I'm going to ask but I'm not really confident that some of the better known breeders are going to respond.

How many times have you had a bad clutch due to inbreeding?

How many times have you had eggs hatch and had to put down the hatchlings because there was something wrong that was probably due to inbreeding?



It seems that every year this topic comes up and the usual response from those that are new or just entering the hobby is to avoid inbred stock like the plague. What they fail to understand is that we are dealing with recessive genes. In order to prove out any of the known recessive genes there was at least one time that the breeder did some inbreeding. That special male was bred back to his daughters to prove out the gene. That special female was bred by a son to prove out the gene. The first breeding provided a het and then the het was bred back to the original male or female to prove out the gene.



A few years ago I had a conversation with a breeder that is no longer with us. He shared some info about a hog breeding that he tried, Albino x Albino. The results were not good. Some died in the egg and others were deformed. This breeder helped me a few times and the knowledge and experience he shared with me has helped me many times. So in my opinion there is something about breeding hogs that are related that we need to be cautious about but the fact is that some inbreeding has to be done to prove out a recessive gene.

[ Show Entire Thread ]