Why don't animals have birth defects?

[truethat]

Just curious because I have rarely seen animals with birth defects. Have any of you? I mean I know they exist but I wonder why humans seem to have so many more than animals?

Any ideas?

[StoneAgeQueen]

My horse had two foals that were born really tiny. Horses can't carry twins well, and they were just too small to survive.

Interesting topic though.. I'm not really sure why. I think a lot of defects are caused by chemicals we ingest through our food, pollution, drugs etc. But there are thousands of reasons why. Maybe the animals are just left to die, rather than save them, so we don't get to see or hear about the defected ones.

[Leonardo]

I suppose the simplistic answer is that our post-natal care of newborns means more babies, including those with defects, survive. Also we have no natural predators.

Animal newborn with birth defects would probably be among the first to be taken by either illness or predation.

[BurnSide]

Humans have advanced healthcare. We can keep our babies alive no matter what.

Animals have no healthcae. If they are born without the ability to survive because of birth defects, they will die.

There are just as many either way however. Topics are regularly posted on this board about animals born with defects.

[bornagainuhmanduh]

I agree with Leonardo, at least for animals in nature. Plus, many animals are born with birth defects but they are culled early on by humans.

[Thozzman]

I've heard of and seen many animals with birth defects. Two headed cows, turtles, snakes and such.

I've seen calf's born with an extra pair of legs and somewhere in the forums someone made a post about a goat that was born with a deformed head. The title was "Goat born with head of bulldog".

[truethat]

I'm not talking medically threatening illnesses but rather cranial deformities and missing limbs and whatnot.

I know dogs can have cleft pallet but its interesting to me that animals and insects basically all look the same.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...31-3-2007_pg9_9

Edited April 11, 2007 by truethat

[Legatus Legionis]

Just curious because I have rarely seen animals with birth defects. Have any of you? I mean I know they exist but I wonder why humans seem to have so many more than animals?

Any ideas?

because we tried to play with god's creation i guess. maybe we tried to be god and medle with life. maybe this is our punishment. maybe my thoughts are wrong.

Edited April 11, 2007 by Kretos

[BurnSide]

Well i think we all look the same to animals and insects too.

Humans have developed a wide array of personal appearances through evolution, we primarily use our sight to choose a mate. This is not the case with many animals, they choose mates based on different senses and genetics. So they don't need personal appearances.

I don't often hear about cases of human defects such as missing limbs and the like either though. Personally, i'd say I hear equally about both.

[Abecrombie]

WE ALL DIE EVENTUALY AINT THAT A DEFFECT IN ITSELF,...?

Take a look at the the zombiedog on the left there, YAH ,.. I rest my case. lol

Edited April 11, 2007 by Abecrombie

[bornagainuhmanduh]

I'm not talking medically threatening illnesses but rather cranial deformities and missing limbs and whatnot.

I know dogs can have cleft pallet but its interesting to me that animals and insects basically all look the same.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...31-3-2007_pg9_9

Tere is a great deal of variation among domesticated animals of the same species. Also, I think the reason we know of so many deformities among humans is because we live in such a news based age of information. Most people don't care enough about animals to notice.

It seems as though you are interested in wild animals, as you said they all look the same. Really, if they are born with deformities they are killed pretty quickly by predators, or left behind. I've found dead fawns in my yard before, with no apparent physical wounds.

I came across some feral kittens once, and one of them was rejected by the mother. The kitten seemed fine, except it wasn't the same color as the other kittens. There were only two other kittens besides this one. This is interesting in that the more feral previously domesticated animals become, the more similar within their group they become, which makes sense in the big bad world as far as predators, environmental conditions, and recognition of their kind.

Even in pig litters, the runt usually doesn't get fed, and dies. It works this way in the wild too. Nature does a pretty thorough job.

It is probably from this process spanning the years. Also again, we really can't keep track. In the wild, it's taken care of pretty fast, and usually eaten quickly and scattered before the odd hiker could come across anything to even know.

Edited April 11, 2007 by uhmanduh

[Moondoggy]

Just curious because I have rarely seen animals with birth defects. Have any of you? I mean I know they exist but I wonder why humans seem to have so many more than animals?

Any ideas?

Interesting topic. Shepherds and Rotties tend to have a genetic disposition to hip dysplasia. Maybe we just do not hear about as much as human defects.

