Inbreeding

[Nesikep]

Bred a half brother to a half sister this year just to see what the calf would be like. Let me tell you he is a hoss.

wow, a hoss is about the strangest thing to come out of a cow I'm sure!

 

[m&kCattle]

I didn't mean to upset anyone. This is a sore subject with me. However, yes linebreeding is inbreeding. If you have line-bred cattle, then you just have to accept the fact that you have in-bred livestock, dogs, whatever (hopefully not kids). You might experience some short-term gains as some of you suggest, however long-term line breeding will ALWAYS result in negative gene concentrations, statistically.

If you are "line breeding" you are "in breeding". If you are going to sell the animals for beef. It does'nt matter if you get a little inbreeding. Most producers who use the battery of bulls method wind up with some inbreeding. The problem with line/in breeding is that while trying to enhance some positive traits you will always, yes always, be advancing some inferior traits that will, yes will, make it to the surface sooner or later.

I'm sure inbred deer die off as one of you suggested when negative gene concentrations occur, but that is not a logical comparison with dometic animals. Do you want your cows to die off? We humans compensate for the deficiencies in our stock when something goes amiss and too often it's too profitable to cull a super producing animal because of one small defect. So we propagate it for it's benefits and down the road the negative aspects bite us in the hiney. Show horses today have feet that are too small for their weight. These show horse genes make it into work horse stock. Many show Arabs have backs that are too long to support riders (they are supposed to have one less vertebrae and short backs), many dog lines have hip dysplasia, hel), bull dogs can't even deliver naturally anymore. All births are cesarian. Domestic turkeys can't breed. Every Butterball is A.I.d because we breed them for breasts that are so big they cannot mount for breeding. Hemophilia used to run rampant in the royalty of Europe. It was a hugh problem for them, because they liked their cousins and were trying to keep pure, royal blood in the family. My examples are of the extreme, but my point is that if you are getting in/line breeding in your stock I would eat them if I was you and if you don't your heifers are going to be purchased by someone who will breed them and eventually or handiwork is going to affect us all. I simply won't accept inbreeding in my livestock if I can help it. My calves performance proves my point.

It happens all the time and most registered producers do line-breed to some degree. They are trying to enhance growth, milk, IMF, Ribeye area, etc. Their goal is not necesarily lbs of calf in the fall. Line breeding IS the reason we have common genetic maladies showing up in dogs, horses, cattle, etc. It IS the reason we experience herterosis today. Heterosis is seen when breeding composites of any species. Composites are statistically healthier and stronger that pure breed stock. Most calf producers, other than purebred producers, choose to cross two or more different lines i.e. Angus and Hereford for this reason. It always benefits the producer to do so becasue he/she statistically produces more lbs of beef with fewer health problems. It happens because the pure breeds are too genetically similar and crossing the breeds brings a positive genetic diversity 99.9% of the time.

If I was wrong, heterosis wouldn't even be a word.

All this in my opinion is from not being responsible and breeding what should be culled. Line breeding can be done with success if done right. What you are saying is that if nothing was ever line bred then there would have never been a genetic defect present itself in a gene pool? Thats crazy. What facts are you basing these statements on?

Perfect example, " Who is going to cull a super producing cow because of one defect? " The answer is myself, if the defect is showing up in her and/ or her offspring.

 

[novatech]

I didn't mean to upset anyone. This is a sore subject with me. However, yes linebreeding is inbreeding. If you have line-bred cattle, then you just have to accept the fact that you have in-bred livestock, dogs, whatever (hopefully not kids). You might experience some short-term gains as some of you suggest, however long-term line breeding will ALWAYS result in negative gene concentrations, statistically.

If you are "line breeding" you are "in breeding". If you are going to sell the animals for beef. It does'nt matter if you get a little inbreeding. Most producers who use the battery of bulls method wind up with some inbreeding. The problem with line/in breeding is that while trying to enhance some positive traits you will always, yes always, be advancing some inferior traits that will, yes will, make it to the surface sooner or later.

