Line breeding

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ZMT

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So say I guy wants to start a small registered herd so line breeding will be involved. How do the crosses work? I mean is it sire to daughter then that daughter to grand sire? I understand a commercial cow calf breeding program but I'm trying to grasp how seed stock producers select and breed to produce bulls heifers etc. any comment? Thanks for the input.
 
the best thing is go on Angus.org look at upcoming sales and look at Sinclairs sale there good at what they do and its all there in the pedigrees of the ones there selling.
 
You are describing a line. That is line breeding. From what I know of line breeding old school from the 60's and ag education in the 70's. There is a technical science. No need to reproduce a line from someting that is not perfect.

Lots of folks in this forum compare line breeding to inbreeding. They are different.
 
So basically you stay within those lines and choose and cull based on your own goals and faults of the animals?
 
ZMT, from my understanding of it, what you described is inbreeding. Linebreeding is breeding down a line of cattle with similar traits not necessarily related.
Ken
 
Just because you are going to raise registered cattle doesn't mean that you HAVE to strategically linebreed, either. You linebreed to set traits. Make the genetic makeup more consistent. Look at phenotype more so than pedigrees when you are making breeding decisions. If the cattle have undesirable traits, you will most likely be "setting" those traits. If they are good cattle and what you want, it might not hurt to try! Sire x daughter is the usual cross. Watch out for decreased performance though..linebreeding also greatly decreases heterosis.
 
wbvs58":2k7ji7jb said:
ZMT, from my understanding of it, what you described is inbreeding. Linebreeding is breeding down a line of cattle with similar traits not necessarily related.
Ken

I call that breeding.

Linebreeding from the 60's is what comes to mind for me. The Argentina import etc. How do we reproduce these bulls? They did it by linebreeding. You CANNOT find cattle with similar traits. No more imports were allowed. They wanted to reproduce these bulls and everyone wanted one.

Sort of like Monkey in the Gerts. How do you reproduce 100 of him? No other cattle with similar traits out there. You gotta line breed and you CANNOT inbreed.
 
ricebeltrancher":36h4t31q said:
Just because you are going to raise registered cattle doesn't mean that you HAVE to strategically linebreed, either. You linebreed to set traits. Make the genetic makeup more consistent. Look at phenotype more so than pedigrees when you are making breeding decisions. If the cattle have undesirable traits, you will most likely be "setting" those traits. If they are good cattle and what you want, it might not hurt to try! Sire x daughter is the usual cross. Watch out for decreased performance though..linebreeding also greatly decreases heterosis.


Sire/daughter is a incestuous breeding. Not the typical first cross.
 
Wow! This thread is scary. So much misinformation and misunderstanding out there regarding this subject.

Linebreeding=. The breeding of related individuals. The key to success or failure is the breeders unwavering consistent selection.

One can make it easier or more complicated.
 
Linebreeding is inbreeding to an extent, just controlled. I don't have any experience linebreeding cattle but did spend some time around an Arabian horse ranch doing a lot of linebreeding. They're many places to study this subject besides here.
 
Dogs are linebreed more than any other animal I know of. Normally with dogs you take 2 dogs from the same breed, breed them together, cull the one's you don't want or don't have what your looking for and breed the pups back to something within that line to strenghthen it. I don't know about cattle as I've never done this but line breeding is an art as much as a science.
I've got friends who have line breeding german shepards for 20+ years and they normally only keep 10-15 dogs at any time. They have never gone off their yard to breed unless they see something they really like. You get to close together in your pedigree and you'll find out what happens when you got messed up animals. Might not be noticable at first but it'll show eventually.
 
Using the normal definition of the terms, you can line breed without inbreeding but you can't inbreed without some linebreeding--where "line" means following and staying within a "pedigree".

Here's a pretty good article on the differences--it's referring to LH cattle, but it is relevant to any breeding program as well.
http://doublehelixranch.com/defects.html
 
ZMT,

I'll try to simplify it as much as possible...

