would you breed siblings together or not?

[ssssnakeluvr]

they can be bred together...lots of breeders do it without any bad consequences. generally an odd morph is found, babies are bred to each other or back to the mom. this produces more of the morph, then once more are created, they are usually outcrossed with other snakes and produce offspring that carry the gene. these are then bred together to produce more of that morph, but with different parents to increase the genetic diversity

[KITKAT]

When discussing inbreeding, many people focus on defects, and forget there are two other bothersome problems with this practice:

1. Inbreeding depression - the tendency of inbred animals to have progressive depression of their reproductive capabilities.

2. The tendency of inbreeding to weaken immune systems.

That being said, animals that produce litters, rather than single offspring, can withstand inbreeding if one is willing to have losses. The species deals with this by natural culling - the death or sterility of those individuals in the litter that have inherited one of the various problems caused by inbreeding.

Although it is standard practice in the herp hobby to breed relatives, and to breed animals that are possibly related due to lack of information regarding the CB parents, grandparents, and greats... I am often of the opinion that inbreeding, whether known/intentional, or unknown, can be the cause of some of our losses.

Based on this, my advice would be breed siblings, then when keeping offspring, breed those offspring to unrelated individuals.

Just my $.02