Breeding siblings

Not that I want to get into a serious debate with anyone over breeding sibs, or daughter to father, or son to mother.....I dont personally think that WITH REASON inbreeding is bad, a few generations......there would be verry few or no doubel recessives without imbreeding....now that being said I beleive that this imbreeding has to have limits, I am not going to get into what those limits should be.... With me personally I beleive 3 generations.....but thats me

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

MOST of what you mention is due to the gene. As I said before, even with outcrossed animals and new import blood, these things still pop up. Outcrossing spiders, cinnies, black pastels and caramels does not make the abnormalities disappear. It's part of the gene. If you aren't prepaired for the consequences don't work with the genes.

I bred son to mother Pewters in 2009/10 and had a perfectly normal clutch other than producing two very oddly patterned Super Pewters.

I'll reiterate....snakes are non-migratory animals. We have these morphs because of inbreeding in wild populations. It happens because micro-populations exist withing other micro-populations and these snakes live with inbreeding their entire lives. Breeding sibling to sibling, father to daughter, father to grand daughter and so on. Do some research on feild observations by Frank Retes. You may be enlightened.

By the way, I am in no way trying to come off as harsh. Just stating valid points.

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Stating valid points is good. I understand that some inbreeding can be done with little to no bad affects. It is also absolutely needed to prove out a trait, but IMO it should not be used as a short cut, commonly practiced or suggested to be done as an accepted breeding habit.

In the wild animals tend to avoid inbreeding through dispersal and inbuilt behavioral mechanisms. Yes I am sure some inbreeding does happen in the wild. Mother nature has a way of killing off most offspring to help eliminate inbreeding. Lots of things happen in the wild. Animals do wander, get killed, get relocated and such.



As far as Mr. Retes he seems to feel the same way. Assuming this is the same Mr. Frank Retes;

Leezardlady - Hi Frank, how much do you use inbreeding? Do you consciously make an effort to limit inbreeding in your colonies? Have you seen any detrimental effects by inbreeding generation after generation?

Frank Retes - Its hard to say, we have many, many projects, some we have no choice but to inbreed. We have never seen any bad effects on inbreeding, but we have not been around for 50 years either. We do feel monitors inbreed normally in nature, but nature has a way of introducing new blood.

This was taken from a Frank Retes Chat Transcript 12/14/99. He is also a Monitor breeder fyi.

Here is another chat from KS from Kelli Hammack talking about Geckos, albeit not pythons but still a reptile that does tend to have some of the same deformities when inbreed too much.



WaxWormFan: What are your feelings on the inbreeding that frequently occurs with this species by private breeders?

KelliH: excellent question!

KelliH: i have been breeding leopard geckos for several years now, and i always believed that inbreeding was perfectly fine (per Tremper and the Leopard Gecko Manual)

KelliH: however as time went on i began to notice some problems with hatchlings ie. weak hatchlings, eye deformities, etc.

KelliH: i feel that inbreeding is ok for 2 or 3 years max, then one shoudl bring in new blood to strengthen their colonies.

KelliH: now i try to bring in a couple of unrelated males every year or two, and i have found that my hatchlings are stronger and seem to grow quicker also

KelliH: outcrossing is always a good idea when breeding reptiles in general.





Jeremy Stone has also given a presentation at Daytona where he stressed the importance of outcrossing. He noted that the homozygous versions of many mutations tend to be weakened and how important it is to make sure the bloodlines are as strong as possible from the get go.

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

MOST of what you mention is due to the gene. As I said before, even with outcrossed animals and new import blood, these things still pop up. Outcrossing spiders, cinnies, black pastels and caramels does not make the abnormalities disappear. It's part of the gene. If you aren't prepaired for the consequences don't work with the genes.

I bred son to mother Pewters in 2009/10 and had a perfectly normal clutch other than producing two very oddly patterned Super Pewters.

I'll reiterate....snakes are non-migratory animals. We have these morphs because of inbreeding in wild populations. It happens because micro-populations exist withing other micro-populations and these snakes live with inbreeding their entire lives. Breeding sibling to sibling, father to daughter, father to grand daughter and so on. Do some research on feild observations by Frank Retes. You may be enlightened.

By the way, I am in no way trying to come off as harsh. Just stating valid points.

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This is exactly my understanding after a lot of research. Some populations of animals aren't harmed in any way by in-breeding, and the various python species became the individual species by breeding with their local population rather than a more diverse group. This is how speciation works. If animals didn't split into sub-populations and in-breed, we'd only have one species on the planet, and it wouldn't be us. In-breeding was a huge factor in all the diversity we see in nature.

Humans can successfully breed with close relatives too. The problem comes in when you start doubling up bad recessive genes. Deformities wouldn't happen very often if we in-bred ourselves, but when they do it's so horrifying that we rightly consider close relative breeding a huge taboo.

An example in snakes would be breeding Spider x Spider or Woma x Woma. Get two copies of the mutated gene, and you're screwed. As long as you have no destructive recessive mutations present, you're fine.

You can't really compare mammal genetics to reptile genetics. Humans have so many genetic problems as it is. We are a species that spans the globe. We number in the billions. Ball pythons, however, exist naturally only in one area of the world. They have no choice but to inbreed from time to time. That is how we end up with such fantastic mutations.

