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Full Version: Frog Breeding: Inbreeding
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I’m unsure if I just missing a posting that already spoke of this but with just starting out I am curious.

How can you be sure when buying a mate for your frog that you don’t end up inbreeding them with how many frogs are bought and traded? Is there some way of tracking the bloodlines so that you can make sure this doesn’t happen on accident? How likely is it for this to happen when buying a pair of frogs that you get related frogs from different sources? How much would this matter? I understand that in the wild there is the chance inbreeding can happen in animals though in a terrarium there isn’t much of a choice unless it’s a large community terrarium.
When you say 'inbreeding', are you referring to breeding sibling/related animals, or mixing species? Hybridization between species is a bad idea, and there have been multiple threads on DB and here listing the multitude of reasons it is detrimental to the hobby.
Breeding related animals happens often, and can result in genetic bottlenecking, but it isn't a serious point of contention. The best option is to purchase animals of the same lineage from different sources, in order to provide the greatest amount of diversity within the gene pool. Just be sure you are not mixing established lines or morphs. The Amphibian Steward Network has a number of well thought out guidelines to this effect.
Thank you for your responce Dane.

Yes, the breeding of related animals not hybids or mixing species. I understand cross breeding morphs are bad. Though unsure why putting species that cannot interbreed would be bad. Though part of why I am interested in keeping these cool looking frogs is the presevation of their various species. I was thinking that it would be better to get 2 different bloodline for if the frogs breed but was unsure how it is tracked.

So this ASN is similar to the AKC for dogs if I'm understanding this correctly. Does it cost to be a stewart and register your frogs or the cost is just the TWI membership? Do you know if breeders register their frogs so that they can all be tracked?