Breeding siblings

Is it ok or is it a bad idea?

some ppl do cuz snakes cant really inbreed but i dont. it dosent seem right to me

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Originally Posted by pixie6710

some ppl do cuz snakes cant really inbreed but i dont. it dosent seem right to me

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Why can't snakes be affected by the same genetic difficulties as other creatures when siblings interbreed? They have 'X' and 'Y' chromosomes, don't they?

Snakes are non-migratory animals and are not affect so much by inbreeding. Most of the "defects" you see are probably gene related, such as the spider wobble and caramel kinking. Inbreeding is prominent in wild populations and has probably been going on much longer than any of us have been here. I'm not saying negative effects can't pop up, but it's unlikely.

Without the inbreeding of snakes Recessives would be non existent. As so would many of these double,triple,an so on mutations

Yeah i wouldn't worry about it for anything more than a moral standpoint. Breeders have been putting siblings together for decades with no inherent issues. Some people say it leads to a shorter lifespan, but that hasn't been proved.

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Originally Posted by EverettAshley

Is it ok or is it a bad idea?

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my friends dad breeds snakes i dont want to besides i only have 1:snake:

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Originally Posted by eracer

Why can't snakes be affected by the same genetic difficulties as other creatures when siblings interbreed? They have 'X' and 'Y' chromosomes, don't they?

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Yeah, I don't know the specifics but reptiles genetics are not affected like mammal genetics are by inbreeding. The only bad I know of that can come of reptile inbreeding is if there is a pre-existing fault in the genetics (i.e. a heart condition or something) then it will not get filtered out if they are inbred.

I'm not totally against line breeding, but I try to minimize it and keep fresh blood in my lines just in case.

All living things are affected by inbreeding to include reptiles. Genetics are the same no matter what. People are going to believe what they want to and do what they want to. So if you want to believe that reptiles are different then by all means go ahead and treat them like they are different. Just don't cry when you are producing freezer animals!

It’s too easy to research a topic with today’s technology. If you do a quick search you can read many articles discussing the facts of inbreeding.

Even the big breeders will tell you that it is better to out cross than to inbreed. They have bred enough to see what the results are.

Tightly inbreeding lines of distinctive morphs is fairly common in herpetoculture. It seldom has negative consequences, and it is usually the fastest way to produce offspring that display or at least carry the genes for an interesting trait. However, it is never recommended that a morph be inbred for more than the minimum number of generations necessary to get enough specimens to start outbreeding the line.
The fear of harmful results from inbreeding animals is generally exaggerated, coming more from a few misunderstood problems in human genetics. Many reptile populations are tightly inbred already.

The major threat of inbreeding is that genes for defects (such as kinked tails) may be carried as recessives by the breeding animals but not displayed. If parents and offspring are persistently inbred, there is a strong tendency for such deleterious recessive genes to become concentrated. Statistically there is a greater chance of a matching gene, which means that the “bad” trait appears in more and more of the offspring.

Article from The reptile channel