Breeding Discussion

[Lilo]

Hoping to gather some information about breeding, we all know that breeding parents with offspring leads to infertility, but what about half siblings, or a couple of generations removed?

I'm a bit late to the party as I was away last week but I'm currently building up some tiger numbers to experiment with. I have one male tiger who I bred with two different females, they've had three cubs each, 5 females and 1 male. Going to try breeding the male cub with a female from the other litter, which would be his half sibling. Then try breeding the current male with some of the children from a later litter (I intend on buying a new male to breed with most of the females, except the pairing above) that would mean he's a grandparent to the paired female. Will post back as I have information.

 

[Chris Simon]

Hoping to gather some information about breeding, we all know that breeding parents with offspring leads to infertility, but what about half siblings, or a couple of generations removed?

I'm a bit late to the party as I was away last week but I'm currently building up some tiger numbers to experiment with. I have one male tiger who I bred with two different females, they've had three cubs each, 5 females and 1 male. Going to try breeding the male cub with a female from the other litter, which would be his half sibling. Then try breeding the current male with some of the children from a later litter (I intend on buying a new male to breed with most of the females, except the pairing above) that would mean he's a grandparent to the paired female. Will post back as I have information.

From the little experience I've got, I think your half-siblings will have problems with fertility as well. Though they probably won't be completely infertile.
It seems very random to me, though. Sometimes even an offspring of totally unrelated parents will end up with bad fertility.

Common sense would suggest that cousins are the first that are "far apart enough" to make for a healthy offspring. But like I said. It feels random.

 

[Lilo]

So far as I can tell, you are correct, only direct relationships matter. Breeding half siblings doesn't affect the fertility nor does breeding grandparents with grandchildren, breeding full siblings or parents and siblings does affect fertility, and it does give a warning.