Genetics Debate

Alright, so im in a community on livejournal and a girl had made a post about recently finding out she got a 66% het for Pied animal. I got a 66% het animal myself, recently and figured id Breed him to one of my normal females and then breed the female babies back to him when they were old enough. Ive been told by a few people now that this is a great way to prove out a het.

Well, anyway, this kid responds (more like an older guy) and basically tells me that what i was telling this girl to do, was the downfall of the herp community.

Am i wrong for wanting to do this!? i really dont feel that i am, and its really pissing me off that he got on me with his know it all ways and tried to tell me off for defending pretty much all of the breeders that do this. am i wrong in trying to defend this?


anyway, heres a link for those that want to see, youre going to have to join the community to see the post, since its friends locked to that community. post if you will to defend it. i just want these people to see that you guys KNOW what youre doing, and that im not just defending a lost cause.

http://community.livejournal.com/herpers/1336539.html

I want to mention that im always a little embarassed about when i mention actual breeders. I hope that i dont offend them, or anyone by doing so. its just names that lots of people know, so i just say them to help defend my case.

I haven't read the thread, don't really feel like joining something so I can see it.
What is his basis for saying it's the downfall of the herp community? Is it the inbreeding?

Regardless, you have little option in how you prove out a possible het. You can do as you said and breed his daughters back to him, a very common practice, or your could buy a 100% het or visual female. Each method has it's own benefits and drawbacks, but there's nothing wrong with doing what you planned.

I have some eggs incubating now from a het x het albino breeding. The resulting normal offspring will be 66% het. With albinos the 66%ers are basically not worth anything monetarily speaking. I will most likely keep any normal females and breed them to an albino later to see if they're het. I'd rather do that that sell them for $50 more than a complete normal, or whatever they would bring.
My point is, originally I had planned on raising them and breeding them back to their het father, or preferrably an albino brother. I do now have an unrelated albino male that will serve the purpose, but if I didn't have him then inbreeding them would be the only way I'd know if those females were hets or not.

Some people have determined themselves to be lords and masters of our hobby. My advice is to ignore them. Do what you have to within your own projects, and represent the resulting offspring for what they are. Virtually everybody that has worked with recessive mutations, regardless of species, has done breeding similar to what you are describing, it's just a fact of working with morphs.

im curious, why would you say a 66% het albino wouldnt be really worth it?( because id gladly take one or two :P) Im still new to all of the genetics of this hobby, and really. the hobby in and of itself. while i might know all the general care aspects, i certainly dont know all of the technical stuff yet.
Im really just trying to learn as much as i can before i do breed.(hopefully in the next year or two) I think it would be fun, and even if i dont get much out of it cash wise, at least it will be a learning experience to remember! Im certainly hooked thats for sure.

Well, with the albino morph, 100% hets are cheap enough now where most anyone can get a pair if they want them. That makes possible hets worth very little. I don't know for sure but I doubt you'd get more than $100 for a female. Males on the other hand are worth no more than normals, and many breeders actually let their possible het albino males go as normals to pet stores. There's a lot of normal males in people's homes that are actually carrying the albino gene and they have no idea about it. The reasoning is why sell a snake that has the potential to make albinos for $25. Sell them as a normal to a pet store where they will most likely never be bred, and even if they are they will probably never have the chance to express the gene.
With the females, my point was I'd rather keep them and breed them to an albino to see if they are het as opposed to selling them for $100 or so, which as 66% hets is pretty much all they would bring.
If I keep them and they turn out not to be het, I still have a couple more breeder females, and if they are het then I'm making more albinos with no extra investment other than time and rats.

Also in regards to value of possibles.....I personally won't pay or sell possible hets for more than normals. I just don't think it's worth it. Now if someone had the first ever morph of some kind, and can only produce possible hets of this new morph, I might see the value in the gamble of being on the ground floor of such an opportunity, otherwise, not for me. If I have possibles, I sell them as normal and tell the buyers that it's a "free" bonus if they end producing morphs.

I'll keep this short, as I have no desire to repeat the information provided in the post linked to.

