Can you breed siblings?

[Zenna]

I was wondering, can you breed siblings? If so, Im really hoping i get a male & a female out of the two babys i just bought. if not, i dont really care xP they're still adorable and im sure i'll find them all a mate. But yeah, can you? or will they come out deformed? and with axies, do they pick 1 mate and only breed with that one? :O If not i'd love to try inter-breeding the colors with my brown ones & my white ones so i can get a bit of both axies

 

[NooNoo Kz]

I dont think its just one mate for life from what I've read on the forums, but I have 3 females and 2 males in a 4 ft tank and I think they all breed together, i'm waiting for more results to find that out lol. You CAN breed them together, but you will most likely get more deformed babies, but Inbreeding them is a way you can get them to breed true, some breeders do it to get certain colours. Have their back legs formed yet?

 

[Zenna]

Not my new babys. lol. they're just brand new still but im just curious for the future. my one female does. shes about 5.5 inches or something? and im getting a male for her i was just curious cuz i really want more white / pink axies they're amazingly adorable :3 and i just dont know yet ><

 

[yellowpebble]

Inbreeding in any animal is not recommended because it does increase the chance of deformities and illness by weakening the gene pool. Keep in mind, captive axolotls are already the epitome of inbred, as they have been so interbred to produce specific colour lines. The rate of deformities is particularly high in the species anyway for this reason. You can look at it as though you are not doing that much damage because it is only one line and they are as inbred as they can possibly get anyway, but understand that the risk is even further heightened in a brother/sister cross because the more inbreeding occurs, the more chance there is for deformities per embryo. So there is the brother sister danger on top of the inbred species deformity chance. Most of my 208 larvae from an unrelated cross has some sort of problem. An odd number of gills, different gill directions, stumpy toes, odd number of toes, some can even have no eyes. Some consider this one of the charms of axolotls, they can be so weird, be it from inbreeding or not.

Also there is the moral dilemma of the family thing. Also you can argue that it harms the captive population by inbreeding, continually making it weaker by preventing natural selection. It’s a choice that is up to you, many keepers interbreed for specific colours, then outbreed again. Because your colours are not rare, you could always go pick up another light coloured, not related(ish) axolotl from the pet store or a breeder? Just to mix the gene pool up a bit.

And you would be surprised. Because 'abnormal' colours like albino or leucistic have been so heavily bread for in the population most dark colours carry those genes as well. Your darker axies are most probably carrying light genes and if you bread one of those with your light axolotls, a majority of the babies will probably be light too. And it avoids the brother/sister cross.

good luck

 

[Zenna]

alright. well if its just gna deform them more i wont do it, i was just curious if i can keep my babys alive then i'll deff cross one of my light colors with one of my browns The ONLY white ones in my city are my babys siblings and their dad. ><

 

[yellowpebble]

Congrats on getting some light ones then!

you can do it, lots of the deformities will not be fatal. Its just weighing up the pros and cons.

 

[Zenna]

Lol thanks well I'll just attempt to breed one of my white ones with one of my brown ones and just love the light ones that come outta that

 

[yellowpebble]

Even if no while ones come out from you white dark cross, they will be carrying white genes for certain, so you could breed them back to the grandparent white for some garenteed white babies, and it wouldn't be AS geneticly wierd as brother/sister, allthough it would still be interbred as.

 

[Zenna]

Haha im sure i'll get at least ONE x3 and if i get one. I'll just name him/her Unique x3 hehe. but i cant do it with the grandparents. since i dont own them =X but maybe with the parents? or my other white one?! :O the one thats not the parent?

 

[nina89]

I have axie larvae at the moment and there is a variety of colours, I have goldens, albinos, olives, many shades of wild type and a couple of leucistics (sorry dont know proper names that well) and there parents are both dark black wild types. There is a good chance that your axie is carying the genes like yellowpebble said.

 

[Zenna]

That's awesome Thanks guys. I wont mess up the gene anymore than it already is

 

[NooNoo Kz]

Yep, its not recommended and does increase chances of deformities. Pretty much Yellowpebble explained it all . Its all up to the breeder. dont mess with the genes haha!

 

[xxianxx]

I have read a couple of articles on this site about the inbreeding of amphibians, according to some (Michael Shrom for instance) have indicated that the inbreeding of amphibians and having a limited gene pool is not a major problem. I think one of the biggest problems may be the substandard quality of many of the axolotls on the market today, an axolotl can lay hundreds of eggs at a time, nature simply does not allow the vast majority of these to survive to breed. Only the healthiest and strongest (and maybe the luckiest!) will survive to pass on their genes. When we breed these guys in captivity we allow an artificialy high number to survive, either through misplaced kindness or greed, this allows a lot of inferior/unhealthy axolotls to pass on their crappy genes. I personally dont breed siblings for this reason, as i cant be sure of the quality of my axolotls, they look and act ok but i cant be sure they are genetically healthy . I also cull baby axolotls that dont make the grade, not nice i know so no flaming thank you very much, the guys that get culled are taking one for the team.

 

[Dzikus]

I dont think its just one mate for life from what I've read on the forums, but I have 3 females and 2 males in a 4 ft tank and I think they all breed together, i'm waiting for more results to find that out lol. You CAN breed them together, but you will most likely get more deformed babies, but Inbreeding them is a way you can get them to breed true, some breeders do it to get certain colours. Have their back legs formed yet?

Line breeding isnt the same as inbreeding, there are all types of breeding strategies and husbandry processes. Even the Ashkenazi people practice selective marrige and breeding because theyre a super isolated Jewish people that doesnt breed outside of their race. They have a plaque build up problem in there skulls do to lack of diversity but also have the highest IQ's and most Nobel prize winnersthan any other ethnicity and they're an extremely small population. So think of that way people use their style of match making and cataloging family on animals theyre breeding all the time