radar? I know RGI is partnered with MM and Kinova for test sales. Maybe a little marker on the animal’s listing for ‘I have been shed tested’? I don’t know if that’s maybe a privacy breach of some sort…
You used to could know it wasn’t already tested if the snake was less than 6 weeks old, lol. But now with fast testing …
I did read or maybe watch a comment by JKR something to the effect that even the negative results animals sell better after testing. It totally rang true to my experience. Most people hate possible hets so much they would rather have 0% chance het than worry they might have been taken advantage of on a possible het. Like you had to discount from normal to sell as possible het.
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i do prefer 0% het mostly if it something that i don’t want in my project. if the animal is poss het something i dont mind but i buy it for what it already has, that also im ok with .
There are a lot of unknown hets floating around as well. There have been more than one case of someone buying something like an albino or pied and getting visual offspring. That’s probably the result of people having really bad odds and assuming an animal wasn’t a het or just possible hets being sold and never proven out.
Or just selling possible hets for more as normals, lol.
I was disappointed that none of my panel tests found anything het for a gene I wasn’t expecting. No bonus genes for me.
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With certain genes like monsoon, the “hets” are visually easy to see and that is part of why people charge more for them. I have three “poss het” monsoons in my collection that I am not going to bother testing even when the test comes out because I know full well based on their appearance that they’ll prove. In examples like that, when you can see the markers and it’s questionable whether a gene should even be classified as recessive, I do understand people charging for “poss hets” they think will prove. That said, some people still charge way too much. If 100% hets are in the 2-3k range, poss hets should be no more than $600-$800 in my opinion, because while it’s classified as recessive there is still the possibility that it won’t prove. Personally, if I see the markers in the poss het, I’ll absolutely buy it based on that.
Regarding unknown hets though, there are A LOT. Many, many breeders will intentionally leave out possible hets when selling or even 100% hets depending on what market they’re selling in. Het albino, het pied, het hypo are all very commonly floating around and I personally know breeders who have been selling 100% het dg animals without disclosing the hets as well.
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