The Better Breeding Blog Breed Better Animals

Last week we saw how crossbreeding — or more accurately, random matings and/or matings between unrelated populations — do not change gene and genotypic frequencies from generation to generation. This phenomenon is known as the Hardy-Weinberg Equlibrium,… more »

Last week’s post on The Hardy-Weinberg Equlibrium and its Implications covered the five external forces that shift that equilibrium to cause a change in gene and genotypic frequencies: selection; gene mutations; migration in and out of a… more »

Inbreeding is the mating of closely related animals to increase homozygosity within a population. Common alleles become more concentrated — the gene frequency increases in other words — and animals become more and more closely related with each… more »

The word trait, you may recall, is often used interchangeably with phenotype, but they are not the same thing at all. A trait is something that can be measured or observed, for example temperament, colour or wool staple length/year. A phenotype is the… more »

While — for the most part — there are differences between simply-inherited and polygenic traits, they also share much in common. Both types of trait are still determined by genes and inheritance. Our discussion on Mendel and his three laws focussed on… more »