I'm sure inbred deer die off as one of you suggested when negative gene concentrations occur, but that is not a logical comparison with dometic animals. Do you want your cows to die off? We humans compensate for the deficiencies in our stock when something goes amiss and too often it's too profitable to cull a super producing animal because of one small defect. So we propagate it for it's benefits and down the road the negative aspects bite us in the hiney. Show horses today have feet that are too small for their weight. These show horse genes make it into work horse stock. Many show Arabs have backs that are too long to support riders (they are supposed to have one less vertebrae and short backs), many dog lines have hip dysplasia, hel), bull dogs can't even deliver naturally anymore. All births are cesarian. Domestic turkeys can't breed. Every Butterball is A.I.d because we breed them for breasts that are so big they cannot mount for breeding. Hemophilia used to run rampant in the royalty of Europe. It was a hugh problem for them, because they liked their cousins and were trying to keep pure, royal blood in the family. My examples are of the extreme, but my point is that if you are getting in/line breeding in your stock I would eat them if I was you and if you don't your heifers are going to be purchased by someone who will breed them and eventually or handiwork is going to affect us all. I simply won't accept inbreeding in my livestock if I can help it. My calves performance proves my point.

It happens all the time and most registered producers do line-breed to some degree. They are trying to enhance growth, milk, IMF, Ribeye area, etc. Their goal is not necesarily lbs of calf in the fall. Line breeding IS the reason we have common genetic maladies showing up in dogs, horses, cattle, etc. It IS the reason we experience herterosis today. Heterosis is seen when breeding composites of any species. Composites are statistically healthier and stronger that pure breed stock. Most calf producers, other than purebred producers, choose to cross two or more different lines i.e. Angus and Hereford for this reason. It always benefits the producer to do so becasue he/she statistically produces more lbs of beef with fewer health problems. It happens because the pure breeds are too genetically similar and crossing the breeds brings a positive genetic diversity 99.9% of the time.

If I was wrong, heterosis wouldn't even be a word.

My understanding of what you are saying is that line breeders do not cull properly and cross breeders do?
If you look at this in a different perspective you may find that everyone line breeds to a certain extent. All any animal is , is a bucket full of genes. If you continually only keep animals with certain traits then in fact you are breeding a line. Isn't that how we ended up with black, poles, ears, and many other traits? It is because we breed for a line of that trait and cull those that do not have them. The same as culling a cross or line bred for bad traits.
Line breeding just makes those bad traits show themselves so they can be culled out. Crossbreeding is a way to hide those traits we do not want to see but they are still be there just waiting to match up with another just like them self. Cross breeding is also a way to bring in traits not shown in animals we want to improve. Good line breeders for the most part keep line breeding in the 50% range and bring in out crosses to make improvements. At least this is my understanding.
Heterosis is a different issue. But it does not go on for ever. The best would be from line bred of dissimilar genetics.
Just wanted to ask why a comparison in nature and natural selection of culling is not allowed yet you feel that the unnatural selection of humans with no culling is a good comparison?

 

[dun]

It is against the law to cull (shoot, send to the sale barn, grind up for hamburger) etc humans. That is why we dont cull them. There are lots out there that need to be culled but it is against the law. It is called murder. :-(

I prefer the term retroactive birth control

 

[RD-Sam]

I didn't mean to upset anyone. This is a sore subject with me. However, yes linebreeding is inbreeding. If you have line-bred cattle, then you just have to accept the fact that you have in-bred livestock, dogs, whatever (hopefully not kids). You might experience some short-term gains as some of you suggest, however long-term line breeding will ALWAYS result in negative gene concentrations, statistically.

If you are "line breeding" you are "in breeding". If you are going to sell the animals for beef. It does'nt matter if you get a little inbreeding. Most producers who use the battery of bulls method wind up with some inbreeding. The problem with line/in breeding is that while trying to enhance some positive traits you will always, yes always, be advancing some inferior traits that will, yes will, make it to the surface sooner or later.

I'm sure inbred deer die off as one of you suggested when negative gene concentrations occur, but that is not a logical comparison with dometic animals. Do you want your cows to die off? We humans compensate for the deficiencies in our stock when something goes amiss and too often it's too profitable to cull a super producing animal because of one small defect. So we propagate it for it's benefits and down the road the negative aspects bite us in the hiney. Show horses today have feet that are too small for their weight. These show horse genes make it into work horse stock. Many show Arabs have backs that are too long to support riders (they are supposed to have one less vertebrae and short backs), many dog lines have hip dysplasia, hel), bull dogs can't even deliver naturally anymore. All births are cesarian. Domestic turkeys can't breed. Every Butterball is A.I.d because we breed them for breasts that are so big they cannot mount for breeding. Hemophilia used to run rampant in the royalty of Europe. It was a hugh problem for them, because they liked their cousins and were trying to keep pure, royal blood in the family. My examples are of the extreme, but my point is that if you are getting in/line breeding in your stock I would eat them if I was you and if you don't your heifers are going to be purchased by someone who will breed them and eventually or handiwork is going to affect us all. I simply won't accept inbreeding in my livestock if I can help it. My calves performance proves my point.

