SnakeDancer
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Now that it has suddenly become more important than ever to keep our captive-bred populations going in each state, I was curious how others are organizing their breeding groups. How many active groups per species do you ideally want to have to insure you don't lose that species?
I breed a variety of animals, and when in comes to rodents, for instance, I prefer to have 3 active breeding colonies for every species and/or color, to insure I don't lose them if something should happen to one group. If something does go wrong with one group, I have a backup, and a second backup. (I don't always have the space to set up 3 colonies for each, but I try to have at least 2, especially for the rarer colors or species).
Now I am trying to do the same with my newts: ideally I'd like 3 separate breeding groups per species. That will take some time as I'm raising babies, but that's my goal.
What's everyone else doing in terms of numbers? Do you have just one big colony per species, or multiple separate groups?
Do we need to be particularly concerned about inbreeding? (Again I think back to rodents, where inbreeding doesn't seem to be an issue: all the Syrian hamsters available to the pet market for decades were the offspring of a lone female and a few of her babies, and many many islands have been populated by vigorous populations of rats or mice through the introduction of just one pregnant female.)
How best to keep our populations going, at this point?
I breed a variety of animals, and when in comes to rodents, for instance, I prefer to have 3 active breeding colonies for every species and/or color, to insure I don't lose them if something should happen to one group. If something does go wrong with one group, I have a backup, and a second backup. (I don't always have the space to set up 3 colonies for each, but I try to have at least 2, especially for the rarer colors or species).
Now I am trying to do the same with my newts: ideally I'd like 3 separate breeding groups per species. That will take some time as I'm raising babies, but that's my goal.
What's everyone else doing in terms of numbers? Do you have just one big colony per species, or multiple separate groups?
Do we need to be particularly concerned about inbreeding? (Again I think back to rodents, where inbreeding doesn't seem to be an issue: all the Syrian hamsters available to the pet market for decades were the offspring of a lone female and a few of her babies, and many many islands have been populated by vigorous populations of rats or mice through the introduction of just one pregnant female.)
How best to keep our populations going, at this point?