Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can you breed a pair of retics that came from the same cluch? Will it result in un healthy off-spring?

Eventually yes it will. The depression in the genetic health of any given species is assured after a certain threshold of inbreeding is reached (that threshold varies from species to species).

However it is done all the time to achieve homozygous states from heterozygous (related) offspring - it's just not the ideal thing to do for the long term benefit of captive stock.

-Randy

In other words, you can breed siblings together...just don't breed their siblings together again because you'll be playing with fire.

Yes, you COULD do that without any ill-effects. But it isn't anything I would ever do or ever suggest doing if there is an option. As Randy pointed out, there is always a certain "tolerance" in most species to inbreeding, and reptiles probably have a higher tolerance than say,.. mammals, (Brian Ott, you can probably throw in a little info here) but why risk it? Even once homo animals are achieved it is a good idea to outcross them repeatedly to help to "reinforce" the gene pool. You didn't say if you were referring to albinos or some other form of morph here, or just regular retics. If they are regular retics, why even breed them at all? If they are morphs or dwarfs, just try to find someone to trade a male for a male with you from an unrelated (direct sibling-wise, anyway) clutch.

>>Can you breed a pair of retics that came from the same cluch? Will it result in un healthy off-spring?
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]