photo courtesy of GeckoBoa Reptiles

In this installment we have a guest post by John from Gecko Boa Reptiles about the ethics of crossing certain genetics and cross breeding properly to isolate genetic traits. We'd like to thank John for giving us permission to post his content. We believe that it is an important topic and that his words explain the topic perfectly.

This article will be specifically targeted toward leopard geckos but it's principles can be applied across the board of breeding reptiles.  

Recently ethics when breeding has become a real hot issue among breeders and hobbyist alike, and although it is usually laced with arguments and a lot of drama, I feel it's best that I discuss proper breeder ethics from a medium to larger breeder's point of view. Some may agree or disagree but I speak in fact and get down to the real issue which is irresponsible breeding. I have no biases or personal motivations when writing this but only wish to get out the proper information to the entry level breeders and hobbyists. Most that know me know I venture as far away from the drama and the he said she said as possible. This doesn't mean I don't have opinions or that I'm scared to speak my mind, but rather I find this particular part of the hobby especially distasteful. My motivation in writing this is only to help change this around for future generations and to set the record straight now rather than when it's too late.

First off I will start with the important rules in breeding leopard geckos to sell as breeders and not as pets as I get these questions almost on a daily basis. Again these rules apply to breeding to sell and for future breeding stock. This does not apply to testing animals or for the pet trade.  

-Do not mix any of the 3 Albino strains(Tremper, Rainwater, and Bell), including hets, with each other. Once mixed they might never be able to be distinguished. 

-Do not mix eye pigment traits. This means do not mix Eclipse, ME, and in certain cases be careful of how you mix Blizzard and Super Snows with other eye traits. If you were to mix for example Eclipse and Blizzard you have to breed Eclipse het Blizzards or proven Eclipse Blizzards. Otherwise, how can you know for sure it's an eclipse? For example in creating Diablo Blancos you have to breed visual eclipses het DB or proven DB's because the eclipse can hide behind the Blizzard gene. In cases where this does not happen these geckos should always be labeled as possible het eclipses but usually this just passes the problem on to the next guy. Same goes for Super Snows especially when mixed with albino. Marble eyes should ONLY be bred to animals that have been proven not eclipse or het. Can't wait for this mess to pop up in the coming years. 

-Do not mix the 3 genetic snows. Mack, TUG, or Gem and possibly the line bred snows as well. We might already be too late on this but hopefully we can deconstruct these and have known pure snows again. In my opinion mixing snows is just as bad as albinos if not worse because of how frequently it is done without consequence.  If these snow lines ever prove out all the same in the future then this rule will not apply. My feeling is they are similar genes that lie on the same allele yet can have different super forms. Actually not that uncommon in genetics. 

These are the main rules to follow. There are others that can be considered just bad breeding choices but usually they can still be sold and bred in the future. 

Breeders wishing to breed, for example, a gene that is found "locked up" in one albino strain must deconstruct the unwanted albino and isolate the desired gene correctly. This means not cutting corners and spending the extra years of work to isolate the gene. For example the Marble Eye trait was found in Tremper albinos and has taken many years of breeding and the use of wild types to isolate so it can be bred into other albinos. The lazy breeder who doesn't care might cross them directly to a Bell and try to create ME Bells in two years. This leads to a disaster in all geckos related to these original animals as 66% of them, will in theory, be het Tremper. Here you can see how one breeders laziness can affect hundreds if not thousands of geckos down the road. Never hurts to ask the breeders how they specifically created their combo morphs. I keep very detailed records of all my animals and exactly where they came from and I have no problem disclosing this info. My records are so detailed that I know not only every gecko that is related to every gecko I own, but I also know every test breeding I have done with all of it's relatives and what or what not was produced. This means I can go back many generations and I know what every parent has been bred to each year and what exactly was produced. I do this partly by written documentation but also by hundreds of thousands of photos that provide a visual documentation. If a breeder can't do this for you they probably are sloppy and maybe you should do business elsewhere.

Now the question arises of test breeding every animal you have in your collection. The sad part about this is that all larger breeders currently have unknown hets floating around. There's just no denying it and if someone says that everything in their entire collection is pure they are either lying to you or they only have a couple lines of geckos from tested genetics. The fact is that even if a breeder is trustworthy they may have purchased an animal from another breeder who did not label their animals correctly or they crossed conflicting hets knowingly or not. Nobody is immune to this! My personal opinion is that you should always do the best you can. I'm not saying to test breed every animal to every albino strain but make sure you do your homework and buy from trusted sources and get all the background info on the animal including ALL the possible hets. I don't care if there is a 2% chance of being het albino it should always be documented and disclosed. Also make the smart decisions when breeding. It's a fact that the tremper albino strain is the most common and should be usually tested first. Depending on the animal purchased and from which breeder can influence what should be tested. For example if I but a gecko from Tremper directly I probably will test for Tremper albino. I am currently testing all my main breeding males and most of my founding females. It's not something I want to do but at least I will sleep at night. 

Now on to the controversy of test breeding and creating more mixed multi-het animals. The bottom line is that we must as a community of breeders and hobbyist separate the pet store trade and the breeder trade as two different classes of geckos. Geckos can go from the breeder trade to the pet trade but should never come back unless they are extensively test bred. This means if you go down to any chain pet store and find a nice looking gecko you should under no circumstance breed these animals into your trusted breeder lines. Almost every gecko that you see at your big chain pet stores has hidden hets and it's not like these animals come with a genetic ID card with the purchase. It's the same as picking out a dog at a shelter that looks like a pure breed and breeding them into your champion blood lines. You just don't do it. If you take it upon yourself to breed "pet store geckos" together then you must sell them as pets as well. 

So that being said what do you do with all your "test bred" animals that are a mix of hets? Under no circumstance should you just cull the animals. There is just no reason that we should take animals and breed them just to see if there is an albino just to kill them. Seriously, what have we become as breeders if we do this? All these geckos will make great pets and should be allowed to enter the "pet trade" which is a much larger market. Again the pet geckos we always see come from mass production facilities with all kinds of hets floating around anyway. These VERY LARGE high production breeders produce hundreds of thousands of geckos for the pet trade each year and do you think they keep perfect records of each gecko heading out the door? Absolutely not and when these geckos with a slew of hets enters the pet shop market there is no difference between them and our test bred animals.  That is why you spend a couple hundred on a gecko from a reputable breeder and have it shipped for almost double the price of these unknown origin pet store geckos. I wish I didn't have to spend over $100k on my collection but that's the price I paid to get quality.  Anyone that argues with this shouldn't be breeding in the first place. 

This article is not to discourage anyone from breeding leopard geckos but in fact it is the exact opposite. It is a wonderful hobby and I am so happy that I am able to  be part of it. If things are done correctly and we all work together to clean these lines then we will have sustainable hobby for future generations. Always do the right thing and keep this hobby strong. 

-John