It happens all the time and most registered producers do line-breed to some degree. They are trying to enhance growth, milk, IMF, Ribeye area, etc. Their goal is not necesarily lbs of calf in the fall. Line breeding IS the reason we have common genetic maladies showing up in dogs, horses, cattle, etc. It IS the reason we experience herterosis today. Heterosis is seen when breeding composites of any species. Composites are statistically healthier and stronger that pure breed stock. Most calf producers, other than purebred producers, choose to cross two or more different lines i.e. Angus and Hereford for this reason. It always benefits the producer to do so becasue he/she statistically produces more lbs of beef with fewer health problems. It happens because the pure breeds are too genetically similar and crossing the breeds brings a positive genetic diversity 99.9% of the time.

If I was wrong, heterosis wouldn't even be a word.

You're way off base in my opinion. You should pay attention to what Novatech said in his post, that is pretty much how it works. :nod:

 

[RD-Sam]

I didn't mean to upset anyone. This is a sore subject with me. However, yes linebreeding is inbreeding. If you have line-bred cattle, then you just have to accept the fact that you have in-bred livestock, dogs, whatever (hopefully not kids). You might experience some short-term gains as some of you suggest, however long-term line breeding will ALWAYS result in negative gene concentrations, statistically.

If you are "line breeding" you are "in breeding". If you are going to sell the animals for beef. It does'nt matter if you get a little inbreeding. Most producers who use the battery of bulls method wind up with some inbreeding. The problem with line/in breeding is that while trying to enhance some positive traits you will always, yes always, be advancing some inferior traits that will, yes will, make it to the surface sooner or later.

I'm sure inbred deer die off as one of you suggested when negative gene concentrations occur, but that is not a logical comparison with dometic animals. Do you want your cows to die off? We humans compensate for the deficiencies in our stock when something goes amiss and too often it's too profitable to cull a super producing animal because of one small defect. So we propagate it for it's benefits and down the road the negative aspects bite us in the hiney. Show horses today have feet that are too small for their weight. These show horse genes make it into work horse stock. Many show Arabs have backs that are too long to support riders (they are supposed to have one less vertebrae and short backs), many dog lines have hip dysplasia, hel), bull dogs can't even deliver naturally anymore. All births are cesarian. Domestic turkeys can't breed. Every Butterball is A.I.d because we breed them for breasts that are so big they cannot mount for breeding. Hemophilia used to run rampant in the royalty of Europe. It was a hugh problem for them, because they liked their cousins and were trying to keep pure, royal blood in the family. My examples are of the extreme, but my point is that if you are getting in/line breeding in your stock I would eat them if I was you and if you don't your heifers are going to be purchased by someone who will breed them and eventually or handiwork is going to affect us all. I simply won't accept inbreeding in my livestock if I can help it. My calves performance proves my point.

It happens all the time and most registered producers do line-breed to some degree. They are trying to enhance growth, milk, IMF, Ribeye area, etc. Their goal is not necesarily lbs of calf in the fall. Line breeding IS the reason we have common genetic maladies showing up in dogs, horses, cattle, etc. It IS the reason we experience herterosis today. Heterosis is seen when breeding composites of any species. Composites are statistically healthier and stronger that pure breed stock. Most calf producers, other than purebred producers, choose to cross two or more different lines i.e. Angus and Hereford for this reason. It always benefits the producer to do so becasue he/she statistically produces more lbs of beef with fewer health problems. It happens because the pure breeds are too genetically similar and crossing the breeds brings a positive genetic diversity 99.9% of the time.

If I was wrong, heterosis wouldn't even be a word.

My understanding of what you are saying is that line breeders do not cull properly and cross breeders do?
If you look at this in a different perspective you may find that everyone line breeds to a certain extent. All any animal is , is a bucket full of genes. If you continually only keep animals with certain traits then in fact you are breeding a line. Isn't that how we ended up with black, poles, ears, and many other traits? It is because we breed for a line of that trait and cull those that do not have them. The same as culling a cross or line bred for bad traits.
Line breeding just makes those bad traits show themselves so they can be culled out. Crossbreeding is a way to hide those traits we do not want to see but they are still be there just waiting to match up with another just like them self. Cross breeding is also a way to bring in traits not shown in animals we want to improve. Good line breeders for the most part keep line breeding in the 50% range and bring in out crosses to make improvements. At least this is my understanding.
Heterosis is a different issue. But it does not go on for ever. The best would be from line bred of dissimilar genetics.
Just wanted to ask why a comparison in nature and natural selection of culling is not allowed yet you feel that the unnatural selection of humans with no culling is a good comparison?

