Inbreeding

[jere000]

I wanted to know how many people inbreed their animals mom to son brother to sister etc.This the first part of my question so answer honestly please.Also if you could please post up how many generations you have inbred the snakes you work with.

[infernalis]

I have some F5 Albino red sided snakes I will not breed.

To be honest a pair of sibling hets are worthless unless you breed them.

(That sounds awful. They make great pets)

[jere000]

I have some F5 Albino red sided snakes I will not breed.

To be honest a pair of sibling hets are worthless unless you breed them.

(That sounds awful. They make great pets)Well there is always half siblings and buying snakes from different breeders from different breeders.I'm just wondering because i have seen quite a few deformities in garters and also a lot of people posting of breeding siblings.I know in boas people used to do it so much that albino boas split into two different strains sharp strain and kahl strain.Sharp and kahl strain albinos can't breed together and make albinos, also albino boas have issues like missing an eye or having no eyes and such from inbreeding and sparked up this idea for a thread.

[infernalis]

Similar rules apply to garter snakes. Many albinos from different bloodlines are not compatible.

[jere000]

Similar rules apply to garter snakes. Many albinos from different bloodlines are not compatible.Were those bloodlines ever compatible?

[ConcinusMan]

Albino T. radixes, specifically Iowa strain, and Nebraska strain are a good example. "not compatable" in the sense that the two strains result from different genes being mutated. The two won't combine. If your snakes are het for both you can produce both strains in a single litter, but you can't have a snake that is homozygous for both. I think that's what they mean by "incompatable". Such combining of the two strains will always result in homozygous snakes being either an iowa albino het for nebraska, or the other way around.

[MasSalvaje]

Were those bloodlines ever compatible?

No. The reason they are not compatable is because the "albino" gene/s is/are found on different alleles, it has nothing to do with inbreeding that I am aware of (That goes for the boa strains as well).

Just as inbreeding can bring out the recessive traits some of us are looking for (i.e. color morphs), it can also bring out deleterious or undesired traits that are already in the gene pool as well.

I also haven't noticed deformities at any higher rate in garters than in other species. We see birth deffects more but I believe that is because with "live" birth we see it whether it lives or not, that would apply to the boas as well. I would guess those same defects are there at the same rate in most snake species, we just don't see the evidence because if an egg goes bad we throw it away before actually taking a look at what is inside.

To my knowledge I have never inbred any of my snakes (I attribute that to not having any unique specimens or lines), but I am in no ways against it. I think we too often look at inbreeding in general as a moral issue instead of what is actually taking place at a biological level. We try to lable it good or bad when in all reality it can be good, bad, both, or niether all in the same clutch.

-Thomas

[infernalis]

I think we too often look at inbreeding in general as a moral issue instead of what is actually taking place at a biological level. We try to lable it good or bad when in all reality it can be good, bad, both, or niether all in the same clutch.

-Thomas

Very well said Thomas. Excellent post / point.

[gary27]

Personal opinion here: All inbreeding should not be lumped together. Some are much "tighter" than others. Descending order, again only my opinion:
1. Full siblings 2. Mother to son 3. Father to daughter 4. Half brother to Half sister 5. Grandfather to grandaughter....etc.
4 and 5 on down (cousin to cousin) are the only ones I would make. Also, at the risk of sounding obvious here, the only purpose of inbreeding is to tighten up a trait, and then outcross it to an unrelated individual in hopes of increasing the production of the desired trait. In other words, the purpose of inbreeding is the production of brood stock, and the resulting mental and physical deformities are a trade off. This is why people inbreed, and is as far as i am concerned, the only valid reason to inbreed.....Gary

[Charis]

I've asked this question before on other forums & never gotten an answer. Lots of times I'll see someone going to breed a son back to the mother to prove out a trait, which works best for the breeder as you don't need to wait as long for the male to reach maturity.
But my question is, in lots of mammal species, humans included, mother to son is the worst combo you can do from the stand point of getting defects. I had the reason why explained to me but no longer remember much about it, just that for some reason the genes between those two would be closer than a father x daughter cross. Does that apply to reptiles as well?
Also wanted to note that if you have a good understanding of genetics & what to look for & what you are trying to accomplish, then I'm not against inbreeding.

[jere000]

I understand trying to prove out a new morph but i mean inbreeding over and over again.With the two strains of albino boa that I'm talking about you breed them and you get normals het for nothing so i was wondering if anything happened similar in other snakes or what.At a biological level if there is deformities in a litter after 2 or 3 generations of inbreeding then the whole entire litter is weak not just the ones that show deformities.

[mb90078]

I don't think inbreeding once in garters proves to be overly risky or harmful.

I could be wrong, but I thought that with most "complex" animals, repeated inbreeding tends to produce bad results (even if alongside the desired traits), regardless of whether the group chosen is "weak" or not.

[MasSalvaje]

I understand trying to prove out a new morph but i mean inbreeding over and over again.With the two strains of albino boa that I'm talking about you breed them and you get normals het for nothing so i was wondering if anything happened similar in other snakes or what.At a biological level if there is deformities in a litter after 2 or 3 generations of inbreeding then the whole entire litter is weak not just the ones that show deformities.

Like I mentioned before, the reason that the two strains of boas are not compatible has nothing to do with inbreeding! You need to understand how the genetics work before you start looking at why they are not compatible. When you breed a Kahl with a Sharp the babies are a normal phenotype but heterozygous for both strains. Richard gave the same example previously with the Iowa and Nebraska strains of the Plains garter.

That said you are right about continued inbreeding. A good example of that is the SanFran garter population in Europe. If you have a limited gene pool you will eventually run into an issue known as population bottlenecking, which drastically increases susceptibility to conditions that may arise, increasing the chances of widespread mutation, disease, and even extinction.

The disadvantages of inbreeding apply much more to a population than they do to a specific individual.

-Thomas

[HazAnga]

I have never, but i have only started to breed, found a male and was fortunate to find 2 females, which i though was male and female. so i lucked out. But with the babies i got this year I've been planning on breeding one of the normals which looks like it could be a hypo or something, it's lighter marks are lighter then the rest, so in other words i'm trying to bring one that trait more so. But I'm not sure as to if it's a male or female yet. But I'm only willing to try it once, then I'd plan on going back to breeding my regular trio.
I think it's just easier and less time consuming to skip the inbreeding because of time to let them mature so a year or two, I git anxious and just want results, no matter how good they look there all beautiful to me.