That is because they are related to a number of steps and in each step they require a specific attention. You will notice that some subjects seem to pop up in a number of chapters. We will explain the main goal of that step, introduce the challenges and find out how those could be faced. In almost every chapter we will focus on a specific step in the breeding program. You should do this as soon as you find out as you don't want the cumulative effect of an undesired response to selection. You can also adjust your breeding program in response to an unwanted genetic change in your population. You can adjust the goal in response to a change in the market.
Breeding is more about the cumulative success of multiple generations. You should not change the breeding goal every generation, because a single generation will not give you much genetic improvement. So each generation you again have the opportunity to adjust these steps to some extent. Each generation you breed you go through this circle of steps. As animal breeder you start by defining what you want to improve in your population, collect information on the performance of the animals and their genetic relationships, determine which animals have the best genetic potential, determine what proportion you should use for breeding in order to achieve a certain genetic gain in the next generation, select the animals and mate them, and after producing the offspring evaluate whether what you set out to achieve with your breeding decisions actually happened. Then, in the following chapters we will 'dive into the deep' and take you on a journey through all the steps that need to be taken in order to develop and run a successful breeding program (see figure 9).
We start with the basics of animal breeding: the concepts of genetics necessary to understand the genetic processes used in animal breeding. Although at first instance you may think that animal breeding involves keeping animals and making sure they reproduce, and it thus would involve optimising reproduction techniques or something along those lines, this is not the case.Īnimal breeding involves the selective breeding of domestic animals with the intention to improve desirable (and heritable) qualities in the next generation. In other words: selective breeding causes a shift in population average from one generation to the next. So people make a plan with the intention to select the best animals according to a predefined list of requisites (traits), and use those selected animals for breeding the next generation so that the offspring on average will be better than the parents. And with a predefined goal in mind: to genetically improve the population in a certain direction. But what is animal breeding? Animal breeding is about selective breeding: only use males and females for breeding that have passed a certain quality criterion. Centre for Genetic Resources The Netherlands and Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre, 2015. Textbook Animal Breeding and Genetics for BSc students. I case you want to refer to material in this textbook: the proper citation is: Kor Oldenbroek and Liesbeth van der Waaij, 2015. When you have questions about the text, please send an email to: you are using parts of this textbook for publication, please read and respect the disclaimer of Wageningen UR: Financial support for writing this textbook came from the WURKS programme of Wageningen University. Their contribution is gratefully acknowledged. Four BSc teachers contributed to this textbook by a critical review of the draft texts : Aline van Genderen from HAS-Den Bosch, Hans van Tartwijk from Van Hall-Larenstein in Wageningen, Jan van Diepen from CAH-Vilentum in Dronten en Linda Krijgsman from Inholland in Delft. It is written by two animal breeding scientists from Wageningen UR: Kor Oldenbroek from the Centre for Genetic Resources the Netherlands and Liesbeth van der Waaij from the Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre. The textbook is made available by the Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre (ABGC) of Wageningen UR (University and Research Centre). The text book started as an initiative of the Dutch Universities for Applied (Agricultural) Sciences.
This textbook contains teaching material on animal breeding and genetics for BSc students. Johan van Arendonk, chairholder Animal Breeding and Genetics
0 kommentar(er)
