If your cat or dog is having a litter, is it ok to keep most or a considerable part of the puppies if you have the conditions, or is there risk of inbreeding in the future?
I tried to search the internet for that and for people who raise pets in farms, ranchs, etc, could never find a good answer about how it goes if you keep your pet's entire group of children together with the parent(s) and don't give them away. I know in nature they would each go their separate ways, but in a human environment, if the children aren't neutered and get raised together, what happens when they reach sexual maturity? Is inbreeding new babies with birth defects inevitable, or do the female and male siblings of either cats or dogs somehow know not to breed with family?
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You should absolutely spay and neuter your pets regardless of whether they’re siblings. Shelters across the country are overrun with animals and hundreds of thousands are euthanized each year in the US alone. To your more direct question, being siblings will not prevent inbreeding. Raising and keeping an entire litter of siblings is also not a great idea - do some research on littermate syndrome (https://www.wshs-dg.org/resource-center/ask-the-trainer/131-ask-the-trainer/461-litter-mate-syndrome).
I don't live in the US but this sounds ethical and reasonable enough. I think I'm getting a cat soon, and if it's a female, the idea of her eventually getting pregnant crossed my mind. One thing I don't understand, can we spay them guilt-free, knowing that the particular breed or coloration of cat is still living on and being bred somewhere else? Who are the responsible for making sure the cat lineages go on while normal cat owners can spay their pets? Are there some sort of regulated breeder farms for this exact kind of thing?
Edit: Thanks for educating me on litter mate syndrome! I had no idea this existed and I'm thankful for all the info. I have a cousin whose family kept most of their golden retriever litter. I think they're like 7 now, and grew up with the parents, who are also still alive. I imagined they've all been neutered after the birth, but I've never asked her about it. I don't know if her family detected littermate syndrome or not, but probably it doesn't matter since they do pretty much everything with all the dogs together, and the dogs just spend most of the time at home anyway, so it's kind of a mess, but I'm not sure if her family faced any problem by raising them all together. I know I would never be able to, anyway
Most domestic animal lineages are not special enough to warrant keeping them going. Well-educated and responsible breeders are able to keep certain breeds and lineages healthy and in existence, but your average dog or cat is not anything to worry about. Please spay and neuter.
Is this only a dog thing? I have cats - a pair of brothers and a trio of sisters - who only seemed to grow up as well behaved cats. They hang out together but all have unique, independent personalities. All are spayed/neutered if that matters.
Yes, it's a dog thing as far as I know, as it pertains to the dogs' abilities to bond with their owner and training issues. It is very difficult to train litter mates together and establish the proper bond needed for a healthy training relationship. Since cats have different bonds with their owners and are pretty much untrainable for the most part, they seem to do better when kept with a sibling.
Dogs and cats will inbreed so it's best to neuter if you're keeping them.
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Don't worry, I have no intention to. If I have a cat, they're getting spayed asap. I was just wondering what usually happens if an owner or family of owners decides to keep a puppy litter
Inbreeding by itself doesn't produce birth defects, it just makes genetic defects much more likely to be expressed since both parents carry mostly the same genes.
Cheetahs are so inbred due to a massive bottleneck in their population about 10k years ago that any two cheetahs are more than 95% identical in terms of genetics and yet their population is healthy and robust. Humans also faced a population bottleneck, and you and I share more genes in common (regardless of where you are) than two random chimpanzees do.
The point is that no, defects are not inevitable and it comes down to the genetics of the parent stock. In fact, line breeding (breeding parent to offspring) is one of the most common tools breeders use to lock in specific traits.
Still - spay and neuter your animals.