Firstly you need an outstanding individual that approximates your ideal, usually it will be a well proven sire.
You mate him to cows that will address weaknesses the sire might have (the more uniform the cows the faster the results)
You continue breeding this same sire to the same cows for as long as he is available.
The resulting calves will be halfsibs.
You use the best of the halfsib bulls and breed it to his halfsib heifers with the hope to produce a better bull than himself or his sire. Once you find a good linebred bull continue to use him on his relatives until he outbreeds himself and give you yet a better bull prospect.

The ideal is to concentrate the already good traits of the original sire by keeping his 50% influence consistant through halfsib matings.
Don't exceed that 50% influence if you can help it, as 50% is the natural relationship an offspring has of each parent.

The crux of the matter is to cull hard, use only the best bull calf and don't keep any heifers with faults or undesireable traits. Remember you'll eventually get everything that you've specifically selected for AND THAT YOU DIDN'T SPECIFICALLY SELECTED AGAINST!

The good thing is you can still sell your culls at market value making the risk much smaller as is the popular believe.
 
KNERSIE":2gaa71oy said:
ZMT,

I'll try to simplify it as much as possible...

Firstly you need an outstanding individual that approximates your ideal, usually it will be a well proven sire.
You mate him to cows that will address weaknesses the sire might have (the more uniform the cows the faster the results)
You continue breeding this same sire to the same cows for as long as he is available.
The resulting calves will be halfsibs.
You use the best of the halfsib bulls and breed it to his halfsib heifers with the hope to produce a better bull than himself or his sire. Once you find a good linebred bull continue to use him on his relatives until he outbreeds himself and give you yet a better bull prospect.

The ideal is to concentrate the already good traits of the original sire by keeping his 50% influence consistant through halfsib matings.
Don't exceed that 50% influence if you can help it, as 50% is the natural relationship an offspring has of each parent.

The crux of the matter is to cull hard, use only the best bull calf and don't keep any heifers with faults or undesireable traits. Remember you'll eventually get everything that you've specifically selected for AND THAT YOU DIDN'T SPECIFICALLY SELECTED AGAINST!

The good thing is you can still sell your culls at market value making the risk much smaller as is the popular believe.


It's not always about outbreeding the sire. Sometimes it is just maintaining what one has through the beginning. Selection of the outlier can be deceiving and generally that is not based on total animal selection. Heterosis can play tricks on the mind and still does obviously.

I don't believe there is much evidence that 9904's sons were any better than himself other than they exhibited his full rear quarter which was the goal in the beginning. It's the beginning of a process. Not everything is set in stone. Once heterosis has been significantly reduced I think ones selection create more meaningful impact.
 
Slow down... who said anything about selecting outliers?

That said in a linebreeding operation you need to select hard for performance to offset inbreeding depression, but like everything else don't take it too far, don't do single trait selection and keep selection for the complete picture.
 
KNERSIE":2z4t9dtf said:
Slow down... who said anything about selecting outliers?

That said in a linebreeding operation you need to select hard for performance to offset inbreeding depression, but like everything else don't take it too far, don't do single trait selection and keep selection for the complete picture.


One could debate whether so called depression is really the reduction of heterosis. When taken long enough an equilibrium is attained in my opinion.

In your opinion, do you think the growth of L1 would have been maintained at its level if total animal selection had been used?
 
AllForage":1rix7fzx said:
KNERSIE":1rix7fzx said:
Slow down... who said anything about selecting outliers?

That said in a linebreeding operation you need to select hard for performance to offset inbreeding depression, but like everything else don't take it too far, don't do single trait selection and keep selection for the complete picture.


One could debate whether so called depression is really the reduction of heterosis. When taken long enough an equilibrium is attained in my opinion.

In your opinion, do you think the growth of L1 would have been maintained at its level if total animal selection had been used?

Probably not, although I think its possible. Remember that the sole purpose of the L1 breeding experiment in the early years was for heavier weaning weights.

I don't think the depression is only a reduction in heterosis, although in the first few generations it may very well be the case. Selecting to keep growth is just a natural selection process for me and it should be combine with all other traits.
 

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