The Better Breeding Blog Breed Better Animals

Having a breeding objective implies a desire to change an animal genetically. This in turn implies a need to improve an animal’s performance or productivity, as breeding is undertaken—or should be—with end users in mind. But the end animal should also… more »

The concept of natural selection is well known. Animals mate, animals are born, and those best suited to their environment survive to pass their genes on to the next generation. Populations, over time, improve their ability to cope with their… more »

Artificial selection begins when a breeder selects what to him are the “best” animals to be parents and deselects those that aren’t. The expectation is that what makes animals “best” will be passed to their progeny, while what isn’t “best” is removed… more »

The selection process forms the group of animals that are to be parents. The mating process then matches males to females from within that group. These two steps are repeated over and over, and ideally each generation will improve on the previous one… more »

And that concludes the “Background Information” section of this blog! I avoided discussing concepts like “genes” and “genotype” in much detail, as I wanted to focus more on the foundations behind breeding. It’s worth stressing that the mechanisms of… more »