Hellooooooooo, its great to see another Persian breeder on here o you have a prefix? Would be great to see some pics of your furries What colours do you breed? C.x.

Hello catmad-ya need to be hereWelcome along and yes pics of your furrylot would be great

I totally agree with Catmad.

There is no more risk with close breeding than with outcrossing and probably far less providing that you know your lines well.
Its also a good way of testing your lines.


Outcrosses are more of a gamble because you could be introducing some new defect into your lines, unfortunately not all breeders out there are 100% honest when selling cats for breeding.

I dont know why inbreeding is still regarded as a bit of a taboo subject, its a natural thing for cats in the wild to do and they certainly havent bred themselves extinct because of it.

I agree you can have problems by out crossing to the unknown, every untried mating is a risk. Inbreeding may well give you short term gains if you know your lines inside out and have been breeding with those lines for 30 odd years and been diligent about removing problems from them during that time, but how many people are truly in that position nowadays.

If you start off with a purchased queen take her to an outside stud then mate the off spring of that mating together, or back to a parent, even if you have discussed the lines with the parents respective breeders there is no way you can say you can say you know those lines, even 5 years down the line, you would not be a position to say that.

A brother sister mating may well yield a large litter of kittens with no birth defects, still borns, underweight struggling kittens with the bonus of a couple of show stoppers thrown in, but to my mind the proof that the mating has worked can only be ascertained once the litter reaches their dotage. If that seemingly healthy litter are all dead by 5 years old even after a glittering show career, then that is not a successful mating.

Probably in the wild a certain amount of inbreeding does take place, but any weak offspring dies, its not nurtured through his/her problems and sold on for breeding taking with all his/her inherited problems with him/her into the future. I have seen that done time and time again.

Hi btw

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www.saikousiameseandorientals.com

"Love a lot, trust just a few and always paddle your own canoe"
"Who is the greater fool - the fool themself or those that follow them"

Well put Kim!

Well as this topic has been brought back to life, I'll now add my tuppence worth (when don't I lol) so here goes...

Our Kamora is the product of a mother/son mating. Her sire is Ashanti, her dam is Sambuca. Sambuca is Ashanti's mum. It's something that I personally make no apologies for whether people like it or not. I proved the strength of the line, with regards to one aspect, and I got a better pattern that I wanted. On the downside, the eyes became more deepset but I am already sorting that out with the future husband I have planned for Kamora. But a word of warning is that in order to line breed/inbreed you MUST know your lines back to front and know exactly what health issues are in them. If you don't know the lines, or if you have no idea of health history going back as far as you can possibly go, then do not line breed or inbreed.

Rather than go into it fully as and I am tired tonight, on my web site I have a Kitten FAQ page which anyone can read and it's full of the sort of questions our kitten families ask us. This question is one of them and I've covered it on my site as follows:

Do you mate cats who are related to each other?
Sometimes yes......................what you need to realise is that if you have cats from "problem free" lines, then by doing line breeding, or inbreeding, what you are effectively doing is doubling up on the good points. For example, a mating between a half brother x half sister, who both have reasonable eye colour, may end up producing cats with stunning eye colour. I am not, nor have I ever been, against line breeding. Provided that a breeder knows the lines behind their cats, knows the possible problems, avoids breeding any 2 related cats that have even the slightest inkling of a problem, then yes, line breeding and inbreeding can be a very good thing and can do an awful lot for the breed. I have never hidden the fact that we do line breeding and inbreeding because quite frankly, I've been working with these lines for a little while now and there are definitely times when I can see that close matings are going to make a huge difference with regards to improving on any possible faults and when I feel that certain close matings are safe, I will do them. I am fully against breeders who do line breeding or inbreeding of cats with known problems in the lines. To me, that is barbaric and the effect this has on kitten families is awful, but more importantly, imagine the effect this has on a litter of deformed or stillborn babies. No queen, and no baby should ever be put through that solely for the sake of producing a Gr Ch.

I would like to think that ANY breeder who plans to do inbreeding or line breeding would not just go off what they have produced in the past, or go off the own cat family in their home, but I would like to think they also spoke to OTHER breeders who were involved in the lines behind their cats and do research first.

By the same token..........I do not home kittens for breeding, all my kittens are homed to pet or pet/show homes only. The children in the mother/son mating I did were all petted out bar Kamora who we kept. So IF I find there are problems in 5 years time as a result from this mating, I know that it has not been contributed to further by me having sold kittens from that mating for breeding. So if a problem occurs, it stops with me, it's that simple.

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Purrs and best wishes
Kat
http://www.schimmelorientals.com

I agree with you on certain points you have raised and there are arguments to be had on both sides.
I like to line breed my cats, other breeders I am friends with have also line bred their cats and they still have some of the resulting offspring 14-18 years down the line as proof. One of them has been breeding for approx 30 years so they should be qualified enough by now to be able to pass on their opinion on this type of breeding. As I said previously noboby should attempt to breed this way without researching their lines thoroughly first.
I do not sell my cats for breeding regardless of whether they are line bred or outcrossed as I prefer them to go as pets.

I also know of other breeders with a firm belief in outcrossing all the time that have ended up with one or two little 'unexpected surprises' in their litters.

At the end of the day it is up to each breeder to determine the best way forward for their cats.

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Okay, I have a bit of a question on this...
How did we get certian breeds in the first place? Did it not use a fair amount of imbreeding to find the particular characterisitcs?

Secondly, I have an opinion (he he).
Imbreeding (by accident) does not normally cause a problem, particularly with brother and sister relationship. Fathers and daughters is less favourable (for want of a better word).
Repeated Imbreeding on purpose, can cause weaknesses and defects within the off-spring. As well as heightening good characteristics, you will also be heightening weaknesses.