beardy breeding question

[Steveokernow]

Hi all,

Last week I got another couple of girls to add to the ever growing collection, a trans and a leatherback. They are both so cool and have kind of really got me intrigued, I'm absolutely facinated!!

I'm in no position to start breeding my dragons, I'm disabled and just looking after the growing hoard takes it out of me! I really couldn't face looking after dozens of babies as well!!

But I am absolutely facinated by the trans and the leatherback genes, and what I want to know (purely out of interest) is how you go about breeding them. I understand a little about genetics, but what would you have to mate in order to produce say a hypo trans leatherback?

Am I right in thinking it would be by crossing a hypo trans with a hypo trans leatherback??

Cheers

[paulh]

All I know about leatherbacks came from this web site:

The Leatherback Bearded Dragon Morph - Hades Dragons UK

One way to get a hypo trans leatherback is to mate a hypo trans to a hypo trans leatherback. Expectation is that half of the babies would be hypo trans and the other half of the babies would be hypo trans leatherbacks.

But that assumes you can start with hypo trans and hypo trans leatherbacks. It take a bit longer if you start with a hypo and a trans and a leatherback. Here's how I'd do it from that starting point:

1. Mate a hypo and a trans. All the babies would look normal.
2. Mate the babies from the first mating. Expectation is that 1/16 of the babies would be hypo trans.
3. Mate a leatherback to a hypo trans from mating 2. Expectation is half of the babies would be leatherbacks.
4. Mate a leatherback from mating 3 to a hypo trans from mating 2. Expectation is 1/8 of the babies would be hypo trans leatherbacks.

Hope that helps.

[HadesDragons]

There are lots of ways to get one.

Leatherback is co-dom, so only one parent has to possess the gene for you to be in with a shot of leatherback babies.

Hypo and Trans are both recessive, so both parents must be at least het to give you a chance at getting Hypo or Trans (or Hypo Trans) babies.

Breeding two visuals together (ie Hypo Trans x Hypo Trans) will give you 100% visual babies, so Hypo Trans Leatherback x Hypo Trans will give you 50% Hypo Trans and 50% Hypo Trans Leatherback, as Paul said.

You could potentially get to it from a double het Hypo Trans x Leatherback double het Hypo Trans pairing (neither parent are visualls Hypo or Trans, and only one parent is visually Leatherback), although the odds per egg of getting a Hypo Trans Leatherback from that pairing would be 1/32, as opposed to 1/2 from a Hypo Trans x Hypo Trans Leatherback.

Various other combinations would also work, with varying odds of success, so long as one or both parents carry the Leatherback gene, and both parents carry one or two copies of both the Hypo and Trans genes.