Blog Comments

Very nice explanation for such a complex question on genetics. Husbandry is something i'm going to start researching soon. Thank you very much for your Information!

It's actually a bit of a complicated question. When closely related individuals breed together, it's more likely that recessives will be present with sometimes harmful results. If a trait is both dominant and very negative, it's unlikely to persist for any length of time. However, two rare (and harmful) recessives can lurk in the population at large because the chance for meeting in a large, unrelated population is low. When you're breeding siblings together, that's no longer the case. The other issue with inbreeding is you won't have as much genetic plasticity to draw from as generation after generation are bred to each other. In the wild, animals need to be able to adapt to some degree to changing conditions. In captivity this is probably not as much of an issue, because we alter the conditions within specific parameters.

When possible, at least some outcrossing with unrelated individuals is preferred. You can concentrate the breeding to increase certain traits, but at least outcross them to an unrelated individual from time to time.