Inbreeding Coefficiant

[tjherman]

Sorry, I was trying to come up with a less common gene to use as an example. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Well, I'm still learning.

[Pearl Hamletry]

Some comments had been previously removed and I am glad. Nevertheless I am glad that
I put this out there because it really isn't something you can just ask at the dinner table; "You breed what? Why?"

Thanks Vectis for answering my question! And as you know I always appericiate your feedback and teachings Janice. I agree with you Vectis about line breeding/inbreeding being something that should be done with expierence and/or mentoring. Actually I think this is the case for breeding period and although I do know a good deal about genetics, no one can ever know everything and I also have a great teacher in addition to my own knowledge!

[Lougarry]

I have nothing very useful to add but am finding this debate very interesting, partly because I have a Pixie-Bob cat. All pedigree Pixie-bobs can trace their lineage back to Pixie, and the same cats pop up several times in my cat's pedigree. Probably as a result, many Pixie-Bobs are polydactyl - in fact, it's so common in the line that they are the only breed in which exta toes are permitted in the show ring.

There are still only a handful of breeders in the UK - maybe 3.

My cat is big and healthy and as a wonderful temperament.

[Basia]

I rarely post on this forum but have been breeding and showing hamsters for some years.
I mainly breed cream hamsters and in the early days I always used hamsters as unrelated as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds because tracing pedigrees back nearly every hamster I have ever owned is related somewhere in the pedigree. As time went on and I became more confident and discovered what health issues my hamsters were carrying I started to line breed, something I did a lot with rabbits, which I bred for many years previously. I also inbreed occasionally, particularly with a girl I have here who is a grand champion. By the time I bred from her she was already 8 months old so I knew I'd only get one litter and wanted the best one I could get, so I mated her to her half brother. This is not something I would do very often and the offspring from that mating have been mated away to as unrelated mates as I can find. I usually have a co-efficient of between 1 and 4% on Kintraks occasionally up to 12%.
I have recently decided to breed dark greys again, I bred them up until about 2 years ago when i decided to concentrate on creams mainly because it is necessary to keep hamsters which are not able to be shown in order to breed the dark greys, as Vectis has said in her post. The gene pool for dark greys is much tighter and even more so for dark greys carrying lilac, which is something I am aiming for at the moment. However, if breeders hadn't line and inbred this colour it would no longer exist.