It is against the law to cull (shoot, send to the sale barn, grind up for hamburger) etc humans. That is why we dont cull them. There are lots out there that need to be culled but it is against the law. It is called murder. :-(

Many humans perform the self culling rituals in their daily routines, however there are those that seem to slip through the cracks and pass on their stupid gene. :roll:

 

[Rustler9]

We have alot of line breeding in our herd. See nothing wrong with it. We don't just run these cattle together and hope for the best, when we line breed we plan these matings and we don't line breed them all. We select for certain traits and try to set those in. Have a great little heifer calf on the ground right now from a great half sister and half brother mating. Expect good things from this heifer, so far so good. Now when we breed this heifer she will be bred to an unrelated bull. I don't see anything wrong with line breeding as long as it is monitored and thought out. When breeding closely related animals you will either bring out the good or bad traits. If there are obvious bad traits in an animal it is not good to try to magnify them by breeding bad on bad. You would certainly only be breeding some low grade burger.

 

[daisyfirecracker]

So what do you all think of breeding a bull and heifer that have the same sire?

 

[RD-Sam]

That's not so bad, but the common sire needs to be an excellent example, as does his parents, otherwise you will get the undesirable traits from any of those.

 

[RanchManager]

I probably used some bad examples trying to make a long story a short story. I see it caused some confusion. Humor me a moment and let me explain because I'm not advocating murder or that the only good breeding is composites, etc.. I simply fast forwarded to the long-term results of consistent in-breeding.

Take Cow A. She has a trait you really like and want to pass on. Call it trait X. The trait is fantastic and the likes have never been seen before. It has a value of 1.00.

You breed her to a bull that has a value of .96 for trait X. For arguments sake, let's say the trait has high heritability and it is a dominant gene.

The resulting calf will not be l.96 (it's not 1 + .96), but rather some weighted average between 1 and .96. We don't ever know exactly so we have to apply statistical probability to the outcome. Possibly, she might not even pass on her own values of trait X and her resulting calves might be duds, but we said trait X is highly inheritable and she has a high propensity to pass that gene onto her offspring (let's say we have high statistical confidence in this because her EPD's are high for trait X and the small standard deviation for trait X among her offspring, offsprings'offspring, and siblings, and siblings offspring gives us a high degree of confidence and accuracy that she will contribute trait X with high probability to her offspring. So, for arguments sake things work out great and her calf has a value of .99 for trait X because she influenced the genetic trait for X a little more than the bull did.

We are delighted and think, hmmm. If I breed her son to her I will increase trait X even more, but the actual result is you will not exceed the least common denominator (1.00), in fact without out-breeding to a bull with a higher value for trait X you will not even obtain a value of 1.00 again. You will only be concentrating other genetic traits. Most likely some you do not want, in a vain attempt to increase trait X.

Why do people line-breed (in-breed) then? For one, they start out-breeding to incorporate other traits and trait X starts to slip so they want to pull trait X back to it's former value or try to. Two, they hope to increase the propensity for that weighted average of trait X to be more influential in hopes of giving themselves a statistical advantage of passing on trait X in the future of future generations.

If you look at EPD's and/or semen catalogs you will often see accuracy values for different traits. These are statistical values based on algorithms used to try and quantify how likely that value is to be passed on. These are derived from looking at most of the animals related to the subject animal. Great EPDs with low accuracy, take with a grain of salt. Great EPDs with high accuracy, the animal is starting to prove itself statistically and your odds are improving.

Too often people think they are doubling up on their positive genetic traits because they think it is an equation of summation. They are mistaken and what they wind up doing is in-breeding unwanted genetic faults. A little inbreeding here, a little there, adds up quickly. In the wild inbreeding does occur. Mutations also occur. About, 1 in 3,000,000 mutations is beneficial. Nature takes care to weed out the poor breeding and unbeneficial mutations via survival of the fittest. We don't adhere to Mother Natures' rules.

