I know that I have voiced this opinion before, but I am a champion of repetition.

I would like to suggest the following hypothetical. Supposing one person had a clutch of unicolor hatchlings that had 12 good eggs out of 12. A second person had an unrelated clutch that had 3 good eggs out of 6. How many of you would want a pair comprised of one animal from each clutch?

I sure wouldn't. I would be a lot happier with a pair of siblings from the first clutch.

It isn't all that important that sibling pairs are unrelated. The overriding factor is that the first clutch came from a mother and a father that were both highly fertile, which cannot be said for the second clutch. This is captive breeding we are doing, and these animals are not going to be reintroduced to the wild. For us captive breeders, fertility is the number one important issue.

I am not saying that preserving genes is without merit. But preserving bad genes is just stupid. If an inbred line is twice as fertile as a genetically diverse line, then we should spend more of our time perpetuating the inbred line. Maybe then, we can cross one breeder's inbred line with another's.

Anyways, I know that this hypothetical circumstance may not apply with Dean's and Steve's clutches. Also, we should try to have the best of both worlds, high fertility and genetic diversity.

Nonetheless, for a captive breeder, high fertility is a characteristic that should always outweigh genetic diversity.

Robert Bruce.

[ Hide Replies ]

• 9/9 good eggs - steve fuller, Wed Mar 16 15:12:26 2005
• RE: 9/9 good eggs - DeanAlessandrini, Thu Mar 17 10:05:05 2005
• RE: 9/9 good eggs - steve fuller, Thu Mar 17 15:46:27 2005
• RE: 9/9 good eggs - Carmichael, Thu Mar 17 17:15:44 2005
• RE: 9/9 good eggs - epidemic, Fri Mar 18 08:09:18 2005
• Consider a somewhat dissenting opinion... - Doug T, Fri Mar 18 11:19:43 2005
• RE: Consider a somewhat dissenting opinion... - Carmichael, Fri Mar 18 11:57:33 2005
• comments...and...Chuck please read the last section... - DeanAlessandrini, Fri Mar 18 14:18:54 2005
• I must emphasize.... - Doug T, Fri Mar 18 15:25:07 2005
• gee Doug... - DeanAlessandrini, Fri Mar 18 21:44:51 2005
• RE: comments...and...Chuck please read the last section... - Chuck_Elliott, Mon Mar 21 06:36:46 2005
• Sometimes inbreeding is good - robertbruce, Tue Mar 29 04:51:38 2005