Okay, as far as I know in mice and rats “trait” aren’t considered “pure” until 21 generations of inbreeding in reached (I heard this about 5 years ago, and it just has stuck with me as I find it very interesting, although I have not done further research on the subject.) This allows the line to be much more stable and whoever did the calculations found that once 21 generations was reached it was really as pure as you could get the line. So I was thinking about this and starting thinking about it in leopard gecko terms. If you decide you wanted a more stable line of a line breed trait why can’t this be done? I know the immediate response running thought most readers head is “defects, you idiot! And most likely rats and mice will have different reactions than leopard geckos when inbred; I can hardly believe you asked this stupid of a question!”
But, why can’t you inbreed and selectively breed at the same time? Breeding in the traits you do want (meaning just whatever you want the gecko to look like), and breeding out the traits you don’t (tail kinks, weak geckos that don’t grow properly, and all other defects)? If you took a gecko let’s say a line breed snow, a tang, a boldstrip, or a redstrip and picked out one that you thought to be nearly perfect, and bred that gecko to its sister (let make the corner stone gecko a male) saved those offspring, bred the gecko back to its daughter, saved those offspring breed the original gecko back to its granddaughters and ect. until this has been done 21 times. However while doing so only selecting the healthiest of geckos from those pairings to be bred back to the original male, who is also free of defects. What would be wrong with this?
Then the question that you have is “why not just selectively breed geckos without the inbreeding and decrease the likely hood of gecko with defects?” Well, I cannot claim to have personal experience with this, but I have noticed that even if you take some really nice geckos and breed those together that sometimes you get geckos that aren’t what you expected, aren’t anything like the parents. Such as boldstrip x boldstrip = banded, I believe I saw a thread that had a similar situation occur and would assume it happens quite often. So why not strength the line thought inbreeding? If done carefully, how could it be harmful to the gecko population?
Then you say “Well we still don’t know how geckos respond to this serious of inbreeding, it is still possible for them to be different from mice and rats.” This leads me to a few questions. The first question I have is has anybody ever tried to inbreed gecko to this point, meaning 21 generations? If so what where the results? Where you truly selective enough? If you have inbreed slighting (1-4 generations) and have noticed defects already, how selective where you in your breeding process, if your being 100% honest?
Then don’t we breed in defects into our gecko all the time anyways with new morphs, and single gene traits? It seems to me that winning the “race” to be the first or one of the firsts with a new morph, could possibly overtake some breeders to ignore defects in there stocks. Macks, I believe they had a hard time thriving and that some still do. Blizzards, they are nasty little things aren’t they? Enigmas, some circle, some cock their heads. I personally have all these morphs, and have specimens in each of the listed morphs that show signs of the listed symptoms. However we don’t stop breeding enigmas do we, we still breed mack and blizzards as well, don’t we? So my point is if we are willing to breed in these defects without thinking too hard about it, when it involves a single gene why not with a polygenetic trait? Look how many enigmas crosses are being done currently, they aren’t being left out of any morph out there is seems, and I think almost every breeder that breeds enigmas counting myself knows that they have breed enigmas that aren’t perfect and show some of the odd enigmas defects. So why is it more acceptable to breed defects in using single genes than it is when using polygenetic traits? Is it, or am I missing something (I know that selectively breeding can be done with single gene traits as well, such as breeding albinos to remain lighter, I’m just using polygenetic traits for argument sake)? However I don’t want it to sound like I’m saying purposely breed geckos with defects, but why is it okay in some circumstances, and not in others?
The reason I brought this up was because I know that inbreeding is a controversy subject and that some refuse to do so, and also on what other thought of the 21 generation theory (The 21 generations thing was actually the reason for writing this thread, I just got a little carried away) But if you have a gecko that looks like you want and has no defects why would it matter if it was inbreed or not? I know I most likely left out a few important points but I’m very interested to hear arguments from both sides.
But, why can’t you inbreed and selectively breed at the same time? Breeding in the traits you do want (meaning just whatever you want the gecko to look like), and breeding out the traits you don’t (tail kinks, weak geckos that don’t grow properly, and all other defects)? If you took a gecko let’s say a line breed snow, a tang, a boldstrip, or a redstrip and picked out one that you thought to be nearly perfect, and bred that gecko to its sister (let make the corner stone gecko a male) saved those offspring, bred the gecko back to its daughter, saved those offspring breed the original gecko back to its granddaughters and ect. until this has been done 21 times. However while doing so only selecting the healthiest of geckos from those pairings to be bred back to the original male, who is also free of defects. What would be wrong with this?
Then the question that you have is “why not just selectively breed geckos without the inbreeding and decrease the likely hood of gecko with defects?” Well, I cannot claim to have personal experience with this, but I have noticed that even if you take some really nice geckos and breed those together that sometimes you get geckos that aren’t what you expected, aren’t anything like the parents. Such as boldstrip x boldstrip = banded, I believe I saw a thread that had a similar situation occur and would assume it happens quite often. So why not strength the line thought inbreeding? If done carefully, how could it be harmful to the gecko population?
Then you say “Well we still don’t know how geckos respond to this serious of inbreeding, it is still possible for them to be different from mice and rats.” This leads me to a few questions. The first question I have is has anybody ever tried to inbreed gecko to this point, meaning 21 generations? If so what where the results? Where you truly selective enough? If you have inbreed slighting (1-4 generations) and have noticed defects already, how selective where you in your breeding process, if your being 100% honest?
Then don’t we breed in defects into our gecko all the time anyways with new morphs, and single gene traits? It seems to me that winning the “race” to be the first or one of the firsts with a new morph, could possibly overtake some breeders to ignore defects in there stocks. Macks, I believe they had a hard time thriving and that some still do. Blizzards, they are nasty little things aren’t they? Enigmas, some circle, some cock their heads. I personally have all these morphs, and have specimens in each of the listed morphs that show signs of the listed symptoms. However we don’t stop breeding enigmas do we, we still breed mack and blizzards as well, don’t we? So my point is if we are willing to breed in these defects without thinking too hard about it, when it involves a single gene why not with a polygenetic trait? Look how many enigmas crosses are being done currently, they aren’t being left out of any morph out there is seems, and I think almost every breeder that breeds enigmas counting myself knows that they have breed enigmas that aren’t perfect and show some of the odd enigmas defects. So why is it more acceptable to breed defects in using single genes than it is when using polygenetic traits? Is it, or am I missing something (I know that selectively breeding can be done with single gene traits as well, such as breeding albinos to remain lighter, I’m just using polygenetic traits for argument sake)? However I don’t want it to sound like I’m saying purposely breed geckos with defects, but why is it okay in some circumstances, and not in others?
The reason I brought this up was because I know that inbreeding is a controversy subject and that some refuse to do so, and also on what other thought of the 21 generation theory (The 21 generations thing was actually the reason for writing this thread, I just got a little carried away) But if you have a gecko that looks like you want and has no defects why would it matter if it was inbreed or not? I know I most likely left out a few important points but I’m very interested to hear arguments from both sides.
