Here's a head scratcher!

[Pythonfriend]

I know people SAY that inbreeding is bad, but nobody ever posts pictures displaying issues directly caused by inbreeding.....

Basically, in all sexually reproducing animals, which includes almost all multi-cellular animals, it causes problems.

Its the same for all life: One vital gene may be located on one spot in one chromosome. You have it all two times, from mom and dad. If one is broken, you are still healthy, if both copies are broken, if its a vital gene, you are sick or even died as an embryo.

We know most about humans, human recessive conditions are rare when people avoid inbreeding, and get extremely amplified when people do inbreed:

• Cystic fibrosis
• PKAN/NBIA
• Tay-Sachs disease
• Chronic granulomatous disease
• Thalassemia
• Bloom's Syndrome
• Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency
• Haemochromatosis types 1-3
• Wilson's disease
• Most types of Mucopolysaccharidosis
• Most Glycogen storage diseases
• Homocystinuria
• Congenital adrenal hyperplasia
• Dubin-Johnson syndrome
• Fanconi anemia
• Galactosemia
• Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency
• Phenylketonuria
• Albinism
• Rotor syndrome
• Familial Mediterranean fever
• Pendred syndrome
• Certain forms of Spinal muscular atrophy
• Xeroderma pigmentosum
• Friedrich's ataxia

most of these are NOT FUN. I exclude plants and fungus and bacteria because they are weird and they dont suffer when they hit a recessive gene. But all multicellular animal life runs into problems if there is too much inbreeding. You have 4 grandparents, and if you want children you should do it with someone that has 4 DIFFERENT grandparents. In the overall genome, chances for hitting a recessive genetic disease are low, but if ancestry between you and your mate is to a point identical, the odds go crazy. And even if you dont hit a disease, offspring is likely to be still impacted with developmental problems and/or stupidity. Thats how it is for the most-studied species: Humans.

In Pets, for pedigree breeding, inbreeding is a shortcut. Sometimes a REQUIRED shortcut, sometimes its just necesary. But the risks still exist. Reptiles appear to be quite resilient when it comes to inbreeding, but still, there is a general trend: If you inbreed, health goes down, fertility goes down, recessive diseases can pop up, but you can reset the process by outbreeding to unrelated individuals.

Entire species overextend, like for example pedigree dog breeding. These darn Ridgebacks for example, the ridgeback is a problematic recessive genetic disease, and it causes suffering and requires treatment. Still, dog breeders produce the breed and it is a popular breed, and sometimes ridgeless ridgebacks are born. They are perfectly fine dogs, with two differences:
1.: They do not and will never suffer from the genetic issue haunting ridgebacks. They make the perfect pet.
2.: They do not have the ridge on the back, its missing.
Now what dog breeders do is to cull them and to further inbreed. Offering them for sale would hurt their reputation. Show quality german shepherds cannot walk properly, its an inbred deteriorated genetic disaster. And these breeders are reckless, and they say things like "If its a boy, its gonna visit its mom later". Just like the original poster did.

Its a shortcut, BUT THERE IS A PRICE, AND DO NOT DENY IT.

end of rant.