Courtesy of Danielle Langloism, Wikipedia CCLMore on Breeding
Yesterday’s post about breeding, animal size and inbreeding/line breeding begs for additional information so we went and found it.
Inbreeding is generally considered to be breeding an animal to a full sibling or parent. Line breeding is breeding to a relative besides a full sibling or parent. So breeding half siblings (as in the example in yesterday’s story), uncle/niece, aunt/nephew, or to a grandparent is considered line breeding in most circles.
Why do we care? Because the closer the genetic pool, the more likely it is that traits will be accentuated, both good and bad. To understand this better, Sue Bowling’s Sheltie (dog) site has a good explanation. While her genetics pages are geared toward dogs, the same genetics hold true with goats and other mammals.
For excellent goat data, Diary Goat Journal has an article by Alice G. Hall that covers the topic as pertains specifically to goats. The somewhat complicated terminology will become second nature to any responsible goat tender with their own breeding program.
