# Question on breeding sibling frogs for experienced breeders



## tflanag1 (Aug 8, 2006)

I'm a beginner who is about to purchase 4 leucs at the MWFF. I hope to breed these frogs eventually so I want to make sure that I purchase ones that can breed with each other.

I have read/been told differing views on breeding sibling frogs. I'm assuming most vendors at the MWFF will be selling sibling frogs, so I am wondering if it is ok just to buy 4 frogs from one vendor, or if I should try to buy the frogs from multiple vendors to try to ensure future mating between unrelated individuals.

What is your advice?


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Dude, you've posted at least four threads in different forums on stuff that's been covered to a great extent. If you use the search feature you'll pull up many threads that will answer your questions. If you have questions after that, post back and we'll clairify, but do a little leg work to begin with.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

OUCH.....


Anyways i'll answer...

Many vendors work with unrelated pairs so they may have offspring from both that you could then later breed together....or you could look for unrelated offspring from seperate vendors....or you could breed siblings together. Its always best to breed unrelated frogs together when possible...and you should strive for that, especially if you plan on releasing those offspring out into the hobby. If you just want to have a few extra for yourself then its not a huge deal. 

Often with rare/uncommon frogs or frogs where there are only a few bloodlines in the country its hard if not impossible to avoid some inbreeding. But when you can avoid it you should. 

It would be easy to put together a pair of unrelated luecs....ask the vendors what lines they are working with or atleast where they got theirs. Sometimes you may not be able get blood line info but can atleast get frogs from different people that are very likely not related....thats better then nothing.


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## topaz017 (Jul 30, 2006)

Defaced, I love how you respond to everyone. But I too had this question at one point and finding responses from a search was often hard.
Be nice  I hate stupid people too but I think since this persons response was well typed out and wasn't a bunch of jumbled garbage, its worth a nice response.

Im all for nasty responses to... i got these frogs today i want to breed them what should i feed them i have a tank what should i put in the tank i put in now some stuff i have water and i dont know what to put in but i put in some rocks i didnt read anyting here but i want to know what to breed them with and i can feed them meat right thx for respncs i txt msg to mch


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

That was me being nice. There is a large difference between being rude, truthful, and polite. I'm truthful. Sorry to offend but I call them as I see them. And nasty... not even close. 

Anyway, Dave covered the answer very well, so that's good.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I just had to put in my 2 cents. I`m on the other camp for outbreeding. I dont believe they interbreed throughout their range. i dont think that the banded, spotted, green foot, green and common orange and yellow are all the same morph and just different lines. 
With tincs its easy to see different morphs from different colors. Leucs only have 2-3 real colors to work with. Size is also a factor. Dwarfs and some surinams look really similar. if we didnt have size at adulthood we wouldnt have too much to go on(ok i`m overstating it they do look pretty different but maybe patricia and powder blue was a better representation). 
Either way make sure they are green foot leucs(supposedly blue foot when they were imported) bred by, or from the same importation as, Thomas Villegas and Franz at araknoculture(pumilio.com) were breeding 10 years ago. The "green foots" are smaller than the common or other "morphs" and are kinda metallic bronze to orange as juvis w/ a green sheen to them. They usually have a reticulated, broken pattern. Instead of the bar/broken bar pattern the thin bars that break up are missing and the thick bars break up to form reticulates/butterfly type patterns. Hopefully I`ll get this updated on my site soon so you can see it instead of readin a dry description. 
You should always try and breed unrelated animals if they are the same morph/import/locale. 
I have a pair of brother sister inbred reginas that are throwing clutches of 8-9 good eggs 1 or more times a week and they fertilized the first clutch laid. I have bred down 7 generations w/ dwarfs w/ no apparent problems. I think most people can throw breeding problems off to genetics(inbreeding) because it`s an easy, unprovable answer to most and can stray from the fact that their husbandry had everything to do w/ the breeding problems they were having. I think inbreeding gets a bad rap from this. There are energy stores and sinks in any breeding population. Certain pairs that can make up the genetics for the whole next generation for a species/morph because they were genetically adapted for the changing environment in drastic shifts. I believe amphibians are more like insects in regards to inbreeding than mammals. iI think that unpopularity has stomped out most lines rather than inbreeding. We tend to think on mammal standards and personalize(cant remember the word: to think of an animal as thinking like you and being more human than frog?)them as to how we would feel being in their situation. They dont need playmates growing up, they dont know what sister/brother thing is except in sibling rivalry. They think of them as competition or something to breed with. You cant think human when you deal w/ frogs you have to think animal. where am i going to sleep tonite, are there predators around, where is my next meal, wheres the breeding grounds around here, is it time yet, where`s the women/men around here does this place have everything i need to raise kids, water/shelter/food source/competition(whether it be bad or good competition, something to stimulate keeping up w/ the jones` or something to be seen as a threat for food sources or rearing sites).
Think animal/insect and how they relate and have evolved(including human, we are still animals that have lost most of our animal instinct for things like society and science). what`s their priority list? What`s my priority list? A beautiful tank to display frogs or an environment up to their quality for breeding, which sometimes may be the same thing. Am i going to breed these to release into the hobby? If so, is it worse to cross different size, possibly habitat(elevation,seasonal variations etc.) individuals or inbreed another generation. This generation seems to be producing the biggest tads / size of the adults that ive ever seen in dendros and i`m getting 99% success rate w/ tads. I`m not trying to say what is the best decision I`m just trying to give you all the info(theory) i have so you can make an informed decision.


