Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A post below got me thinking. And before everyone jumps on me about this post I don't inbreed any of my animals or condone it. But my question is why is it so "accepted" in leopard geckos. I mean all the major breeders do it when they get a new morph, they talk openly of breeding siblings on offspring back to parents to get the perfect morph, no one even bats an eye over on the leo forum. Is there genetic make up so different then beardies that it's okay, and the weird thing is like the albino strains of leopard geckos must be the most inbred creatures on this planet but they never seem to be weak or have any trouble thriving any different than normals. Like I said before I think it still is inviting trouble but was surprised when I opened up this months REPTILE magazine and read the question and answer column where someone asked if inbreeding was really bad in reptiles. It says and I quote.

Tightly inbreeding lines of distinctive morphs is fairly common in herpetoculture. It seldom has negative consequences, and it is usually the fastest way to produce offspring that display or at least carry the genes for an interesting trait. However, it is never recommended that a morph be inbred for more than the minimum mumber of gernerations necessary to get enough speciments to start outbreeding the line.
The fear of harmful results from inbreeding animals is generally exaggerated, coming more from a few misunderstood problems in human genetics. Many reptile populations are tightly inbred already.

That is just a small insert from the article. Like I said I was surprsied as they usually give very helpful advice. I have been keeping and breeding beardies for over 10 years. I do have to say the most problems I have seen as far as weakened babies or deformed babies I traced back to people either breeding their female to old (age 8 or more) or breeding a sick female to begin with.

I almost didn't start this thread as I didn't want any new people starting out with beardies get the idea that inbreeding is a great idea. But I also hate when I see people telling these same people to just freeze their eggs when inbreeding may have taken place.

the gene pool is very shallow for BDs. they have already been inbred so much since importation is so hard.
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Bennett

beardiedragon.com
Home of the Florida Orange

Well, I'm certainly no expert on genetics, so I won't get into all that, I hope others do though I find it interesting.

All I know is that I have heard stories first hand from the breeders, of dragons being born with genetic deformities after only ONE generation of inbreeding. As I understand it, with dragons it's just already been done to the breaking point, the bloodlines have weakened and it can no longer continue without negative results.

Thanks for bringing it up, maybe we can all get a more complete understanding on it all.
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Amanda
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
1.0 pictus gecko (Nicodemus)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
0.0.1 tarantula (Calcifer)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

The biggest problem that I saw was the limited amount of good solid lines available. I saw it all the time where people would assume that because they bought say a red from me......they figured they could go to another breeder and get a red from them.........and have a pair. What most dont do is see where the parents/grandparents come from. I still see it when every now and then I get emailed with a question about a particular dragon, or breeder, and the people are completely unaware that the dragons they want to get, and the ones they already have are related. So you take all of the dragons inbred not on purpose, those that are inbred on purpose, the high amount of poor quality dragons out there, and an almost non-existant stock to outcross to...........you have a weak genetic pool. Im not saying that is the case everywhere you go, but it is hard to avoid.

So basically back to the other reptiles......ball pythons are an excellent example. Inbreed for your pastels, albinos, spiders or whatever morph it is, then you can outcross all you want to keep a line strong. Then also some creatures are just hardier than others. Just my take on it.

I know a guy right now who has accidentally inbred dragons because of what you said Chris.... and for the record.. Bob Cawleys reds are actually a cross of bloods and dachius red lines and sdome sandfire red mixed in too.... They are not a seperate red line only some nice reds because he hand picked his beardies and was very selective abo9ut it!!! That should tell you righ thtere what it means to "selectively breed for color" ....... back tho the original subject......

Albino boas are starting to produce some really flawed offspring... bad eyes... poor thrivers, babies who have to be force fed into adulthood..... as well as other deformaties that are fairly numerous.... Teh reason? inbreeding to get the quick albinos for resale.... it's been done so much for so many years now that there are a few lines that are total crap...... usually from smaller breeders who didn't take the time to outcross properly and created a stagnite genetic pool..... but they did make a quick return on thier "investment"...

Ball pythons will be the same way soon if it keeps going the way it is but they did import from a newly opened area of Africa and created a broader genetic pool through that importation. However, many of the breeders croosing ball pythons now are severly inbreeding the lines to get the morphs out..... again.. usually the smaller breeders who got in for an "investmant".......