[robbieb]

animals often have abnormal babies the reason we dont see itm uch as compared to people is that people have develpoed ways for people with birth or congenital defects to survive where as in the wild animals in natrue born with life inhabiting defects die quickly or are abonded by the mother of picked off by preadators quickly so that the genes causing these defects die out or become far less common then in humans

[Atlantis Rises]

I don't think we know that much about animal culture to know everything about them. Unlike humans, animals do not exhibit the same sanctity for life as we have - or perhaps, phrasing it in a better manner - they know more than we know they do? We allow our babies to grow up living with birth defects because we can't bare to let them die without knowing life. Animals might save their young that adversity and abandon them, allowing them to die quickly without the pain and anguish such a life would provide. There have been many animals documented that show birth defects, but how long they live is a mystery. We don't parade them around in a circus like we once did, so we don't really know. We exist as a society that shuns away from the sick and lame. We have become a society of the perfect fantastic utopia. Whatever doesn't fit our idea of normal we bury it hoping it will be forgotten. But abnormalities happen every day -- just not every one gets its 15 minutes of fame on the news.

[aussiemermaid]

We see humans everyday, we interact with humans everyday, we hear about human defects everyday.

How many animal species are there??? Millions

So they all have genetic varieties, like us humans, but animals dont have the communication we do. We hear about those amazing stories from 3rd world countries where the doctors go to help the deformed and what not. But we dont know when an aniamal is born with a defect.

There are two headed snakes and turtles, dogs born with only 3 legs, and of course Nemo with his little fin!

There are flies born with "red" eyes that cant reproduce (a fruit fly species or something i think)

Human life is regarded higher than animal life, so is looked at more thoroughly.

Its the fact its not publisied.

Edited April 12, 2007 by aussiemermaid

[MissMelsWell]

I think there are just as many birth defects, if not more in wild animals.

As many know, I used to raise medium and large species parrots. Parrots are NOT domesticated animals, they are wild.

I've had cockatiels born without feet or with clubbed feet (in the interest of domestication, the parents who threw these offspring were never bred again).

When it came to my larger cockatoos, conures and macaws, I'd say a good 10% of the offspring would have some kind of genetic defect. Including: crop malformations (sad, they typically die), keel bone malformations were fairly common, cloacal malformations, cere malformations are common too (this is the fleshy skin over the beak), beak malformations are super super common (macaws are very prone to someting called scissor beak where their beak doesn't align and it would make it impossible for them to eat in the wild) I had one conure hatch missing his wing... he ended up being a pretty cool dude actually, he adapted to his environment by only selecting perches that were near to the ground, a bird without a wing can't balance very well. However, I never bred him. In the wild he'd have been killed by his parents.

Lord only knows how many of the cockatiel offspring I bred (thousands) had mental defects, lots of the them. Selective outcrossing and incrossing would produce mentally and physically healthy generations. This is part of the domestication process. I could best see this in cockatiels because they breed quickly and easily. Not so with the bigger species.

I guess based on my extensive but narrow experience, I'd say that wild animals throw as many genetic defects as humans, if not more.

Edited April 12, 2007 by MissMelsWell

[glorybebe]

I think there are just as many birth defects, if not more in wild animals.

As many know, I used to raise medium and large species parrots. Parrots are NOT domesticated animals, they are wild.

I've had cockatiels born without feet or with clubbed feet (in the interest of domestication, the parents who threw these offspring were never bred again).

When it came to my larger cockatoos, conures and macaws, I'd say a good 10% of the offspring would have some kind of genetic defect. Including: crop malformations (sad, they typically die), keel bone malformations were fairly common, cloacal malformations, cere malformations are common too (this is the fleshy skin over the beak), beak malformations are super super common (macaws are very prone to someting called scissor beak where their beak doesn't align and it would make it impossible for them to eat in the wild) I had one conure hatch missing his wing... he ended up being a pretty cool dude actually, he adapted to his environment by only selecting perches that were near to the ground, a bird without a wing can't balance very well. However, I never bred him. In the wild he'd have been killed by his parents.

Lord only knows how many of the cockatiel offspring I bred (thousands) had mental defects, lots of the them. Selective outcrossing and incrossing would produce mentally and physically healthy generations. This is part of the domestication process. I could best see this in cockatiels because they breed quickly and easily. Not so with the bigger species.

I guess based on my extensive but narrow experience, I'd say that wild animals throw as many genetic defects as humans, if not more.

Also in the wild, depending on if they are pack animals or not, the deformed babies can/will be killed by the others. Wolves of different colours will be shunned or killed by the elders, same goes with some simians. So, these animals we would never see anyways.

[robbieb]

its survival of the fittest in which we see very little defenct in animals in the wild in comparison to humans animals in captivity are often inbred in many cases of dog breeds and such thus they have defects from these situations in fact every dog with a muzzle like that of a boxer or bulldog has been bred to have this defect it was not a process of bredding smaller muzzled dogs with other smaller muzzled dogs to get it it was a birth defect that was used in the creation of these breeds so in fact every time u look at a boxer bulldog mastif bullmastif cane corso neopolotian mastif and so on u are looking at a dogh with a birthdefect and im sure u people see them rather often (unless u live in a country that booted them then u might not lol)