This is why I cringe when people take line/inbreeding lightly. Line-breeding is inbreeding. We don't like the negative connotations of "in-breeding" so to be politically correct we call it "line-breeding". It has negative connotations for a reason. Once a dominant, negative trait is established it is with us for a long-long time. We concentrated bovine genes of most breeds when we all wanted polled breeding. We are doing it again to get black coats. Everything is going polled and black these days. We put a real shallow spot in the gene pool of many breed to accomplish this. Don't let your keel get stuck on a sand bar.

 

[Nesikep]

so for an example, you'd want to look really closely at a polled black bull from a breed that is not naturally black? taking a look at his offspring to see if there are some common traits you don't like that are dominant, etc?

 

[KNERSIE]

Once a dominant, negative trait is established it is with us for a long-long time.

Ranchmanager,

Do you mind listing a few of these dominant negative traits (proven scientifically to be dominant for accuracy's sake) for the rest of us as a reference so we can try and avoid them?

 

[dun]

We don;t line/inbreed. Have never found an animal close enough to perfection that I would want to. The real problem is not so much (in my mind anyway) the process of doing it. It's not taking the responsibiity to cull mercilessly. It does have a place in determining negative recessive genes, but once again being willing to cull is required. Years ago there was a Holstein bull that was a producer of tremendous milking daughters but none of tehir daughters milked worth spit. It was decided to breed him to his daughters and really fix those milking genes. A lot of the resulting calves were mule footed. In n time at all, the bull was slaughtered and hos semen destroyed. That was exactly the correct response.

 

[novatech]

Once a dominant, negative trait is established it is with us for a long-long time.

Ranchmanager,

Do you mind listing a few of these dominant negative traits (proven scientifically to be dominant for accuracy's sake) for the rest of us as a reference so we can try and avoid them?

Wouldn't that be like only keeping all the calves born with 2 heads and breeding them back to each other over say a fifty year span so it becomes homogeneous. :lol:

It's not taking the responsibiity to cull mercilessly.

Dun
I think that is why it takes a lot of cattle to do this properly. If you only have 10 calves to chose from you are less likely to cull properly.
If you have a hundred calves you are culling then you tend to be a lot more picky.

 

[CKC1586]

So what do you all think of breeding a bull and heifer that have the same sire?

Read the above posts and you will see varying answers to your question.....

 

[novatech]

So what do you all think of breeding a bull and heifer that have the same sire?

More than likely it would be a cull. Many times on the boards it has been said that only one in ten bull calves should remain a bull for breeding purposes. With line breeding your odds will not be near as good. On a one time shot it would be like winning the lotto. Heifers are the same. Linebreeding does not enhance anything but actually can be the opposite. Linebreeding is a way to cull out the bad genetics. It is a way to limit the quantity of genes to a desired selection. You simply cannot increase anything that is not already there. You can only make what is there stronger by eliminating what is undesirable.
Crossbreeding/outcrossing is the opposite. With crossbreeding/outcrossing you bring in more genes that can enhance or benefit from heterosis. The drawback is that you are always bringing in some undesirable genes which again have to be dealt with.
So my advice is don't waste the time as you have nothing to gain with just one linebreeding.

 

[daisyfirecracker]

So what do you all think of breeding a bull and heifer that have the same sire?

Didnt I just say earlier that I bred a half brother to a half sister (same sire) and everything has turned out fine? The calf is phenominal.

No need to get huffy!!!!

I just asked my question because of your response. I wanted to know if anyone else had any experience with it. ;-)

 

[backhoeboogie]

We are delighted and think, hmmm. If I breed her son

There is no line there. Where is the line? How can anyone produce a line in this fashion?

I don't line anything.

If you can go back far enough on any purebred animal, you'll find a line.

 

[Herefords.US]

When you look back at Hereford history, the cattle that had the greatest positive and longlasting effect on the breed were linebred and the breeders that produced them were truly worthy of the title of "cattle breeder" rather than "cattle multiplier".

I'd bet that it is the same for most other breeds.

The practice of linebreeding exposes undesirable genes, rather than allow them to lurk in the background for generations. Once exposed, they can be eliminated by selection and linebreeding.

The key to successful linebreeding is not just the process itself, but the astuteness of the breeder that's doing it.

George

 

[KMacGinley]

This thread is a plethora of uninformed opinion. I suggest you go to the 5 bar X forum and check out the linebreeding thread on the Breeding systems page if you want to learn something.