It may be widely practiced but it really isn't a great idea....... if it is to be done..... it should be done by breeders who will have consience enough to put down any babies that were less than average and not do that cross again...... As there are starting to be some morphs available in the Beardies it is very sad to see that some people are crossing way to closely with the genetics to have strong healthy babies available and are still selling them to the public who are fairly uninformed about how shallow the beardie gene pool is already.... WHat do they do with these babies???? breed them ...... to what..... who knows...... more than likely they don't.... That's the danger.......

In my opinion.... line breeding isn't bad if it's done properly..... qith say a minimum of four seperate, TRACEABLE blooldines...... you could actually hit a third generation of breeding without really hitting a hard brick wall and be inbreeding too closely for comfort...... That is of course MY OPINION and not proven fact so please don't take it as such....

Later gang,

Robert
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines.
Ralph Emerson

Just my belated two cents (as a student of genetics and animal breeding)
Inbreeding is common in all domestication processes. It is the keystone of all "breeds" of dog and "types" cattle, and especially birds. It is not unusual for a dog breeder to select a perfect offspring and breed it back to its perfect parent. The results may be just fine, however, in most breeds of dog the gene pool is already incredibly small (like beardies). Problems such as shorter life spans, increased cancers, hip dysplasia (sp), lower birth rates and immune compromised dogs arise. When purebred dogs are outcrossed to a different breed, the result is generally a very healthy mutt ("hybrid vigor". Several geneticists have recommended periodic outcrossings of purebred dogs to similar but different breeds to increase health and dicrease the incidence of genetic flaws such as hip dysplasia (sp). I dont know how extensively the anatomy of every leopard gecko is studied, but it is entirely possible that minor deformities are builiding up unnoticed, that birth rates are declining, as well as a decline in overall health. Although some inbreeding is unavoidable (all beardies are most likely somewhat related in the US), it is wise to steer clear of linebreeding extensively without outcrosses to less related individuals. Just my tad of info on the subject. Its incredible what people can do to animals in the name of vanity and rarity (no offense to any morph creaters out there! I find them beautiful!). Just look into the "white"aka albino) doberman.

Inbreeding has always been a touchy subject. I think it has to be looked at in two lights. The bearded dragon and other animals where there is no new (or very little) blood coming into the country. And then in the other cases such as ball pythons where there is a ton of new blood coming in all the time (not that I support the mass importation of wc babies and the stripping of the enviroment, a whole other issue). In beardies my opinion is that inbreeding should be avoided to the greatest extent possible. There is no new blood coming in, so a lot of unintentional, unknown inbreeding occurs and I believe it will have an effect on overall animal health in the long run. Especially with the selective breeding for color, it is not that easy to outcross herietary (sp?) genes as it is to outbreed inheritable genes (your reccesive, codom, and dom genes). On the issue of animals with lots of new blood inbreeding isn't neccesarily such a horrible thing. A ball breeder gets in a new morph breeds it to a normal to get the desired morph (if the trait is codom or dom) and then these are breed to other normals and back to the parent to make supers. this isn't that bad because the supers will be sold and outcrossed. Or they breed to a normal and get hets (reccesive genes) and then breed the hets back to the parent. Again once these animals begun being sold they are then outbred to a certain extent. There are so many smaller breeders out there that start with a pair of hets, or just homo animal and make hets. There is an almost force outbreeding. And this forced outbreeding is done to CH animals a lot so that is new blood. Also breeders will continually buy the proven morphs from africa, which is new blood for the line. Breeders will buy up albinos, pastels, and ghosts that are WC. This brings new blood and vitality to the gene pool. However this isn't the case in dragons. No one can bring in cool reds from australia. It is a touchy subject. Also lets say for the sake of argument that reptiles are more prone to genetic mutations than other animals (say mammals) then there is more of a chance for diversity to occur naturally, however this diversity can be a bad thing creating defects not just random mutations that are good. Now inbreeding becomes a larger problem due to the fact that the mutation created is passed along.
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Peace
Derek

np

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Bennett

beardiedragon.com
Home of the Florida Orange