Question on breeding...sort of

[Corinne33]

I wasn't sure if i should put this here or the breeding forum so if the mods want to move it I completely understand

I've noticed a lot of "inbreeding" in the snake world. Breeding littermates or parent to offspring. Does this not effect snakes the way it does other critters? I know in the wild they'll breed to whichever snake they happen to find regardless of if they're family or not but for those who have been doing this for a while, have you noticed any difference breeding unrelated pairs vs related pairs? And if its not a big deal why do some breeders specifically advirtise they can send an unrelated pair?

I know nothing about breeding snakes and am not pointing fingers, just honestly wondering. I know if a cat breeder bred like that it'd be frowned upon. There is linebreeding in the horse world but not mother to son or brother to sister. I met a horse once that was a product of a mother son breeding and he was a little special to say the least....

[Charis]

My understanding on this, which may not be right, is that it is not as bad to do that with snakes as other animals, but it does have an effect. So where you can it is best not to interbreed them. I know with corn snakes, there has been quite a few problems with one of the newer morphs, Bloodred. They had to interbreed intensively to get this gene. It is better now that there are enough animals with it that they have started out crossing them. But there was problems like, to name just one, sudden death with no apparent cause. I'd be interested in what everyone else has to say on this though too.

[ssssnakeluvr]

inbreeding is normal....it helps bring out the recessive genes to produce the different morphs. generally after the morphs are produced, they outcross with different snakes to expand the gene lines. it takes a few generations to start degrading....but if any harbor any bad genes, those will pop out too.

[Brewster320]

Yes people do it mainly to bring out certain traits, but snakes and other small reptiles have evoled so that inbreeding doesn't have that big of an effect on them. Many mammals and birds when they mature leave their parents home range and travel a pretty far distance, so this prevents inbreeding. Reptiles generally stay in the same area they were born their entire lives so they have some how envoled so that inbreeding doesn't affect them as much as it would other animals. Although bringing in new blood is always a good thing.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

ditto what they are saying!!! You COULD (not saying I WOULD) inbreed generation after generation without showing seemingly any ill effects, but it's not at all necessary, usually. Unless, you are working with a species and there are no others of it available, or something like that!!

[gregmonsta]

ditto what they are saying!!! You COULD (not saying I WOULD) inbreed generation after generation without showing seemingly any ill effects, but it's not at all necessary, usually. Unless, you are working with a species and there are no others of it available, or something like that!!

Like Tetrataenia here in Europe ... although reduced litter sizes, smaller offspring and high mortality rate speak for themselves in some cases. Best to avoid inbreeding the same family group any more than is necessary.