Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Think I asked this question before but cant rember the response I got, so here it goes again. Is it ok to breed blue tongue offspring to each other? I have 4 sub adults and figure why not breed them instead of selling them so more offspring will be available next year. Just concerened about getting bad animals if I were to do this. Would breeding offspring together cause me to have smaller blue tongues and less immune to diseases? Thanks, Nate

There should be no problems. However, you would probably not want to breed their offspring together. Genetic diversity is generally better.

Would you marry your sisteor brother? Why not? You are programed to think that is gross. Every human society has a taboo and or law against inbreeding...for good reason. Inbreeding, the mating of closely related individuals increases the occurance of deliterious recessive trait (birth defects that are normally quite rare).

Most animal species will chase off offspring as they become sexually mature. This helps to lessen inbreeding. Genetic diversity lessens the occurance of deliterious recessives and improves general vigor in many ways.(ie, disease resistance) Your offspring may be fine...or not. I will get worse with every inbreed generation. Look up some info on rare species that are facing this problem because we killed them all and too few are left to have any genetic diversity (ie, Florida panthers).

Just because you can do something does not mean you should.

Brian

It is true that we humans do not mate with our siblings because it is a social taboo. However, It is exactly that, a social Taboo. One that is placed on us by society, not biology. If it was biological, animals would not do it when given the opportunity. In contrast, most animals will readily interbreed without hesitation, and this does happen in the wild. Do I recommend it? No. Is it going to do any harm to the species? No, not in this situation. Are his animals going to have problems? Not likely. There are never guarantees, even with unrelated breedings. Generally, you do not see problems until interbreeding is continued on down from that one breeding. Sooner or later there will be a need to infuse fresh blood into the project. How do you think we get all of the designer snakes that are here? At times these projects will require you to breed siblings, or offspring back to a parent. It is not a problem. The problems present start when the breeders get too greedy, and push the limits. That is when we see button eyed leucistic Texas rat snakes, and one eyed albino Boas. One breeding of sibling to sibling is not going to present a problem. However, that being said, I will still say that trading one of his offspring with another breeder for another unrelated specimen would be a great idea, as this would be by far the more desirable breeding situation.