Inbreeding, why is it taboo? - Page 1

Why is inbreeding taboo?

I also breed fancy/show pigeons as my hobby and I have concluded that many are very in bred. Much worst that you can imagine. Mostly brother/sister mating, then there offspring (brother/sister) is mated and so on. Pigeons remarkably give birth to male and female (1 each) off spring.

Even with such close breeding there is hardly any detriment in quality and health? It was mentioned that such close breeding can take place in up to 2 generations that is firstly brother/sister mating then there off spring mated, ather that there maybe a reduce rate in fertality but its not proven.

With dogs why do people take it more seriously. What if we breed father/ daughter? would there be a problem. Father is a champion and daughter of course from show/ winning stock?

Comments would be nice, no nasty comments. This is just educational.

There is much difference between breeding fowl and pigeon's, and breeding dog's.  

I too have raised and bred pigeon's as well as other poultry and fowl.   There is a different tolerance for inbreeding that I can not explain in technical term's.

It's different in all animal's.   

The big deal is sooner or later you have health problems and eventually unwanted mutation's and birth defect's.

look at parlor roller's that can't fly or breed.

look at the problem's with some line's of dog's.

Guess what happen's in human's.

That's why.

Dueling Banjos. Nuff said.

Inbreeding used to be used ALOT in american showlines, and even in the beggining of the breed.

one breeding "technique" was called backcrossing I think.  you have a top show/producing male, take his daughters and breed back to him, and you keep doing this until you can no longer (you start getting genetic problems).  then they would outcross to another heavily inbred line (though not related to theirs).  Inbreeding to this extent can make a line pure, or "fix certain traits into a line. This was how you would have kennels known for their excellent or extreme shoulders, movement, or extreme hind angualtion.  but it can also"fix" alot of disasterous issue's in the line too. you will have pups born without eyes, have cleft pallets, no anuses, and many other genetic anomalies along with seizures, poor temperaments (if thats in the line, inbreeding doesn't cause bad temperments, the trait has to already be there!)

Inbreeding can be a very useful tool for knowledgeable breeders who know the lines they are working with.  Inexperienced breeders shouldn't even consider it.

Outcrossing can be just as bad as inbreeding, you are bringing in lines that you know nothing about, and can only trust that the other breeder has been truthful about the problems in their lines.  diseases can remain hidden for many generations through outcross breedings, being passed on silently down the line, until someone decides to inbreed/linebreed, then POOF, the problems become very apparent.

It is no longer used because there really isn't much use for it anymore.  there are literally thousands, if not millions of gsd's in the world today.  a very large and diverse breeding pool, if you know where to look.  Most people view inbreeding as taboo and would much rather do distant linebreeding or outcrossing (though there really is no such thing :) you would have to breed to a different breed to truely outcross)

You will find more american breeders who closely inbreed than you will in other countries. I am not saying this as a bad thing or a good thing, just fact.  I have studied many american pedigree's from most of the foundation kennels and most popular kennels of today, you still have father to daughter or 1/2 sibling breedings going on.  German breeders are starting to do alot more 2,2 or 2,3 linebreedings, whether it is anybetter, I don't know.

with all the linebreed on Ursus/Rikkor, I am really interested to see what shape we are in in 10 yrs.  but thats a different discussion on a different thread.

I had a chance to go thru pedigrees of some great kennels. Almost of all of them started with inbreeding and getting some success. Most only father/daugther or mother/son mating, they dont tend to go beyond that extreme. Although this may takes takes years until the off spring proves themselves which gives enough time for other kennels to build there stock too to later line or our breed.

The important point being that ONLY EXPERIENCED BREEDERS SHOULD TRY IT.  Unless you have a very broad konwledge of breeding, and of the bloodlines that you're working with you're doing no more than playing russian roulette.  There's two main reasons people inbreed....  one being a good reason, the other a horrible one.   Either you want to fix a certain trait to become dominate hence you breed closely related dogs that carry the trait... or you have kids, grandkids and such that don't cost you anything to breed your female to. 

     Don't forget it's not just the breedings that YOU do that you need to be conserned about... but what happens to and how the progeny from those breedings will be used.    Lance of Fran-Jo is blamed for many of the ills in the modern American Lines, but it's the heavy inbreeding on him that is to blame, not  the dog himself. Same for many other dogs both in the US and in Germany. 

1 because not enough people know how to use it.

2 general lack of knowledge of breeding practices

3 not knowing what the strengths and weakness of their dog/bitch and  whats in their pedigree

4 its too easy to blame poor breeding choices on a linebreeding and not the father, mother, or other dogs in a pedigree.

judging on the number of litters i see on this website i find it hard to believe you would call linebreeding taboo.  very close linebreeding (ie 2-2) you dont see much of,  but i have seen tons of add for 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, etc. 

my bitch just had pups.  litter is linebreed 3-3 macho, 3-3 anja. 

