# how can we avoiding inbreeding?



## amit (Sep 22, 2014)

Hi

How can we avoid inbreeding?

At first it may sound pretty simple, but I think it's not that obvious.

Naturally, we don't let siblings, or other closely related pairs to breed.
Or do we?....

When we buy a group of juveniles (or a pair) how do we know what are the relations between them?

They are at the same age.
They are from the same source.
Usually, their parents are from our city/town/area.
If and when we'll have froglets of our own, we'll most likely sell them in our city/town/area.
Chances are they are most definitely related, at least to some extent.

Being many years in the freshwater tropical fish business, I can say that if you see a school of fish at the shop, it's 99% that they are all siblings.

Zoos all over the world exchange animals to avoid inbreeding in a specific location.
Do the commercial breeders do that?
Is it regulated in any way?
It requires a high degree of collaboration that is most likely to complicated and expensive for the breeders.

One more way to tackle this problem is to introduce wild caught animals into the hobby.
Wild caught animals bring new DNA to the local gene pool.
Are there big imports of wild frogs from the wild?
Most of the frogs are protected at their homelands.

When you think about it, breeding different morphs (of the same species) guarantees avoiding inbreeding.
However, this practice is widely considered wrong, and is generally avoided.

So, what do say, how can we avoid inbreeding?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

There are multiple discussions on this exact topic and how to avoid it including the formation of at least two separate attempts to provide the keepers with the tools to avoid it for generations (and one is the one that zoos use). The hobby made lots of noise about how it was a great idea and then didn't use either one of them. 

some comments 

Ed


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## AzJohn (Aug 31, 2016)

Unfortunately, this is a problem with many exotic pets. Especially ones that may have been imported in small numbers or worse yet when a smuggler manages to get 4-5 individuals out of a country and they become the base of the entire frog population in the hobby. When you start with such a small number of individuals in your founding population you are bound to have problems down the road. In the invert hobby, some species of tarantulas are all the offspring of one female that was smuggled out of it's home country. With inverts this doesn't seem to be a problem. Being new to keeping dart frogs, I'm not sure about frogs. We have some species that have been in the hobby for decades. Do they show signs of genetic weakness?


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## Stifle (Aug 13, 2015)

It can be difficult but what I personally have been trying to do is source frogs from different people when possible. I started off with a group of D. auratus 'El Copes' all from Josh's frogs, unfortunately due to a stupid mistake on my part (forgot to replace the lid after a feeding) my only male frog escaped and after a long struggle trying to get him back in shape he ended up dying. I was heart broken of course but I also saw the opportunity to avoid the inbreeding I'm sure was currently happening so I got several more El Copes from two different sources that to the best of my knowledge had no relation to the frogs at Josh's.

That's my suggestion at least source frogs from different breeders and make sure they got their frogs from different people. In the end I think it's somewhat of a moot point though because it's been shown with some species restoration projects that even extremely inbreed populations can come back from the brink and recover. Given time the deleterious effects of inbreeding a selected against and inbreeding depression is reduced or eliminated. So as long as we avoid breeding frogs that are unthrifty we should be artificially selecting against animals suffering from inbreeding depression and thus eliminate the issue.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Stifle said:


> Given time the deleterious effects of inbreeding a selected against and inbreeding depression is reduced or eliminated. So as long as we avoid breeding frogs that are unthrifty we should be artificially selecting against animals suffering from inbreeding depression and thus eliminate the issue.


This is pretty much not likely to work, as an example while to can select away from obvious deformations you cannot as easily avoid the loss of histocompatability complex genes. Your scenario also ignores the repeated declines and resurgence in popularity of individual morphs/species during which large losses of genetic variation is lost. 

some comments 

Ed


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## viper69 (Dec 28, 2013)

Ed said:


> hobby made lots of noise about how it was a great idea and then didn't use either one of them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Lazy owners? Or some other reason/s? New frogger here.

Where can one find either of these frog tracking sites?


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## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

viper69 said:


> Lazy owners? Or some other reason/s? New frogger here.
> 
> Where can one find either of these frog tracking sites?


Because it'd be 'hard.' There are certainly still available ways to do this, but while the hobby has occasionally been vocal about wanting to initiate a genetic tracking program, most people when it comes down to it don't appear to want to put in the extra work to utilize it. We could probably get a core group of a dozen or 3 people who are seriously into it, but if the vast majority of the hobby/board doesn't get behind it, it's not a very useful tool. And the longer you go, the more muddied the waters get, so to speak, and it becomes harder and harder to really know what the lineage of the animals is.


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## viper69 (Dec 28, 2013)

TarantulaGuy said:


> Because it'd be 'hard.' There are certainly still available ways to do this, but while the hobby has occasionally been vocal about wanting to initiate a genetic tracking program, most people when it comes down to it don't appear to want to put in the extra work to utilize it. We could probably get a core group of a dozen or 3 people who are seriously into it, but if the vast majority of the hobby/board doesn't get behind it, it's not a very useful tool. And the longer you go, the more muddied the waters get, so to speak, and it becomes harder and harder to really know what the lineage of the animals is.


I guess it was magical thinking on their part. The tadpoles would be born with scannable tags they surmised hah.

Agreed, you need pretty much everyone to do it for it to work.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

viper69 said:


> Lazy owners? Or some other reason/s? New frogger here.
> 
> Where can one find either of these frog tracking sites?


One was ZIMs which is the exact same system as Zoos and Aquaria do, the second was Frogtrax. ZIMs is no longer available as too few people participated to make it economically worthwhile and the other one was FrogTrax which I believe is also now not available. 

