11/24/2023
What is the difference between a backyard breeder and a reputable breeder.
The main answer to this is genetics of the animals they sell. We are going to use hedgehogs because that is my specialty, but is true for almost all mammals (dogs, cats, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, rats, and even humans) the known exception being african soft furs. Neuological issues are caused by inbreeding. The inbreeding occurs in generations 7 8 and 9 on recessive traits. Dominate traits are easy to find and will appear in the first generation and can only be hidden by codominat traits. If you are only looking at generations 1 through 5 you are not breeding quality pets. Recently I saw a post from a breeder that had a neuological issue and posted that they had no issues with their animals. They also posted in a few post earlier that they were not a backyard breeder. When I asked they stated that they do their pedigrees by paper and that they did not need a computer program to do it. It is almost impossible to wade through 1048 records for every potential breeder without help from a computer. The only time I ever did on paper it took almost 2 months and even then I only made it to 7th generations before I found the problem I was looking for. With a computer breeding program I have done it many times and takes less than 5 minutes of course I keep records up to date and will spend about 2 weeks per new breeder we get in putting the information into the computer program. You have to have 10 generations or you do not have lineage/pedigree on your animals. Reputable breeders will not purposely sell or give away animals with neuological problems. They will either care for them or will have them euthanized. They will also find out where their problem is, track it down, and do a controlled test. After the controlled test they will euthanise any animals that are affected and will remove those lines. This is very time consuming and expensive.