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## tflanag1 (Aug 8, 2006)

Thank you to those of you who have thoughtfully responded. I know this is a controversial issue, so I wanted some personal opinions on this one. Thanks for your time and thought.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Oh ya forgot about leuc Morphs......i know that the recently imported Banded luecs are considered a different morph, as far as the others though im honestly not sure what the consensus is in the hobby concerning orange, green foots, small spot...etc..etc... I think its likely that many of these have been mixed by now since i think alot of people just consider leucs....luecs. I know many yellows throw orange offspring and the green foots are a subtle enough difference that they've probably been crossed with other luecs. The 2 i recently got have the green feet....so i probably need to look for more of those to pair them up with. 

You got a green foot female aaron? i know i have a male


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## zaroba (Apr 8, 2006)

inbreeding should always be discouraged. it may seem fine for the first few generations, but after a while it will result in deformaties and mutations due to genetic breakdown.

no clue on how many generations it takes for frogs, no clue if anybody has actually taken the time to test. i know in mice it takes around 9 generations.



lol defaced. that first post you made brings up an interesting issue on most forums:
users often complain about new members not useing a forums search. however, users often also complain about new members posting in old topics they find when they have a question


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "inbreeding should always be discouraged. it may seem fine for the first few generations, but after a while it will result in deformaties and mutations due to genetic breakdown. "endsnip

It depends on how it is handled. For example pretty much every Przewalski Horse in the world came from 15 animals and it has been handled in a manner that this hasn't been an issue.... 

snip "no clue on how many generations it takes for frogs, no clue if anybody has actually taken the time to test. i know in mice it takes around 9 generations."endsnip

(Does this count the lab mice strains that have been inbred to be gentically identical and then carried over multiple generations??) 
I would suspect that inbreeding depression would show before deformities begin to make a significant difference in the population (depending on the number of founders and how often they are backcrossed etc). (you may find this interesting http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... ct/32/1/18) 
Also in some studies in caudates and anurans there are apparently of tolerance due to inbreeding (see http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/ab ... 06.00673.x). 

Some comments

Ed


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Perception is key... not how it was intended.


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## VTHokie (Jun 28, 2005)

Azureus are a common species in the hobby, and i believe (and someone correct me if I am wrong) the population we have in the hobby came from a limited number of frogs. I agree it is best not to inbreed, but I am not convinced that it is harmful to the frogs.

I don't claim to be an expert by any means just my opinion.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

I do not believe azureus are as limited as others. I even think there was a shipment just a couple years ago.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

several frogs such as albino Xenopus laevis have been inbreeding for a very long time. I would think axolytls would be highly "inbred."

Keep in mind, goldfish have been inbreeding for thousands of years, however they do produce quite a high percentage of defective offspring.


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## glowfrog (May 3, 2006)

I think inbreeding does not in itself cause problems with genetics...it just magnifies any problems that were already there over time. If the original breeding stock is genetically superior, with no genetic flaws or defects present, inbreeding does not cause new genetic problems to crop up. If the breeding stock is lower quality animals that are carrying recessive genes for undesirable traits then these traits will become more prevalent in each sucessive generation.

Genetic bottleneck is something else to consider, but I'm not sure how much genetic diversity is present in a morph of frog to begin with, they may all already be homozygous for all traits..... I know in mammals genetic bottleneck reduces fertility rates and the vigor of young animals.... but I have no experience working with amphibian genetics, so this is mostly educated speculation on my part. :roll: 


~Steph


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## edwardsatc (Feb 17, 2004)

glowfrog said:


> If the original breeding stock is genetically superior, with no genetic flaws or defects present, inbreeding does not cause new genetic problems to crop up.


The problem is that nearly every organism carries recessive alleles for less desirable traits. Even if you could obtain specimens that were not carriers for anything, mutations can (and will) still occur. Granted, undesirable mutations may happen far enough down the line as to not affect some of the captive population, but they will eventually have an overall effect on the fitness of the population. Especially when we (the hobby in general) tend to not select against the unfit in our breeding programs (nursing weak froglets along, preventative medicine, etc.)


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

While I agree with genetic diversity is very important, I do wonder how diverse each morph is in the wild. Many have tiny ranges, like azureus. While probably more diversity in the wild, I wouldn't think diversity would be that much higher than captivity. And yes, I do agree that allowing too many weaker animals to live is a major contributor to problem.


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## jejton (Sep 3, 2006)

The problem is not just that we raise weaker animals. In the wild there are selective pressures that keep a population from becoming genetically/environmentally stagnant. These include predation, competition over resources, selective breeding, etc. These factors help cull the unfit animals from the breeding pool and keep the pressure on a population as whole to keep evolving. In captivity most, if not all, of these factors are absent. Furthermore, we often purposely inbreed animals to develop a trait - which is what breeding has done to most domestic animals. The downside to this that captive bred animals tend to lost much of the traits that would enable them to survive in the wild ( which is not a problem for the hobby since we are not reintroducing species ) but also produces ' breed-specific ' problems. For example, in the dog world it is known that most breeds have specific health issues that are peculiar to that breed. That is the downside of domestication - the loss of genetic diversity. In agriculture, it accounts for much of the problems that exist ( i.e. - when a single, productive strain of wheat is discovered and is grown in large tracts, it only takes one disease or pest that is peculiar to that strain to wipe out crops ). In captive-breeding programs that are designed to perpetuate a species for ecological purposes ( such as reintroduction ) careful notes are kept about origins and bloodlines to prevent unneccessary inbreeding and maintain the genetic viability of a population. I emphasize unneccessary because sometimes there is no choice if the existing wild or captive populations are too small such as with California Condors and Preswaki's (sp?) horse.


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## froggerboy (Jul 9, 2006)

snip" allowing too many weaker animals to live"endsnip

How do we tell when we have weak animal? 
When do you make the choice of "to save and not to save"?
Would it be safe to say that the majority of species that are prevailent in the hobby qualify as weak animals?


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