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/para.utkoma?fadir=556384&modir=484418

too look at the linebreeding shown one would say it is a ton.  when in reality, it is linebreed on 2 dogs 3-3, and 5-5 on fero.        the rest (all the 4-4, and 5-5) come off of the 3-3. 

was this a good choice, will there be health issues,  will the pups drive, tempernment, etc  outway the negatives?  only time will tell.  i can assure you that i did not go into this breeding lightly ( i could write a short novel about the research i did, but i dont like typing that much)

john

Line breeding to me mean's trying to reproduce an individual thru it's decendant's breeding back to the origin of the line.

There are limit's as to how close you should go in any given animal.    It take's generation's to know what you have and what you are trying to create.   It take's generation's to see problem's as well.   I don't think a lot of breeder's worry as much about the problem's in favor of immediate (short term) result's.   Especially when money drive's the issue in let's say Thurough bred's or animal's raised for food such as beef.   If the animal can accomplish it's goal in the short term why worry about longevity or health problem's associated with age.

I am alway's in favor of selecting unrelated mate's with equally great qualities that are as far away from being related as possible.   This give's you room to go back to a particular line later down the tree if you so choose but keeps some diversity at the same time.    I believe you should constantly be looking at the total picture and not just one or two area's even if you breed to something that is not the world champion or it's brother.  

Inbreeding as in sibling's accomplish's nothing except amplifying both good and bad with no way of predicting which will be more prevalent in the offspring.

I was told once you could linebreed a dog back to it's decendant's 5 generation's and reproduce the line, 7 generation's in game cock's.    And anything beyond that was too far and would begin to show problem's.    I never believed this but the guy had many year's of experience and seemed to know what he was talking about at the time.

Personally I prefer the new, the unknown, over trying to re-live the past.  Great thing's can come out of nowhere in my opinion.

I'm certainly no expert.     Just thinking (typing) out loud.

In this situation.

If the breed is rare and you want to introduce a line. So you import a champion stud dog (jack) and you import a good show line bitch (jill) because these are the only 2 dogs that you can get your hands on. Jack & Jill has a litter. You keep back 2 girls that look promising named Amy & Ann. If Amy and Ann turned out to be very good then they would be bred back to jack, there father, if not they would not be bred.

If they were bred to jack and have a litter, it obviously would be too dangerous to use jack as the stud. Jack would be the father, grandfather & great grand father. Only once I saw this going to this extreme and the end result was dogs that was good looking as jack and almost replica like but had a major flaw, they were infertile down the line, male and female.

I mean without going to the above extreme, stopping at Jack x Amy & Ann. There off spring would be our bred to another line. All this wud take atleast 3 years which gives enough time to find another suitable dog.

I also like to mention, that with the development of breeds, many dogs were severely inbred to get the standard that we have now.

This reminds me of the old Lloyd Brackett formula for breeding. Brackett owned the American Long-Worth kennel and he had a breeding formula that went something like this. "Let the sire of the sire also be the grandsire of the dam on her sire's side (dam's paternal grandsire) and let the sire of the sire be the grandsire of the dame on her mother's side (dam's maternal grandsire). Let the dam of the sire be the granddam of the dam on her sire's side ( paternal granddam) and let the dam of the sire be the graddam of the dam on her dam's side (maternal granddam)."  Brackett only envisioned using this formula to fix the desireable genetic traits of a prepotent sire or dam. If the outstanding traits flowed through one side or the other, that was the side he'd concentrate on.

Other breeders go for phenotype, using a simpler formula of breeding the best bitch you can afford to the best stud you can find as long as he is of similar type to the bitch or is the best dog back in her pedigree. The first is open breeding, the second is line breeding. Ideally the sire is prepotent and of good health. Take the best bitch puppy from this litter and breed her to the sire's sire. Take the best bitch puppy from this litter and breed her to the dog from the first litter who most resembles the original sire. There you have line breeding and some in breeding. The breeder has to pick the best puppies to keep and breed. Doing this will fix a phenotype or "look". Unless you pick your dogs carefully, you might also get some undesirable traits too. The dogs in either of these formulas have to be OFA good or excellent or "a" normal with low SW scores, and must be healthy with good temperaments. You can only do this kind of inbreeding if you know exactly what you are getting with each dog and line and exactly what they produce.  The Martin brothers in Germany did some inbreeding, including 2-2 with SV approval, to fix characteristics in their lines. Breeders still do this kind of thing if they want to fix traits.  It's not for the casual breeder or the faint hearted.

Parent to offspring or brother to sister is generally not done, that I have seen. There's too much chance for bad genes to double up and express themselves. Even when you outcross, you still run the risk of getting two dogs each with, say, a gene for blue, so you'd get some blue puppies. They may make fine pets, but you can't show them so why breed for them?