Sibling breeding, ethical question

[BabySinclair]

I have a bit of a problem.... To be honest, I thought I had more time to separate everyone.... So all of my axolotls are siblings to each other, 3 girls, 2 boys. Over the past few months, I've been worried about my blue/black Melanoid Miss Piggy (formerly known as Stubbs) with cute little toes. About 2-3 months ago I noticed that she started getting fat. I thought she had short toe syndrome which would eventually lead to her death. This morning I woke up to Mr. Pickles, my heavily freckled Lucistic depositing spermatophores, Everywhere. At the time of writing this, there are 9 deposits. I don't want the eggs, to be honest, I think I should freeze them as the Fertalized eggs would be coming from brother and sister.
Someone one please tell me what the ethical thing to do would be? I personally think it would be wrong to let them hatch. But I also need to hear this from someone else otherwise I'm going to feel soooooo guilty!!
It's not that I don't want to breed these little beauties some day. But I want to introduce some fresh blood to do it. Hence why I'm getting another from a friend.
I know inbreeding can happen in the wild, and that most of the axolotls we keep as pets are inbred to some degree. But I still can't shake the feeling that it is ethically wrong.

Is there an old timer here that can help me?
If it's fine, I don't want to kill them. If it's bad, I'll freeze them and then bury them.

Thank you in advance for all your help
Tori

 

[Otterwoman]

Also do a search. I remember reading that sibling breeding doesn't matter that much.

 

[BabySinclair]

Otterwoman, thank you so much for getting back to me!!! It honestly makes me feel better about this little mishap...it still seems kinda twisted, but I don't feel so bad. It turns out that I have two laying eggs. Miss Piggy the Melanoid AND my gold alblino. So now it's not such a little mishap. It's a huge one!!! I'm up to at least 70 white eggs, and 13 black ones. This is both their first breeding, so I honestly hope they are going to stop soon!! What is funny, is I thought the gold albino was a male!! I believe it's the same dad for all of them as I only watched one leaving sperm piles all over the tank.... He was a busy boy!!!! When I woke up and saw the first one, my heart kinda sank like most expecting parents, Im Not Ready!!! Lol

I have some more questions, and I can assure you, I've been on this site all day researching.
Question 1: when is too soon to remove all of the males? I have a planted aquarium with uber fine gravel 1 to 2mm in size that I can put them in. Should I remove them tomorrow morning, or at least give them 48 hours as to not stress the egg laying mothers?

Since this will be my first rearing from the start of the egg laying, would it be wise to start a blog about it? I know I can read for days, but I still won't absorbe everything I read. And advise is worth more than gold ;-)

To remove the eggs from the plants, will a turkey Baister work? The idea or forceps scares me. I don't want to crush the little boogers

And finally, what is better, daphnia or brine shrimp? I know daphnia don't dirty the water like brine shrimp. But I want the healthiest babies I can raise as I intend to give them to friends and family. I'm only keeping ten of them, much more than that and I'll go crazy heck, I already have 5 and another juvi on the way lol

Addicted? Me? Maybe LOL
Tori

 

[Otterwoman]

I never raised axies, but several other newt species.
I don't think removing the males would stress the mothers.
I think it would be great to document the process in pictures.
For removing eggs, a turkey baster might work, I usually just cut the leaves of whatever plant they have laid on.
I feed everything black worms when I raise them. AT first I cut them up and soon enough just put them in whole, until I start feeding them minced nightcrawlers.

 

[auntiejude]

OK, so first of all you need to read up on raising axies on axolotl.org.
Moving the boys now will be fine, the girls won't be that worried. You're likely to get 100s from each girls though, you're going to have to freeze some eggs and raise a handful.

You can scrape the eggs off whatever they were laid on with a thumbnail, they are pretty tough. Keep them in a tub, change the water after a week, read up on BBS hatching to feed them.

Sibling pairings aren't too much of an problem with amphibians in general, but you might find that not all the larvae survive.

Good luck!

 

[BabySinclair]

Thank you very much everyone!
And I can assure you that I've been reading. I started reading as soon as I saw the little sperm piles.. I know that's not the correct terminology, but it makes me laugh
I did read that the first egg laying, there wouldnt be many more than a hundred eggs. I managed to get all the eggs off they plants "butchering my poor sag grass". I actually found that the forceps were best to use!! I pulled out a total of 356 eggs, and left 9 in the tank. I intend to pull them when they start to develop. But I was curious to see what would happen if left alone. I'm giving the eggs to a couple friends on here and keeping maybe 10-20 for myself. I don't want to try any more than that.
I have micro worm cultures, daphnia, white worm and bbs on the way. When they get a little bigger, I'll order some black worm.

But I have a question. I have a huge cultivation of brown planeria. Is that ok to feed them? I feed those to my pregnant platties, and then feed those off spring as treats to my adult axolotls. My fish have never gotten sick from them, nor the axolotls from eating said fish.
Ultimately I would like to provide variety. I also have a earthworm cultivation going with tons of itty bitty baby worms. Does all of this sound ok?


Oh year, here's the huge clutch!

And where should I start a thread about the progress and my inevitable mistakes?
Thank you again,
Tori

 

[Otterwoman]

I think this section is as good as any. I can't comment on the food choices, I never used planaria.

 

[Laticaudata]

I think planar will be just fine. To my knowledge they are completely harmed and don't harbor parasites.

I don't know this for sure, I am basing it off fish culture and not amphibian culture but they seem like a perfect food source to me. Something they would naturally come into contact with?

 

[Laticaudata]

I think planaria will be just fine. To my knowledge, they are completely harmless and don't harbor parasites.

I don't know this for sure, I am basing it off fish culture and not amphibian culture but they seem like a perfect food source to me. Something they would naturally come into contact with and nutritious?

Is there something about planaria that I need to know?


Sorry for the double post.