I think it is up to the individual breeder to decide what is right for his or her animals. If a breeder can successfully inbreed their snakes I say go for it. As long as no animal is suffering I see no problem with it. If it gets to a point that the breeder begins to notice deformities or health problems with their animals, only a moron would continue the practice with those individual animals. Now, I also believe the breeder that does inbreed their animals should give that information to any potential buyers, so that people like yourself TessadasExotics, would know if you are purchasing an animal that is directly inbred or not.

I plan on inbreeding my snakes. If I see any problems down the road that I suspect are due to inbreeding, I'll stop, but until that time I will make decisions for my animals as I see fit. I will not hide this fact from any potential buyers and make the information available. "I want to buy this spider male." "Ok, here are his papers showing his mother and father, who were mother and son." Simple.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

You can't really compare mammal genetics to reptile genetics. Humans have so many genetic problems as it is. We are a species that spans the globe. We number in the billions. Ball pythons, however, exist naturally only in one area of the world. They have no choice but to inbreed from time to time. That is how we end up with such fantastic mutations.

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Just to clarify: Inbreeding doesn't cause mutations. It just preserves them in a genetic line, and exposes recessive characteristics. The initial mutation can be caused by a lot of things.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

I think it is up to the individual breeder to decide what is right for his or her animals. If a breeder can successfully inbreed their snakes I say go for it. As long as no animal is suffering I see no problem with it. If it gets to a point that the breeder begins to notice deformities or health problems with their animals, only a moron would continue the practice with those individual animals. Now, I also believe the breeder that does inbreed their animals should give that information to any potential buyers, so that people like yourself TessadasExotics, would know if you are purchasing an animal that is directly inbred or not.

I plan on inbreeding my snakes. If I see any problems down the road that I suspect are due to inbreeding, I'll stop, but until that time I will make decisions for my animals as I see fit. I will not hide this fact from any potential buyers and make the information available. "I want to buy this spider male." "Ok, here are his papers showing his mother and father, who were mother and son." Simple.

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I agree, and keep records on my website so when looking at a snake you can click to see the sire or dam, then their sire or dam and so on as long as the breeding occurred in my collection. Right now this is just a couple of layers deep, but expands in depth every year and includes feeding, weight, and breeding histories for all the animals. I'm trying to be a completely transparent breeding operation, so anyone can find out anything about any of my snakes, but I'm not 100% there yet.

When I have a day-job, I'm a software designer, so the gene tracking system was part of the fun of this hobby for me.

Thanks for clarifying. I want to have mine set up that way as well. I'm not quite there yet with keeping track of every feeding (I'm really bad about waiting till the last minute right before bed, feeding everyone, then going to bed. Then a week later I'm like, "crap, which day were they fed again?" haha. I'm getting better, I promise.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Thanks for clarifying. I want to have mine set up that way as well. I'm not quite there yet with keeping track of every feeding (I'm really bad about waiting till the last minute right before bed, feeding everyone, then going to bed. Then a week later I'm like, "crap, which day were they fed again?" haha. I'm getting better, I promise.

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For me it's all about bar-codes and a keypad for entering food types, defs, and sheds. I scan a rack when I feed them, and scan each individual snake that refuses, and my website is instantly updated with the new info. Yeah, I'm a complete nerd.

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

What you are after is miss-information it would seem. You obviously want every one to tell you that it's ok. To each there own.

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no, I want true information, like I said? you saying "Genetics are the same no matter what." is not true information by any means. Alot of what you say seems to be debatable or opinion.

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

I don't understand? Are you just wanting to argue? You even said it your self? Who said any thing about less than a couple of generations?

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sib x sib means 1 generation, so i believe it was the OP said something about less than a couple generations.

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

ok so what about all of the bad clutches and train wrecks that come from those breedings? They do happen. Most of the time no one says anything about them. Oh wait, I guess it was incubation temps right?..... yea about that. Most if not all of the big named breeders have done it enough and most will tell you that it is way better to out cross. Why is that?

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im wondering if I should send you the bhb video again? im not arguing line breeding will most likly end up in undesirable effects, but this whole thread is simply about sib x sib.

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

Anyways, like I have said. People are going to do what they want to do and most do turn a deaf ear so to say. Denying the fact that bad things happen due to inbreeding is ridiculous. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

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ive already touched on this

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

All wobbles, kinking, duck-billing, one eye, no eye, cleft lip, organs on the outside, mangled bodies, and clutch after clutch of non thriving babies....etc, etc are all due to temps or just bad genes and has nothing to do with anything else.

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yes all wobbles, im assuming you mean the spider wobble, the most outcrossed morph you can get? you bring up carmels again...lol. duck billing I don't know much about so I won't comment. The rest, sure again after a few generations of line breeding, but also seen some of the above from from pretty unrelated pairs (different morphs from different breeders) it does happen.

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Originally Posted by TessadasExotics

It's funny though that when you out cross the supers (cinnies, Black Pastels, Lessers, etc) most of the deformities start to go away.

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proof?

So it is just an argument. ok. I'm not going to beat a dead horse with a bush.