[Brucklay]

Sorry if this gets a bit long winded but after reading and reading and reading I am non the wiser!!


With my goats I have always bred males that are of a totally different line to my females, having kept a female each year I am aware my male should not breed with some of my offspring - not an issue I have a plan.


When it comes to sheep it seems to be the same but there are exceptions to the rule - read what I thought was a good article at [size=78%]http://www.critterhaven.biz/info/articles/1_ram.htm[/size] which seemed relevant but I'm not sure how to tie this to the sheltlands I have.

I want to buy a ram lamb or shearling from the lady I bought my girls from - good relationship etc so I was having a look at the flock book online and checking certificates, one ram keeps cropping up in 4 of my girls
1. Sire
2. Sire of Sire
3. Sire of Dam
4. Sire of Dam

so would/should I be able to use a ram on my girls that was also sired by this ram - I am presuming he is one of her favorites. I would just like to understand the why's and why not's before going down so I don't make a fool of myself
Thank all yet again

[doganjo]

Not sure if all animals are the same, but in dogs it is breed 'in-line' for three generations then 'out of line' for one, then back to three in and one out.  There's a name of a professor who wrote a paper on it but I can't remember his name.

[woollyval]

I have often line bred both sheep and goats and its risky. The risk is that you can 'fix' a desirable trait BUT you can also 'fix' an undesirable one which can manifest itself further on such as double teats in goats. There is always this risk in out crossing too, bringing in an undesirable trait that is not obvious in the ram or male goat.

However I still do this and some of my best animals have been line bred.

[Brucklay]

So if I understand correctly what I do which the goats ie one both male and female records there would be no matches this would be considered 'out crossing'. In the case of the potential ram having the same father as one of ewes that would be line breeding - how about where the potential rams father was the same as one of the ewes grandfather - is that inline or just breeding?

[doganjo]

Inbreeding is where a close match is used - parent to child, brother to sister etc.  Line breeding is cousin to cousin, aunt to nephew etc.  Outcrossing is where there are no common ancestors - or very few, and far back in the generations.  Although to be honest dog breeders tend to try to have some common sire or dam about 4 or 5 generations back

[SteveHants]

I'm a fan of a wide genepool myself, so I try to keep my rams and ewes as unrelated as possible - you can always just not retain any 'weirdos' for breeding...

[Fleecewife]

I too am not fond of breeding my sheep with their close relatives.  I think that if you are going to go down the in-breeding or line-breeding route you should have a positive reason for it, not just that you would need to go further for an unrelated male. A positive reason might be if you were a breeder of top class tups and wanted to 'set' a certain trait into the line, but you would only do it with a full understanding of the process and its pros and cons.   There are thousands of Shetland sheep out there so best to maintain the wide genetic base of the breed by buying in an unrelated tup.

[Brucklay]

Sorry I think you misunderstand Fleecewife - I am travelling over 4 hr to buy from this lady as she is a very reputable breeder/shower, not because she is handy - but I ask the question so I can 'get educated' and as she has used a particular ram in most of her lines a presume it's because he's a good one. Basically I'm asking the question openly now to gain from the experienced out there before I'm looking at a bunch of rams and ram lambs trying to decide what I should go for

[FiB]

really glad you've asked this question .... so those that have a ram and try to keep a wide genepool, do you sell all offspring, or change the ram yearly so that they dont mate with their daughters??  I'm going to be hiring in a Beulah tup this autumn, but because mine are unregistered, I will have no idea to what extent they might be related   Just have to  ? I bought them from auction so I know what farm they came from, but other than avoiding a tup from there....?

[princesspiggy]

looking at some of my showwinning highland ponies parentage, they have fathers on oneside who are grandfathers on the other. i asked an experienced breeder if that was ok when i started up and was assured me it was fine, as some people breed alot closer.


going for a wider genepool also means ur offspring are likely to be less uniform in appearance.
line breeding should give u offspring that are similar. its possible to develop ur "own type" of pedigree animal if u consistently select the desired traits.
breeding v close means you can fine tune any particular conformation traits, but it also exaggerates any bad points so u need to be prepared to cull the bad ones.


i was lucky with getting our ram as we got him from an experienced breeder with several lines, who knew our bloodlines and she chose him to compliment our girls.
i personally think cousins is close enough unless u know what u r doing, then id get the best ram u can and only register the best.


on the otherhand where people do well in the showring, they can stick to the bloodlines that work for them to the detriment  of  the genetic health of the animals. we had a welsh pony from a topclass breeder (regular hoys winner) this pony had a genetic disorder which resulted in her foal being pts at 4 weeks. when i informed the original breeder, she didnt give a shoot, as her pony had won hoys the week before. personally i think health comes before beauty, but if u can tweak things to get get closer to the breed standard then go for it. with farm animals u can eat ur mistakes so to speak. 

[Brucklay]

Thank PP, and in fact everyone for their input - it seem simple at the start and then for various reasons of colour and pattern in Shetlands it's easy to favour a particular ram - I think I'll keep my options open and take all my girls details with me

[kaz]

I would prefer to use unrelated tups with my ewes, keeping an eye out at the shows and the show & sale for what looks like good stock. I keep what I think are my best breeding ewes and bring in new tups. I occasionally also buy new ewes. With my breed their lineage is shown back several generations and can even be traced further back with the relevent flock books and it's best not to have a relation within 3 generations, but I also like to keep certain features or characteristics within my flock. It all boils down to your preferences and what it breed standard and what you personally like,

[SteveHants]

If a breeder was really really good, I might source ewes from him/her - i'd then buy my ram elsewhere unless they offered me an unrelated one (and with a breed like shetlands, they could offer you a selection of unrelated ones, to be fair). If they suggested I in or line bred, Id source the whole lot somewhere else.


Wider the genepool the better, IMO - and unless I was breeding pure to maintan a small flock of purebreds, Id use a different breed altogether.

[jaykay]

I also go for the widest gene pool possible.

Lots of undesirable traits are recessive, ie they only show where there are the two 'bad' genes. And you're much more likely to get two matching 'bad' genes with closely related animals.

This is where 'hybrid vigour' comes from, that you've got animals who are hardly expressing any undesirable genes (not that they don't have them) because the mother's undesirable recessive traits don't 'match up' with the father's. Because of this, unrelated matings tend to produce healthier animals, let alone have fewer obvious negative traits.

So you'd only line breed or inbreed if there was a very strong reason to do so. Otherwise, I'd find an equally good unrelated tup, of which, in Shetlands, there are plenty about.

My records would show that a particular tup was the sire of two generations, because that's the tup I had then. Then I change him, so I'm not breeding him back and my flock gene pool is diverse.

[Anke]

Interesting topic, and I would think it all depends on what you want to achieve with your breeding. If for example with Shetlands you want to breed for fine fleece, you would go on the hunt for a male that had a really good one to start with. And if he is distantly related that you could actually test if any the related ewes (who also may or may not already have a really good fleece) or unrelated ones produce good offspring. But in/linebreeding does produce every so often faults, and you would have to be prepared to eat the offspring and not to repeat the mating.
 
It is abit more difficult with rare breeds like GG goats, as most of the stock in this country is derived from a few imported animals.. and so if you go back in the pedigrees a few names keep cropping up. So even out-crossing can produce faults because of that. I have done a fairly close line-breeding with my BT's last year - both male and female were out of the same sire (as in half-siblings), and have had really good results.