# Breeding a Silkback Bearded Dragon to another Silkback?



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

I've heard of people obtaining Silkbacks from pairing a Leatherback to a Leatherback. But what happens if we pair 2 silkbacks? A whole bunch of Silkbacks? or 50% Silkback and 50% something else *unknown to me*?
Also, is there a risk for the babies?
Has somebody tried it yet?


----------



## Kamike (Aug 3, 2009)

Light the candles, get Barry White on the go and see what happens lol


----------



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

:lol2: 
No but seriously, I did a search on the forum and couldn't find anything about it, even in the genetic section. I'm just really curious about it. Surely with the amount of Silkbacks around, someone must have tried?


----------



## Kamike (Aug 3, 2009)

I'm sure they have

Give it a wee while longer and one of the Beardie breeders will give you an answer I'm sure.


----------



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

That's what I've found so far in terms of genetics:
Genetics
People seem to be reluctant to talk about it? On that page they just say:
"Probably a Silkback bred to a leatherback will give the following offspring: 50% silkback and 50% leatherback. Because this cross hasn't been performed yet, this is a thesis"
They do not even mention the fact that there could be a silkback x silkback pairing. Surely this would have crossed their mind when making the table. Is this subject taboo????​


----------



## Trickygeezer (Aug 31, 2008)

its not common for female silkies to be bred from i think because of the potential damage to their skin


----------



## dickvansheepcake (Jul 8, 2009)

With how vicious mating can be I think people avoid breeding female silkbacks as much more damage will be inflicted on them as compared to a normal skinned beardie. 
I think it would be quite cruel to force a silkback female to go through the trauma of being mated. I'd imagine she could be ripped to shreds and infection would likely set in.

Jenny


----------



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

So this has never been tried because of the risk to the female ie male aggression during breeding then? Or has a female Silkback even been inseminated to a male Silkback to see what happens? Saying that, what could be after a Silkback, I don't know. There is not much more to change I guess!


----------



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

Bump as I am really curious about it. Has someone heard of a breeder (we don't need to know who) or read somewhere about this kind of breeding?


----------



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

bump


----------



## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

The simple answer is that if you breed a homozygous silkback to another homozygous silkback you would expect 100% homozygous silkbacks.


----------



## manuetaaz (Aug 23, 2010)

So why did breeding a leatherback to a leatherback not give 100% leatherback?


----------



## River Zora (Oct 16, 2010)

Because a Leatherback is a half-silkback.

Imagine it like skin colours- Black and White skin colours are co-dominant, so a White Mother and a Black Father (or vice versa) would create a skin tone between the two.

If you got two mixed-race black/white people then the result could (theoretically) be fully black, fully white, or any variant in between.

But a blackxmixed could never create a fully-white, and a whitexmixed could never create a fully black.

So a silkbackxnormal=leatherback.

Leatherbackxnormal=leatherbacks and normals (equal chance)

Leatherbackxleatherback=50%leather, 25%silk and 25% normal (statistically)

Leatherbackxsilkback=Leathers and silk (equal chance)

Silkbackxsilkback=100%silkback

Incredibly simplified, there's a diagram which'd help, but it's getting late


----------



## River Zora (Oct 16, 2010)

I spoil you -

Here's an INCREDIBLY simplified version of what goes on with leather breeding. Usually you'll see big Ts and little ts with these sorts of diagrams, but for context I used N for a normal allele (specific gene with effect on the aspect in question) and S for a silk allele. Leathers, as you can see, have one of each. The percentages are the chance for each baby to be one of the options, it does not guarantee that leatherxleather will ALWAYS give 25% silkback babies- statistics don't work like that! Also there are far more alleles at play than this, allowing for variants of leatheriness (micro scaled etc.)


----------



## stevemusson (Oct 16, 2010)

it is definately not recomended to breed from female silkbacks because their skin is very soft (sort of feels like the skin on your eyelid) and they are very likely to get hurt. that's why females are generally cheaper to buy than males. they're ver cute though


----------



## kirky1980 (Apr 4, 2010)

stevemusson said:


> it is definately not recomended to breed from female silkbacks because their skin is very soft (sort of feels like the skin on your eyelid) and they are very likely to get hurt. that's why females are generally cheaper to buy than males. they're ver cute though


eww really iv never thought of a scrotum looking cute before :lol2:


----------



## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

manuetaaz said:


> So why did breeding a leatherback to a leatherback not give 100% leatherback?


Because a leatherback is not homozygous for anything. It is heterozygous normal, heterozygous silkback.


----------



## PoisedFangs (Dec 31, 2013)

*Silkback breeding*



manuetaaz said:


> I've heard of people obtaining Silkbacks from pairing a Leatherback to a Leatherback. But what happens if we pair 2 silkbacks? A whole bunch of Silkbacks? or 50% Silkback and 50% something else *unknown to me*?
> Also, is there a risk for the babies?
> Has somebody tried it yet?


If you breed a Silkback with a Silkback, they mainly lay Silkback eggs. But it is better to obtain it from breeding leatherback to leatherback as Silkback bearded dragons have soft skin and so when the male clamps down on the female, the skin is weak and thin so it could make a wound.


----------

