Hypo Corn Snake Genetics

Question
Hi!

I have two corn snakes, and the male is a snow corn and the female is a hypo.  The female had a clutch in June and they just hatched (all classic corns).  Anyways, this had me wondering about the genetics.  I am familiar with the Punnett Square and dominant and recessive traits but it is still pretty confusing to me!  

Is there a certain trick to telling what type of snakes will result from different genetic combinations?  The knowledgeable owners of the exotic pet store that I go to said that if we mated one of our female normal corn offspring with the snow corn that we could get snows, normals and anery corns.  Can they tell this because they know that certain genes or color combinations make anery corns or...  I don't know I'm confusing myself!  =P

Well thank you for taking time to read this.  Any kind of info you can give me on the genetics and types of corn snakes would be greatly appreciated!  Thank you!

Kerri

Answer
Kerri, it's your hypo that is confusing.  Hypo's are varible and there are different types.  In fact, one could breed two hypos and get classics.  So for the purpose of this conversation we will consider your hypo a normal corn.  It really is a normal because it has red and black (and yellow -but I'm not gonna go there right now).  It's considered hypo or hypomelanistic because it has less black than usual, but it still breeds as a normal because it does have some...

Normal Corn = RRBB
Anery Corn = rrBB
Amelanistic = RRbb
Snow Corn = rrbb

The genes for red and black are separate and this means when we do the Punnett square we have a Dihybrid cross (16 squares not 4).
You crossed RRBB w/ rrbb, which means all your offspring are RrBb.   They look normal because they got a gene for red and a gene for black from the hypo, BUT they also carrier both albino genes.  We call these "double hets," as they are heterozygous for both albino types (amels and anerys).

You could breed those offspring to each other and have the possibility of snow or breed them back to the snow parent and greatly increase your odds.  1:16 in the first case, 1:2 in the second.  You can probably look up a dihybrid cross on the internet or in an old biology book, then you can play with it and learn exactly how to figure it out for yourself.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions.

BTW as your offspring age they my very well turn out hypo...  Confused yet?!?!?!