# Inbreeding pigeons bad?



## Pigeongrisnich (Jun 25, 2014)

I know that usually any inbred animals are weaker and can be disformed, but recently my pair of tame "wild" pigeon siblings paired and layed eggs. What do i do?


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

*Throw the eggs away before they can incubate them. I know someone who had babies from such pairing and the babies were both blind. *


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## Pigeongrisnich (Jun 25, 2014)

Thanks should i seperate the pair?


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

It probably would be best, but they are bonded to each other.

If they stay together and you continue to throw away eggs, you have to replace them with dummy eggs, or the hen will end up having all kinds of issues. They need time between laying to get their calcium reserves up and more.


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## Chuck K (Jan 12, 2013)

Do you want more pigeons. If you do there is nothing wrong with letting them raise the young. If they have recessive traits that are bad it will come out, but inbreeding is common among the show and performance breeders. It is used to set desirable traits in the line, and it is used to determine the carriers of undesirable traits.


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

This question comes up every so often here.

And it amazes me that most people don't have a problem with inbreeding at all.

I do.


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## ThePigeonGene (May 30, 2014)

general rule of thumb is that inbreeding can be done to a max of 3 to 4 cross overs to remain safe. Otherwise weaknesses and deformities like web footing can start to appear.

Now we're talking about 3 to 4 cross overs withing their entire genetic history (of relatively recent genetic history)

So if you have 2 imported show birds, from different breeders and different countries even the you can in breed or line breed siblings, or children with parents/grand parents etc without visible consequence - and this is in fact necessary to retain recessive traits - otherwise you will need 10 times the amount of birds in you breeding program and a lot of recessive features will be impossible to include in your loft.

Important is to keep good breeding records and make sure you keep track of the bloodlines.

More important question than all this is - do you want more birds? Do you have space for more birds? And can you keep up with stopping the reproduction of more birds? 2 becomes 4 becomes 20 pretty quickly and if they all come from the same parents you will indeed have problems.

If this is a wild pair of siblings, the chances that their parents were related is quite slim. So this pair of eggs should not have problems if you do intend to keep them


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## Chuck K (Jan 12, 2013)

conditionfreak said:


> This question comes up every so often here.
> 
> And it amazes me that most people don't have a problem with inbreeding at all.
> 
> I do.


I understand that some people would have a moral aversion to inbreeding due to the teaching of their faith, but the vast majority of specialty breeds in all animals and birds would not be in existence if inbreeding had never been practiced.

When a recessive mutant appears it takes inbreeding to set that trait in a breed. The vast majority of breeds in all domestic animals are a results of the inbreeding of individuals expressing a desired phenotype which set the recessive genes in that breed. We don't have the vast variety of horses, cattle, pigeons, dogs or other domestic animal breeds from random chance.


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## Pigeongrisnich (Jun 25, 2014)

Thanks everyone since i cannot see any overall harm in allow the hen to sit on the egg i will let her sit on her eggs. If their is any problems with the young then i will seperate the pair or as skyeking said replace it with dummy eggs. Thank you all.


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## Chuck K (Jan 12, 2013)

If you like to read a good article on inbreeding this link has one written by Pual Maywald.

http://www.the-spa.com/~paulmaywald/strain.htm


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