Inbreeding (would really like an informed debate)

[vettepilot_6]

Hmmmm well if you subscribe to the Bible theory...I would assume that every living thing is inbred...including us? ....But if you go down the evolution path it works the same...every living thing has come from 1 pair somewhere.....and diversity has made animals attune to their environment....

[maz]

Thank you so much for all your information, as I said at the start (of what has turned out to be a well informed debate) I wanted information so I could make the right decisions before starting out and you have thankfully given me the information and the opinions I was looking for. It appears to me that inbreeding does occur probably more than people admit to, that it can have benefits but also needs to be well handled if the benefits are to outweigh the pitfalls. As a geneticist myself (the main reason Is started breeding rats was the ease at which their genetics can be manipuated) I was interested to see others opinions and quite pleased with the level of knowledge I found here as compared to other sites ( where people were saying things like inbreeding causes mutations) lots of stuff for me to ponder before I embark on the journey into finches. Thank you

[SamDavis]

I am sorry but most of the buying and selling involves siblings; other than the larger breeders most people only have one pair so the offspring are obviously related.

A bit off topic, but this is one of my pet annoyances. Why is it that many people will only sell pairs? And club auctions and bird sales encourage this. Why is it such a big deal to end up with a few spares of one sex? Quite often I have to buy a pair when all I want is the hen or cock. Even if new finchos want a single pair they'd be better to buy from two sources. I'm happy to sell individual birds and if selling a pair that are siblings then I always tell the purchaser. I also try to swap with mates so we've both got unrelated pairs to sell.
I suspect it's a major problem when people buy from a dealer. Often when I sell excess to a dealer I try to explain my ring system so they know which birds are closely related, but I doubt they bother to remember. And sometimes all the birds are siblings and they're the only ones they have.

[Diane]

Why is it that many people will only sell pairs?

I have trouble with this too, and I asked at the bird place.
Apart from the obvious one of them selling two birds at once. (Note: if you were buying a budgie or anything bigger you wouldn't have to buy a pair.)
They said that hens generally die more often than cocks so on average people are looking more for hens and if they sold single birds they would end up with just cock birds.
I can understand that there might be more risk of a hen dying than a cock due to the rigors of egg laying but it is possible to lose just the cock bird too and lets face it.....it take the two of them to tango
Even the price when selling is slanted to the hen, if you offer a pair for sale to them you would get say $25, try and sell them just the cock and they only want to give $10 max

[E Orix]

Sam
Well said.
It is the exact reason that we should maintain the edict about not inbreeding.
I have no issues with experienced people line breeding etc. Sadly too many people just don't care.
At my home I try to have at least 2 seperate lines of each specie so I can sell birds that are not nest mates,brother and sister
sadly many people do though.
A few years ago I was breeding quite a few Oriental Magpie Robins from two seperate pairs as unrelated as I could get.
In the following seasons I would read adds for Robins for sale as unrelated pairs yet these people only purchased a single pair from me and few had access to trade for out crosses.Sadly it happens.
As for selling odd birds,that is up to the individual.I really get annoyed when I see a wanted add and there is a list of 3,4 or 5 species and all they want are hen birds.Personally I will not deal with these people because the majority are not looking after the birds properly or trying to get them to breed all year round.Another reason I prefer to sell as pair is by selling singles you could end up having an inbalanced pair. For example you buy a pair of Cordon Blues and after 18 months you lose the male.
out you go and buy a young male. By the time it matures the female is well into her life span so the odds are she will die first so off you go and buy a young hen and the cycle continues. To stop this, you can try and match the birds age or pair up a brand new young pair and put the odd bird into a colony group or if it is not too old sell it as a mature bird, BUT TELL THE NEW BUYER ITS AGE.please. Birds breed far better if they are similar in age.

[finchbreeder]

Swapping bloodlines is an excellent way of keeping our birds from becoming too inbred. Or as Orix does buy in new cocks to go to the hens you bred, and as said previously, cocks are easier to get so this is not too hard to do. Some degree of genetic knowledge allows for careful inbreeding, or linebreeding (fineline there) to increase desirable or rare traits and avoid undesirable ones. Yes the increase in size of many birds is the choice of the breeders. I am one of those strange people who like the smaller birds more. And with canarys in particular will deliberately look for these smaller livelyer birds. They used to be considered the thing in Glosters not that long ago. To the change in attitudes (or is it just laziness in breeding effort?)
LML

[Myzomela]

Di,
You will find that often this is the case- the cost of a hen of some species is almost equivalent to the cost of a pair eg crimson finches;
With some species more cocks are bred than hens. Add this to the higher mortality rates of hens, exacerbated by poor management ( ie breeding hens out of condition) and you can see why some breeders are not keen to sell spare hens.

I remember when I was younger that the dealers would sell cock fires, orange-breasts and strawberries for less than 1/4 of the price of the pairs. And if you ended up buying a "pair" that turned out to be a coloured and uncoloured pair of cocks then often it was impossible to swap one of the cocks as a hen.

Plenty of people will be happy to sell you a single bird of the more common sex, but for the rarer sex you may have to pay a premium.

[SamDavis]

On the whole I reckon most finches are pretty cheap (cheep!). I'm happy to pay a premium for quality and/or for a hen. I appreciate the time and care that goes into breeding quality birds. I'm also happy to pay extra from dealers for the odd bird now and then - they're trying to make a living out of it. Personally, I'm more than happy to do swaps, freebies, etc. to people I know and trust or younguns just starting out. But when people try to barter with me when I know my price is more than fair it really gets me going - I just refuse, I'm not eBay and we're not in SE Asia or the middle east. I've had some boneheads knock me down $20 or so and then when the birds are in their carry cage they try to scab another $10 or $20 off. If they'd just been nice about it from the outset I probably would have given them the birds.

Feeling much better now I've got that off my chest!

[tbird]

As I am fairly new to finches and breeding, I was wondering if someone could explain in "layman's terms" what happens if a brother mates with his sister or mother. Are the birds born with deformaties etc. I know I probably sound really nieve but how do birds in the wild recognise their siblings etc. I have 8 gouldians in a colony set up, 4 of which are siblings. Does it mean I should remove and have to sell them as I only have the one aviary. I am only keeping finches as a hobby, not to breed continually and sell. I find it very confusing

[Diane]

The young from parent to young pairing inherit an automatic 50% genes from each parent.
Sibling to siblings the inheritance works slightly differently.

If siblings pair up, their genes are the same so there is a chance that if any strange genes are present they could show themselves in the young from that pairing.
You may of course get perfectly normal birds, but if these birds then go on to pair with other closely related birds you would be increasing the chances of deformities being present.
Not all the problems will be seen, it is said that inbreeding causes lack of fertility and birds die earlier than others from mixed pairings.
As parent to young are also the same genes, deformities and inbreeding depression (lack of fertility and dying early) is also possible from this pairing.

Problems arising from this type of pairings could be anything, but as I said before they could also be perfectly normal.

Wild birds are in a flock situation and while Im sure inbreeding takes place, any deformity would be swiftly taken care of by nature and predators, leaving only the genes that will enable the bird to succeed. This is why breeders do the in/line breeding.

In an aviary situation and doing in/line breeding you have to be prepared to be nature and the predator should a problem gene turn up, otherwise you would end up with an aviary full of birds with visible problems and therefore be unable to sell them.

If you know anyone else with gouldians I sure a swap of a few pairs would be good thing for both parties, no cost to either party but each gets a new bloodline.
Or you could do as some have mentioned earlier and every couple of years sell the cocks and keep some of the hens.