Inbreeding...

[chanceosunshine]

Last year my female duck hatched one female duckling. If either of them start sitting, it is, obviously, very likely that the daughter's eggs will be in the nest and will have been fertilized by her father.

Should I not allow them to sit or will the ducklings be ok? And then what about those offspring?

I thought about seeing if someone wanted to trade a drake, but I'd hate to split their little group up.

Thank you.

 

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

Last year my female duck hatched one female duckling. If either of them start sitting, it is, obviously, very likely that the daughter's eggs will be in the nest and will have been fertilized by her father.

Should I not allow them to sit or will the ducklings be ok? And then what about those offspring?

I thought about seeing if someone wanted to trade a drake, but I'd hate to split their little group up.

Thank you.

I do not think it would probably harm the chicks, but I have never done any of that, so I may be wrong .

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Both will be fine, bit I would not hatch any eggs his grand daughters lay that are fertilized by him

 

[fluffycrow]

First generation inbreeding doesn't usually produce any deformed chicks, but as @JacinLarkwell said, I wouldn't breed the granddaughters back to him

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I only say that because that's when I notice my chicks don't grow as well and often stop growing around 3 or 4 months old. I had 2 that wound up being put down for health reasons, however it's not certain if those developed from genetics or because they got onto something. But my male has fathered and bred at least 5 generations and I still have yet to have hatch defects or anything else besides smaller sizes

 

[NanaK]

I have read that repeated inbreeding can cause infertility and viability issues in chicks. Breeding back to a parent one time should not be a problem. I've done this without issue.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Agreed on all points.

I have several Muscovy that are minuscule, and have obviously been line bred. I've gotten all my ducks from online ads, and whilst most people were really nice, their ducks were more pets than anything else and allowed to breed as they wished, parent to child, sibling to sibling. I've had to cull a few grossly-undersized drakes, and the females didn't make it through the first month of winter.

 

[fluffycrow]

In reality, inbreeding leaves you a few generations where you will produce generally healthy chicks, but each time you do it you increase the odds of something not going right, so inbreeding for multiple generations should be left to professionals, or not done at all. Line breeding is different, but it should still be left to people who know what they're doing, because doing irresponsible line breeding is dangerous

 

[chanceosunshine]

Thank you all!