Chocobo (In)Breeding and Lore

[Mysterysword]

So I've recently started racing/breeding chocobos, which has so far been surprisingly fun, and during the course of my research into the minigame, the topic of inbreeding has naturally come up. Kudos to SE for coming up with such a great, yet simple representation of genetics and inheritance.

I'm no zoologist, but I have wondered how the history of the chocobo population could affect the current propensity for chocobo inbreeding in present-day Eorzea. As far as we know, chocobos don't mind inbreeding at all, and in the past there was a major blight that affected the chocobo population severely. The most I know is that this might've caused a genetic bottleneck and made chocobo inbreeding a necessity, so I wanted to start a little discussion on this topic and find out more about how it works.

[Kotori_Southburd]

From what I've seen aether can apparently scramble genetics so there's another layer mitigating it from being bottle necked..

..maybe.. I dunno.

[Anonymoose]

I hear they just release the ones that don't work out back.

[myahele]

I'd imagine that they get "new blood" from the Wild Chocobos in the Chocobo Forest; especially with the Chocobo blight that happened years ago diminishing pre-existing stock.

[Mysterysword]

I'd imagine that they get "new blood" from the Wild Chocobos in the Chocobo Forest; especially with the Chocobo blight that happened years ago diminishing pre-existing stock.

Sure, but I'd think that the blight would also have affected the wild chocobos, wouldn't it?