Inbreeding

Jon

I was very lucky, just as the old Mice Are Nice forum came to a close, to get hold of some gorgeous sealpoint mice: Basil (buck obviously), Velcro and Cheeselet (does).

When I picked them up, I was told that in breeding circles, it is common with sealpoints to inbreed them to preserve the markings. Brother with sister and then offspring with grandad. I'd thought I would pick up a mouse from outside the circle to start a litter with.

Is inbreeding common for these? They don't show any signs of being dimwitted (quite the opposite) or having birth defects.

Jon

Crittery

Hi Jon,

I'm not clued up on the genetics myself I'm afraid, I know linebreeding can be an important thing with rats, providing you don't do it too frequently.

zany_toon

I think it's quite common to linebreed or inbreed sealpoints Jon. I remember Kallan (from MaN) talking about doing it when she had sealpoints and siamese mice. I don't know much about the genetics, but I was on a breeding forum before and I recall several breeders doing this, but a few others also crossing out to solid blacks (I think, don't quote me on that!) to increase the intensity of the markings. Again though, as Crittery said it's something that you shouldn't do too frequently, and I would recommend reading up on the genetics (or maybe joining a breeding forum as well as here) to get more specialist advice for any questions that you have :)

Jon

Yeah, I figured I'd do it just once or twice, but not over and over. That's just got to be asking for trouble.

Thank you for the responses.

cordane

When thinking about inbreeding, you need to think of this as a "human thing" in the sense that only we see it as wrong - in the wild it is extremely common for it to happen.
When it comes to mice and people who breed, again it depends on the person but a lot of people who breed mice for show or to improve certain traits will inbred to some extent.
Look at inbreeding this way : it solidifies the traits you want, it also brings out the bad traits or health issues faster which means you can get rid of them faster. If you didn't inbred, then you may potentially be adding a whole heap of new problems into the line so it really is a calculated risk no matter which way you go.

With Seal points, it is fairly common to inbred however I have found the most common method of improving the markings in seal points is to breed a seal point (ch/ch) to a self black (I believe extreme black is preferred) that CARRIES the seal point gene. The self black helps to darken the points if I remember correctly.

Jon

Some very helpful advice here. Thank you all.