Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does inbreeding between geckos have any side effects? We all know it does with humans and other mammals, but what about lizards? I'm not thinking about doing it, I have just noticed a few breeders who do. For example, breeding a daughter with her father, it just sounds wrong. Or is it completely normal? Thanks for any input.

Lisa

Inbreeding is a very normal process in getting the morphs we all desire!

However, it has many side effects. Many of these side effects take many generation to develop but never the less they will eventually show up.

Common side effects are tail kinks, curved spins, infertilitiy, overly weak or sickly animals, etc etc...

AS I said these may or may not appear through the generations. I would say that it is acceptable to inbreed (ie breeding the young back to the fathers) for no more than 2 generations after that you really need to bring in fresh blood! (My opinion!)

Which can be hard especially with some of the rarer morphs which are all coming from the same breeders!

In fact inbreeding may be some of the cause of all the bad eggs everyone is experiencing! Where are these leos coming from over breeding and over inbreeding will lead to infertility!

Brandon

Hi
What you are talking about, breeding father to daughter, is actually not inbreeding, it is line breeding. Inbreeding is between siblings. Infact line breeding is very common for all animal breeders (especially dogs), it helps you to establish a line that is truly unique. Most importantly it is a way to help bring out desirable genitics/traits that other breeding stock may not posess. I hope that this has helped to answer your question.

Breeding offspring back to parents is DEFINITELY inbreeding...inbreeding is simply breeding closely related individuals. Daughter to father is about as closely related as you can get. Even breeding to a grandparent would still be considered inbreeding.
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Christina

Leopard Gecko Morph Descriptions

2.3 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)
-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)
-1.0 tremper albino (Spitfire)
-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

-ignorance is not to be punished when one is trying to gain knowledge...what scares me is the vast number of people who, when given the information to gain knowledge, choose to ignore it.

So, if I (a woman) mated with my father, that wouldn't be inbreeding, right? Nah, we're just "line breeding" for the red-head trait. (Seriously, that whole idea is just gross!)

I'm not trying to put you down. Line breeding does involve breeding the child back to the parent, but it IS also inbreeding. When you breed within the family, you have in-breeding.

hehe Sorry, I just had to bring that up.. I keep getting these images of Oedipus Rex - the Greek classic about the boy whose parents left him to die as a baby, but he was taken in by another king. He grows up not knowing of his blood heritage and ends up killing his birth-father and marrying his birth-mother, having several children (siblings??) by her. It's a very controversial story because of the inbreeding.

With inbreeding (or line breeding), it's usually okay for the first couple of generations, but, past that, the genes will get too weak - all the selective breeding allows recessive weaknesses come to the surface. That happened a lot in human cultures, when rich families married within the family (1st cousins with 1st cousins - Edgar Allan Poe & his cousin/wife). After a couple of generations, deformed children would start being born.

~~Dusty Windom
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So Many Alleles, So Little Time...!
@
~~The Gecko Barn~~

np
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

I'm not a owner of any herps, just a domicile attendant.

My image Gallery

LOL
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Christina

Leopard Gecko Morph Descriptions

2.3 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)
-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)
-1.0 tremper albino (Spitfire)
-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

-ignorance is not to be punished when one is trying to gain knowledge...what scares me is the vast number of people who, when given the information to gain knowledge, choose to ignore it.

You all act like line-breeding is a horrible thing, and it can be if it it not closly monitored. I think of line-breeding (allthough you may disagree) as a breeding technique and a very good one. Think about all of the advancements in the pet trade that are due to line breeding. We get more desireable and more managable pets. *responsible breeding practices are a must though. Oh and by the way humans aren't bred. just kiddin'.
Acmurty

linebreeding is in FACT inbreeding. If we didnt have linebreeding, we wouldnt have some of the nice morphs we have now. And I do believe it was stated that "fresh blood" should be offered after the 2nd generation. So I havent seen anyone YET put it down completley, just stating the obvious...that it has its pro's and con's.

~Crystal Light
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Crystal Light (Yes..that's my real name)

*Whenever you lose a gecko, just think of it as God building on his own Leopard Gecko collection

The Gecko Barn

Just that it IS the same thing as inbreeding - you stated in your original post that Line Breeding (child to parent) was not the same thing as In-breeding (close relative to close relative, or brother to sister as you stated). We have simply stated that they are, in fact, the same thing.

My extreme example was just to show that it is inbreeding. If you heard of a girl who had a baby by her father, you (I'm speaking of the public in general) would call that inbreeding - not line breeding (yeah, it's Taboo to line breed in human cultures).

And we have each stated that inbreeding IS okay - for the first couple of generations - after which fresh blood is needed.

Sorry about the confusion!

~~Dusty Windom
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So Many Alleles, So Little Time...!
@
~~The Gecko Barn~~

Line breeding is inbreeding.

Breeding father to daughter, the daughter has 50% of her genes in common with the father.

Breeding brother to sister, theoretically could have significantly more or significantly less than 50% genetic similarity. Remember, you get half your genes from each parent, but it doesn't have to be the same half each time.

The most effective method of selectively breeding for a trait which only one animal has would be to breed individuals with only that one parent in common.
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E2MacPets
http://www.e2macpets.com

np