Calling on all Linebreeding gurus, specialists, or geniuses

[CattleMan1920]

I've never been overly keen on linebreeding, but there is a combo that I want to put together

Let me ask this question. I called Angus and they told me that I should keep the coefficient below 10% if possible.

I have two combinations I can go with.

First cousins which results in a 7.81% coefficient.

Second combo is of 1/2 siblings. That results in a 13.67 coefficient. This is the combo that I really want to try.

Neither combo has been executed, and most likely will not be executed, but I would like to hear the responses of those on the board that know their linebreeding cold, and can offer serious advice.

 

[Nesikep]

I've found the linebreeding coefficient to not matter much, at least when practiced over only a couple generations.. I just keep the influence of any given individual at 50% or less.. full siblings gives gives 50% from both grandparents, halv siblings gives 50% from one of 2 grandparents, first cousins gives 25% from one of 2 grandparents... (I think I have my math right)
I avoid mother/son and father/daughter matings, they're the only ones I've ever had trouble from, and well, that could be just dumb luck too.
My bull calf this year is from a half-sibling + full cousin mating (Parents have same sire and grand-dam) and he's really impressing me.
I'm not a guru at this by any means, but if you have a bunch of cows you really like and they're related to a bull you really like, I'd definitely say "go for it", even more than once..

Every one of my cows is at least 2nd cousin or 1st cousin once removed (sire of shorthorn cows is grandsire of the bull), and all the gelbvieh sired cows are half sibling at least... while it's early in the season, this is looking like one of the nicest calf crops I've ever had, while there are some heifers from cows I've considered terminal for a long time, at this point there's not a heifer out there that I'd give a hard NO to keeping based on looks

 

[CattleMan1920]

I've found the linebreeding coefficient to not matter much, at least when practiced over only a couple generations.. I just keep the influence of any given individual at 50% or less.. full siblings gives gives 50% from both grandparents, halv siblings gives 50% from one of 2 grandparents, first cousins gives 25% from one of 2 grandparents... (I think I have my math right)
I avoid mother/son and father/daughter matings, they're the only ones I've ever had trouble from, and well, that could be just dumb luck too.
My bull calf this year is from a half-sibling + full cousin mating (Parents have same sire and grand-dam) and he's really impressing me.
I'm not a guru at this by any means, but if you have a bunch of cows you really like and they're related to a bull you really like, I'd definitely say "go for it", even more than once..

Every one of my cows is at least 2nd cousin or 1st cousin once removed (sire of shorthorn cows is grandsire of the bull), and all the gelbvieh sired cows are half sibling at least... while it's early in the season, this is looking like one of the nicest calf crops I've ever had, while there are some heifers from cows I've considered terminal for a long time, at this point there's not a heifer out there that I'd give a hard NO to keeping based on looks

Thank you for the response. That helps me a lot.

I'm considering this because there is a particular cow that I want to weave deeply into our bloodlines.

 

[Ebenezer]

You'll never see a difference. Serious threshhold of inbreeding starts at 15% if the genes all cooperate.

 

[CattleMan1920]

You'll never see a difference. Serious threshhold of inbreeding starts at 15% if the genes all cooperate.

Thank you for your reply.

So at the 13% range, you would feel pretty comfortable with moving forward on the mating?

What are the pitfalls that could occur in your experience? Fertility, growth, etc.

 

[Ebenezer]

Tighten them up too much and some minority will cull themselves due to infertility or sterility. Larry always said to use phenotype to select with a linebred population and you will do fine. Not all organisms can stand to be linebred without consequences. Growth will stay about the same or drop 5%. Use it religiously only in cattle that truly reproduce replicas of themselves and show no ills. That will cull a lot of dreams and save time and money. Might sound dumb: do not expect peas in a pod.

 

[Nesikep]

I know you've seen these on FB and probably my calving season thread, but I'm not seeing any lost weight on these

bull calf, 3/4 sibling mating.. outgrowing everyone, about a month old


Momma is on the left in background, with her linebred (3/4 sib mating) daughter and her son nosing her


Cow is a full sib mating, calf is 3 weeks old and sire is 3/4 sib to both parents




Bull calf on left, Pookie on right.. she's from a 7/8th sibling mating


Pookie


Dusty, Essentially full sister to Pookie, her mother is Pookie's full sister and same sire, she's older but she had a far lighter birthweight (65ish lbs vs 95).. still is meaty all the places I like seeing it.

 

[Allenw]

Is this a long term plan or short term plan? Keeping and using your own bulls or heifers? With embryos and sexed semen on could make a number of daughters and grand daughters to work with.

 

[cowrancher75]

i have 4 generations all from the same bull.. best cows you'd ever want in your herd.

 

[wbvs58]

I know you've seen these on FB and probably my calving season thread, but I'm not seeing any lost weight on these

bull calf, 3/4 sibling mating.. outgrowing everyone, about a month old


Momma is on the left in background, with her linebred (3/4 sib mating) daughter and her son nosing her


Cow is a full sib mating, calf is 3 weeks old and sire is 3/4 sib to both parents




Bull calf on left, Pookie on right.. she's from a 7/8th sibling mating


Pookie


Dusty, Essentially full sister to Pookie, her mother is Pookie's full sister and same sire, she's older but she had a far lighter birthweight (65ish lbs vs 95).. still is meaty all the places I like seeing it.

Geeze Nesi, that 2nd photo down, look what the inbreeding has done to its tail. Crooked tail syndrome.

Ken

 

[76 Bar]

Let me ask this question. I called Angus and they told me that I should keep the coefficient below 10% if possible.