First, I'd like to say I'm disappointed that a civil disagreement on the herpers LJ community has been dragged into a separate forum, presumably under the belief that I would not be here and therefore the poster would find unquestioning affirmation of the breeding practices I questioned. I have no problem with people reading my posts, and in fact would encourage those reading this to do so were it not a locked post visible only to community members (not my decision; I can cut/paste my comments if requested).

Second, I would like to clarify the nature of my comments in the link in question. I did not demand that things be done my way, nor did I claim that such practices would be the downfall of the herp community. While I do know that my tone and method of discussion can come off as "know it all", I assure everyone that's not the case; I'm currently a graduate student in herpetology and *nothing* destroys illusions of vast knowledge like a meeting with my advisor (seriously, he's feared throughout the department).

The general nature of my comment was thus: inbreeding causes problems. That's it. Specifically, when you inbreed, the offspring are more likely to become homozygous for rare alleles than they would in nature. That's obvious; as someone else said, it's essentially a necessity when dealing with recessive morphs. However, what often goes unappreciated is that this occurs at for *all* genes. Given that a vertebrate genome can reasonably be expected to have about 30,000 genes, and existing literature gives a genome-wide mean heterozygosity of .058 for lizards, that means there's about 1700 genes in any given animal which are het, and not all of those recessive alleles will be beneficial (additionally, many genes work best in het state, especially those associated with the major histocompatability complex, an important part of the immune system). What this means is that with each round of inbreeding, the animals becomes more homozygous, and, most importantly, the traits they become homozygous for are random with respect to fitness. While culling can, to some degree, alleviate this (as can outbreeding), the sheer number of genes involved limit the power of selection (Haldane's dilemma), and the need to maintain the desired trait limits the degree of outbreeding (after all, whose going to buy 6.25% hets?). It should also be noted that the effects of inbreeding are cumulative, so while the first generation may be only modestly impaired (or even undetectably so, since captive animals have copious food and advanced medical care), further generations will suffer progressively worse consequences.

However, I'll stop here, lest this turn into another voluminous post; those curious about inbreeding and the genetics behind it can find ample resources in most upper-level evolution textbooks (Amazon.com's "Search inside the book" might be useful) particularly those by Futyama or Ridley, or, for the really determined, Sewall Wright's original papers on the subject.

Personally, my knowledge of genetics and inbreeding has led me to become very uncomfortable with the frequency and degree to which inbreeding is used in morphs. I personally predict we will begin to see more and more problems, especially with mutations that originated in a single animal. As a result, I personally do not inbreed and do not keep or breed morphs, and do my best to explain my reasoning on this matter in hopes that others will at the least outbreed more extensively to ameliorate and delay the effects. I do not intend to tell others what to do; as part of a capitalist system, I simply let my money talk and don't purchase morphs.

I felt that I expressed both my opinion and my non-demanding stance on the issue in the original thread, and was under the impression that the poster had simply decided to let the matter drop as a mutual disagreement. I would be open to future discussion on the subject (and am actually attempting to write an essay explaining in detail the genetics behind my reasoning), but I must say I am disappointed with the manner in which this has been brought up.

Henry

Im Writing to say that this post was written before i made any motions towards letting it drop completely. ( just so you know this)

BUT

This is a seperate forum yes, one i visit often. and this thread section is also titled "Sound off". Its open for people to express their feelings if something is bugging them. Which, i obviously did. Of course, its not Hell either. which is a paid forum of the site. and is exactly what it says it is. Meaning.. none of that will, or should, take place here. (and will not happen anyway)

of course, you have your rights to complain just as much about my original comment, and this post too.. and if you want, go for it! Im not afraid of my beliefs or the thought of you seeing this post. Otherwise, why would i have been so silly to have posted it? especially on a place i cannot delete it. i knew very well that you could come upon this post, but i dont feel wrong in linking to something that was bothering me, and letting people decide on their own. I did not hide anything, nor did i lie about it.

I assume that pretty much all herp people KNOW about this site, and really dont have much to hide. Im pretty open here on fauna, and will remain as such. But since this forum was put here for a reason, i took advantage and vented. simple as that really... I wanted to see opinions. and to see if those that practice what was stated in the thread felt the same. i wanted to see if i was wrong in feeling the way i do.

But anyway, i say let those who are curious look. ive no problems with that at all.