Posted by:
Amp
at Sun Jul 8 10:00:08 2012 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Amp ]
The theory behind weak genes go something like this:
If 2 animals, siblings for example, come from a gene pool of weak genes, and you breed these animals together, then there is a higher probability of the offspring inheriting the same weak genes. These animals could be a double het sunglow and a sibling albino. If you outcross your breedings, then you are introducing new genetic diversity to the offspring thereby reducing the chance of inheriting weak genes from the same 2 parents in the same gene pool. However, if both parent animals are unrelated, and still come from separate weak gene pools, then there is still the chance for babies to inherit weak genes. There are also certain genetic combinations that have proven to be fatal for certain breedings so far (i.e. super motleys). Something else to consider is that genes can mutate within an embryo leading to specific issues (i.e. eye problems).
To answer your question more specifically with some of my own experience. Last year I bred 2 siblings together (double het x triple het) and got a litter 0f 21 live, 2 deformed, and 1 slug. I repeated the same breeding this season and got 2 live and 19 unfertilized eggs. Not sure what went wrong.
This year I bred an albino arabesque to a sunglow and got 18 live and 3 slugs. Then 2 babies died within the first week and a 3rd died after a regurge. All 3 that died were arabesque boas -possibly a weak gene, but there were no eye issues at all in the litter.
This year I bred a normal albino x a lipstick sunglow and got a litter of 15 live, 3 slugs, and 15 unfertilized eggs. There was one eye issue.
Breeding boas is always a gamble, and there are certain things you can do to try and improve a blood line. However, sometimes you just need to breed them and see what happens. Mother nature is the one who controls genetic mutations, recombination of DNA, and random assortment of genes during mitosis and meiosis.
I hope some of this helped. -Anthony
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