It went a little further than lazy owners as some individuals actually worked to sabotage the attempts. 

some comments 

Ed


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## viper69 (Dec 28, 2013)

Ed said:


> One was ZIMs which is the exact same system as Zoos and Aquaria do, the second was Frogtrax. ZIMs is no longer available as too few people participated to make it economically worthwhile and the other one was FrogTrax which I believe is also now not available.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks Ed. What was the incentive for owners to sabotage something good for the hobby??


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Ed said:


> It went a little further than lazy owners as some individuals actually worked to sabotage the attempts.
> 
> some comments
> 
> Ed


This is news to me too. Can you elaborate without being too specific for forum regulations? Or PM?


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## Frogsarefun (Nov 25, 2015)

Wondering if a dedicated frog sale/trade area could be on dendroboard, showing people who are interested in responsible breeding, focusing on how to source frogs from different lines?


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Frogsarefun said:


> Wondering if a dedicated frog sale/trade area could be on dendroboard, showing people who are interested in responsible breeding, focusing on how to source frogs from different lines?


And who would be in charge of deciding who the "responsible" people are to achieve this elite seller status? Everyone already has the ability to select their own frogs from separate sources/lines should they choose. Are you operating under the assumption that a related pair will only produce inferior or sickly offspring?


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## viper69 (Dec 28, 2013)

If froglets for sale are related, sellers should make that known so the consumer may make an informed decision. I personally don't see that as being "elite".


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## bsr8129 (Sep 23, 2010)

I think its pretty much a given when some one lists froglets for sale that they are related . 

I have seen this brought up many times through the years and it all comes down to most people don't want to spend 50-60 bucks on shipping to get frogs from different people and there is no guarantee you get males and females from different breeders unless you are buying sewed adults


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

viper69 said:


> If froglets for sale are related, sellers should make that known so the consumer may make an informed decision. I personally don't see that as being "elite".


How many 'for sale' ads in the classifieds currently make this distinction? Why shouldn't the buyer know enough to ask about an unlisted lineage, or relation if that is something they are concerned about? I suspect that 75% or more of the animals listed here are from related pairs, therefore it is more the norm than the exception. 
Another consideration beyond the extra shipping fee for an unrelated frog from a different vendor is that the frogs would need to be quarantined separately, tested separately, and treated separately (if need be). I typically spend about $125 in testing for every new frog/group/pair, and given that typical live shipping costs about $60, an unrelated pair of frogs, purchased and shipped from two breeders would cost almost $300 just in extra expenses. Is this your typical procedure, Viper?


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Dane said:


> I typically spend about $125 in testing for every new frog/group/pair, and given that typical live shipping costs about $60, an unrelated pair of frogs, purchased and shipped from two breeders would cost almost $300 just in extra expenses. Is this your typical procedure, Viper?


Sorry, my math was off, try closer to $375 in corollary costs "to do things right".


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## oldlady25715 (Nov 17, 2007)

I think the onus is on the buyer to get unrelated frogs, and as the other posts said, it gets expensive to double the shipping and pay extra for testing, quarantine etc. Having a really good local network of froggers to trade with and are trustworthy would be helpful to reduce costs.

For hobbyists who simply enjoy keeping the frogs and sell whatever offspring there are, there isn't enough incentive to keep multiple unrelated pairs to ensure diversity. The sale prices of unrelated frogs are not substantially higher than sale prices than for related frogs, so there isn't an economic incentive for the seller to produce unrelated. 

Sustaining diversity in the gene pool through maintenance of multiple unrelated pairs is a noble cause, but all things being equal, I would rather use limited resources on working with a different type of frog than multiple pairs of the same frog. I try to get unrelated frogs when possible, but if it doubles the cost--its just too expensive for a hobbyist like me.


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## viper69 (Dec 28, 2013)

Dane said:


> How many 'for sale' ads in the classifieds currently make this distinction? Why shouldn't the buyer know enough to ask about an unlisted lineage, or relation if that is something they are concerned about? I suspect that 75% or more of the animals listed here are from related pairs, therefore it is more the norm than the exception.
> Another consideration beyond the extra shipping fee for an unrelated frog from a different vendor is that the frogs would need to be quarantined separately, tested separately, and treated separately (if need be). I typically spend about $125 in testing for every new frog/group/pair, and given that typical live shipping costs about $60, an unrelated pair of frogs, purchased and shipped from two breeders would cost almost $300 just in extra expenses. Is this your typical procedure, Viper?



Sorry for the delay Dane. The buyer should know enough to ask of course!

However, I think if sellers (at least quite a few list lineage) list lineage, they should list if frogs are related or not. I see such data merely as information, nothing more, when it comes to ordering frogs.

I imagine it's minimal work to type "related" in a posting...

Good point on shipping and testing!!


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## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

viper69 said:


> Sorry for the delay Dane. The buyer should know enough to ask of course!
> 
> However, I think if sellers (at least quite a few list lineage) list lineage, they should list if frogs are related or not. I see such data merely as information, nothing more, when it comes to ordering frogs.
> 
> ...


It's the standard, there's no need to emphasize it. The only thing I'd expect to see labeled would be the inverse; that the froglets were not in fact related, since it's so much more uncommon to encounter.


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## viper69 (Dec 28, 2013)

TarantulaGuy said:


> It's the standard, there's no need to emphasize it. The only thing I'd expect to see labeled would be the inverse; that the froglets were not in fact related, since it's so much more uncommon to encounter.


AH I see now, that makes sense now.


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