Question On Snake Breeding?

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armaggedonx

armaggedonx

Fire Eel
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Dec 17, 2006
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NO I AM NOT PLANNING ON IT BEFORE ANYONE STARTS ON ME!

So lol Is it possible to breed a brother and sister snake? I know that it would cause damage over time, like breeding the siblings etc through the generations etc but im talking about a one off.
Like would the eggs be fertile or would it create all duds?

Someone at work asked me and I didnt really know what to say.

Cheers,
Keith
 
Yes it is possible and actually very common in the reptile world. Reptiles seem to resist genetic break down a little bit better than mammals so inbreeding is much more common...however most decent breeders will not inbreed passed the second generation because genetic break down DOES still happen... thats how you get things like tail kinks and other malformations (not the ONLY way but a common cause)
 
Inbreeding is the most efficient way to create animals homozygous (carrying the same allele on both chromosome sets) for a particular allele (version of a gene).

For example, if you have the only known albino individual of a particular species, and you want to make more albinos, you would breed that snake to a wild-type snake, then breed the offspring back to the albino parent or to one another. The only other way to do it would be to find an unrelated snake that happened to have the very same mutation (much more difficult).

Inbreeding does cause long-term issues by limiting genetic diversity and increasing the likelihood of an animal carrying two copies of a harmful allele, but does not cause mutations by itself.
 
^yep

best way to create certain traits
 
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