Heaven help you If you're relying on AAA to manage/influence your breeding program. :frowns:

 

[Son of Butch]

First understanding the terms.
12.5% or higher = inbreeding
Inbreeding is mating parents and siblings and 1/2 siblings with each other.
1/2 brother to 1/2 sister = 12.5% coefficient, brother x sister = 25% father to daughter = 25%
Inbreeding has been proven to reduce offspring fertility and survival and is usually discouraged.

Linebreeding (mild inbreeding <12.5%)

The best linebreeding result I've seen resulted in a bull who sired top daughters.
He was produced by breeding his momma (a top cow from a top cow) to the best son of her
maternal grandsire. So his pedigree had the same bull as his grandsire on the top side and as
his great-grandsire on the bottom side of the pedigree = 9.375% coefficient.

I've also seen a bull produced from a well planned mother/son mating a 25% coefficient.
She also was a top cow from a top cow and the son was sired by a famous top sire.
He grew up to be a good looking bull, but his daughter fertility was a real disaster.

I remember a bull from a famous A.I. sire bred to his famous 1/2 sister (12.5%) he entered a stud's
young sire program and was just average and was not as good as either of his famous parents.

A great-grandparent mated to a great-grandchild = 6.25% the same as mating 1st cousins.
Line breeding past the 4th generation has little effect.

No common ancestor in 5 generations (ideally 10) is considered unrelated.
Outcrossing (mating unrelated individuals) works best if one or both parents are linebred or inbred.
It is by far the recommended route for non-seedstock producers.

The 2nd thing about inbreeding/linebreeding is: What is the intended goal?

 

[CattleMan1920]

First understanding the terms.
12.5% or higher = inbreeding
Inbreeding is mating parents and siblings and 1/2 siblings with each other.
1/2 brother to 1/2 sister = 12.5% coefficient, brother x sister = 25% father to daughter = 25%
Inbreeding has been proven to reduce offspring fertility and survival and is usually discouraged.

Linebreeding (mild inbreeding <12.5%)

The best linebreeding result I've seen resulted in a bull who sired top daughters.
He was produced by breeding his momma (a top cow from a top cow) to the best son of her
maternal grandsire. So his pedigree had the same bull as his grandsire on the top side and as
his great-grandsire on the bottom side of the pedigree = 9.375% coefficient.

I've also seen a bull produced from a well planned mother/son mating a 25% coefficient.
She also was a top cow from a top cow and the son was sired by a famous top sire.
He grew up to be a good looking bull, but his daughter fertility was a real disaster.

I remember a bull from a famous A.I. sire bred to his famous 1/2 sister (12.5%) he entered a stud's
young sire program and was just average and was not as good as either of his famous parents.

A great-grandparent mated to a great-grandchild = 6.25% the same as mating 1st cousins.
Line breeding past the 4th generation has little effect.

No common ancestor in 5 generations (ideally 10) is considered unrelated.
Outcrossing (mating unrelated individuals) works best if one or both parents are linebred or inbred.
It is by far the recommended route for non-seedstock producers.

The 2nd thing about inbreeding/linebreeding is: What is the intended goal?

Thank you for your explanation, it was very good!

There are two particular cows that I want to deeply influence my herd moving forward and that is why I'm thinking about this.

I wanted to do 1/2 siblings, but I'm thinking 1st cousins would be a safer bet.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Why make things so complicated, just flush the two cows.

 

[W.B.]

Why make things so complicated, just flush the two cows.

I think the cows Branded wants to replicate are owned by someone else.

 

[Air gator]

Nesikep,
I'm sorry but what breed of cattle are they and what kind of birthweights/calving ease do they have? Thanks.

 

[Son of Butch]

About 20 years ago there was a Holstein cow that had a proven son in every A.I. stud and another
6 or 8 sons in A.I. young sire programs. A friend told me of a dairy farmer friend of his who was
breeding his entire herd to a couple of her proven sons with the plan to breed the daughters to her
other sons. It takes a long time to turn generations of cattle. I never did hear the results and for all
I know, with the number of dairies that have gone away, he might be out of business by now.

 

[Nesikep]

Nesikep,
I'm sorry but what breed of cattle are they and what kind of birthweights/calving ease do they have? Thanks.

They're mostly Gelbvieh, with Shorthorn and Salers in there.



A thought that just popped into my mind, more as a question than a statement is perhaps if you start off with purebreds there's less leeway before you see ill effects of linebreeding/inbreeding than when you start off with a crossbred herd? It would make sense.

 

[Ebenezer]

A thought that just popped into my mind, more as a question than a statement is perhaps if you start off with purebreds there's less leeway before you see ill effects of linebreeding/inbreeding than when you start off with a crossbred herd? It would make sense.

I'd say the opposite. But you will or should have less variation in a purebred effort of linebreeding. The survival scheme of organisms is to retain variation in a population or at least the variation seems to perpetuate the efforts of man and nature. Maybe the ones of variance are the ones with the least real inbreeding. What you would end up doing in a crossbred start and a linebreeding program is the tendency to select for traits most common in one breed and skew the efforts in that you are somewhat selecting that breed back out of the mix.

"First understanding the terms."
I am not disagreeing with you but just like EPDs are the expected performance of the average calf from a sire or dam, the %IBC is also the average inbreeding of offspring. That is part of the variation and thus a need to sort even in a tightly bred situation. Some will be more like the sire, some more like the dam, some will represent the mitochondrial DNA and some will represent recessive genes. It's not bad, it's not good, it just is.

A simple example of the variation is the comparison of half sibs in any herd. People still sort off the bottom half, market the top end and see sale results vary based on individual performance and enhanced EPDs of each offering. Much less how they sire animals.

 

[CattleMan1920]

Why make things so complicated, just flush the two cows.

I don't own them, and cannot get embryos on them. But I can get the semen from their sons