Livestock Breeding System
AGB - 224
Lecture V – Line Breeding
Line breeding
• Line breeding is the mating system to maintain a
high relationship to an outstanding ancestor for
retaining its good proportion of genes. The aim of
the line breeding is to perpetuate the special
characters of an outstanding animal or strains. The
system is followed by selecting the best and culling
the poor animals.
• Line breeding is one of the best tools to use in
breeding when trying to produce your own lines.
2
Linebreeding
–Mating system that causes large relationship to one
outstanding ancestor while keeping inbreeding low
–Useful to retain genes of outstanding individual who is not
longer available for breeding purposes
-Outstanding individual must appear in pedigree several times
at least 3-4 generations back
• Types of line breeding:
i. Mating of distantly related animals-like cousins mating ( inbreeding
depression is low )
ii. Descendents matting with outstanding sire up to 3-4 generations –
Linebreeding
• Mild form of inbreeding
• Used to maintain a high genetic relationship
to an outstanding ancestor
– Mainly seedstock producers Mating system that
causes large relationship to one outstanding ancestor
while keeping inbreeding low
– Useful to retain genes of outstanding individual who is
not longer available for breeding purposes
– Outstanding individual must appear in pedigree
several times at least 3-4 generations back
Example of line breeding
Example of line breeding: 1
(Mating of a sire to his offspring in successive generations to develop sire line)
Sire
Dam G1 G2 G3
5
Example of line breeding
Parent offspring mating in one generation or in subsequent generations continuously or after one or
two generations
Sire
G3
Dam G1 G2
Line breeding (Mating of sire to granddaughter)
Example of line breeding
• Grandfather to Granddaughter, Grandmother
to Grandson (these breeding are usually
considered the best in line breeding), Aunt to
Nephew, Uncle to Niece, Cousin to Cousin, and
so on. Once again these types of breeding are
NOT inbreeding.
Unit 4, Lesson 15 - Systems of Breeding 7
Horse pedigree showing linebreeding.
Why would we want to do linebreeding ?
• It is a mild form of inbreeding used to maintain
a genetic relationship to an outstanding sire.
• It is used mainly by pure breeders because they
have a hard time finding sires that are
genetically superior to the ones they are already
producing.
• They are able to take advantage of an
outstanding sire and cross with other genetically
superior animals.
Linecrossing
–Mating unrelated individuals within a breed
–Causes some increase in performance
(less than what is seen with crossbreeding)
Linebreeding and Purebreeding
• Both heavily used when trying to maintain
a herd that is purebred
• Linebreeding- animals are never mated
that are half-brother or sister
• Purebreeding- animal’s lineage can be
traced back to original animals found the
breed