LINE BREEDING?

[weelovely214]

I am new to the miniature horse industry. I notice alot of people kinda line breed... My stud colt is top banana top and bottom. Actually, his sire and dam have the same sire (half brother and sister). He seems fine, normal. Is this the usual? Can a half brother and sister be bred?

 

[Lizzie]

You seem surprised that he's 'normal'? Could be you've heard a lot of myths about inbreeding?

He is very closely bred but being closely bred on a quality stallion, is not something unusual and is something many breeders do, to 'set' type. Inbreeding does not 'cause' problems! What it does do, is likely produce horses which appear much like the horse used several times up close, in the pedigree. That said, if the inbred horse is built on an animal with many faults, then the offspring very likely will have them also.

Inbreeding can also bring to the fore, hidden problems which the horse most used, might have hidden in his genetic background. It will show the breeder possible problems. But inbreeding doesn't 'cause' these problems - it just shows that they might be there.

All that said, responsible inbreeding on a top quality horse, should produce equally top quality offspring. Irresponsible breeding, whether inbred, linebred or outcrossed, most usually produce poor quality individuals.

Congrats on your new boy. Your colt will likely resemble Top Banana quite a bit. I have always liked TB myself.

Lizzie

 

[MeganH]

I don't think she was asking if it was normal for him to be normal, but if it was normal for breeders to breed so close. Just the idea seems odd to people who don't have a lot of knowledge of breeding. That was a good question and informative answer!

 

[JennyB]

I am new to the miniature horse industry. I notice alot of people kinda line breed... My stud colt is top banana top and bottom. Actually, his sire and dam have the same sire (half brother and sister). He seems fine, normal. Is this the usual? Can a half brother and sister be bred?

Hi and welcome!

 

To answer your questions yes and no...Linebreeding and inbreeding can be done successfully if both the sire and dam a few faults. If they do have faults especially the same ones, this just actentuates<sp>

the problems. We have many of ours which are linebred and inbred and they turn out fine for the most-part. You will always get a piece of rotten wood in the wood pile no matter what you breed to what. It just happens and you just have to hope for the best.

 

Your colt is a paternal mating meaning the sires are the same. When you breed dams the same that is maturnal mating. Some people think both are bad. I feel that paternal is better than maternal, father to daughter, father to granddaughter, grandfather to granddaughter is okay, but don't like maternal or full brother to sister.

 

Depending on your colts conformation and his lack of faults you could successfully breed him even to a Banana daughter or granddaughter if you like those lines. good luck and others will comment too

 

Hope I have helped some!

Blessings,

Jennyr

 

[SampleMM]

I feel that paternal is better than maternal

Jenny,

I'm curious as to why you feel this way. I believe I've heard this in the past but for the life of me, can't remember why paternal is better.

 

[Lizzie]

I brought this over from my Gypsy Horse forum. Maybe it will explain the importance of good mares.

Lizzie

I've been doing a bit of thinking and research again, on breeding, pedigree knowledge, inheritance etc. We have discussed here in the past, how incredibly important good mares are to a breeding programme, but I'm carrying this a little bit further here.

For generations, breeders of all kinds of animals, have often relied upon the knowledge of the male, when considering breeding. ie. His quality, get, pedigree etc. Many in the past, bred mares of poor or iffy quality, to superior stallions, with the thought that he was bound to produce always, quality offspring. Modern thinking and knowledge however, has told us that the mare used, is just as important as the sire. In some ways, even much more important.

Genetisists tell us that the fact is, that certain qualities inherited from DNA on the x-chromosome can ONLY be inherited from a mare. So down the line, the maternal granddam, grandsire and their quality, cannot and should not, be ignored.

We all know, that very horse has 2 chromosomes that determine gender.

A mare has two X-chromosomes, therefore a female.

A stallion (XY) has one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome, therefore a male. When a foal is conceived, if the Y-chromosome fertilizes the egg, the foal will be male (XY) because it will then have an "X" from the dam and a "Y" from the sire.

If the sperm fertilizing the egg carries the stallion's X-chromosome, the resulting foal will be female - XX.

A mare, contributes one of her two X-chromosomes to her foals, both male and female but when a stallion gives an "X" to his daughters, it is the X-chromosome he inherited from his own dam.

His sons NEVER receive his X-chromosome, because he has given them (obviously) his Y-chromosome instead. However, his sons DO receive an X-chromosome - one of the X-chromosomes contributed by their dam.

And this gets even more interesting. One of those would have been inherited via the dam's dam, and the other came down the "X-trail" from her sire's dam.

Geneticists have determined that certain genetic material is carried on the X-chromosome, including that for the large heart, and intelligence. Most probably, there are many other genes passed down on the X-chromosome, many of which we probably don't even know about at the moment.

So now, understanding that certain superior qualities can ONLY be inherited from a mare, her expressed qualities and that of the maternal granddam and grandsire suddenly become incredibly import.

 

[bannerminis]

Lizzie thank you for posting that. That is so very interesting. I am always amazed that some people will only look at the stallion and I think that shows just how important a good mare is to your breeding programme.

I would be slow to try linebreeding or inbreeding but I am curious about it and if I ever had 2 horses that I thought could be bred together it would be done weighing up the mare and stallion and then make as informed a decision that I could.

 

[weelovely214]

Hi and welcome!

 

To answer your questions yes and no...Linebreeding and inbreeding can be done successfully if both the sire and dam a few faults. If they do have faults especially the same ones, this just actentuates<sp>

the problems. We have many of ours which are linebred and inbred and they turn out fine for the most-part. You will always get a piece of rotten wood in the wood pile no matter what you breed to what. It just happens and you just have to hope for the best.

 

Your colt is a paternal mating meaning the sires are the same. When you breed dams the same that is maturnal mating. Some people think both are bad. I feel that paternal is better than maternal, father to daughter, father to granddaughter, grandfather to granddaughter is okay, but don't like maternal or full brother to sister.

 

Depending on your colts conformation and his lack of faults you could successfully breed him even to a Banana daughter or granddaughter if you like those lines. good luck and others will comment too

 

Hope I have helped some!

Blessings,

Jennyr

Thanks for the answer! So I have a question.... My colt has a half sister (same Dam, different sire). They don't really look like one another. The filly took after her sire and my colt is a good mix of mostly his sire with a little of the mares look in him. Both have very subtle if any faults. Can the two of them be bred?

 

[horsenut50]

I understand line and inbreeding as I am not new to breeding or horses in general but what about the devistating results of doing this as has happened in other breeds? Such as Herda and HYPP in Quarter Horses, SCIDs in Arabians and PSSM in draft and light horse breeds. I'm sure more will pop up through the years as these have. My 2 year old stallion goes back to Boones Little Buckeroo six times on his topside. I will outcross this stallion when I breed him. Not that I am against this just err on the side of caution when I see too much inbreeding.

 

[Lizzie]

You have every right to bring this up horsenut. However, we must remember that inbreeding didn't cause these things. They were there all the time. A perfect example is the silver problems associated with ASD in Rocky Mountain Horses. The first stallion who popped up with this colour and became famous, obviously had the problem. But to get more of the colour, his daughters, granddaughters and many on down the line, were bred back to him. Many carried the problem and bred back to him, a ton of horses in the line, showed up with it. Most ASD research has only been done on RMHs.

Now some say the all silvers can have ASD in any breed if homozygous silvers are bred to another homozygous silver. I don't agree. I have never known it to crop up in other breeds with silver colouring, any more than it crops up occasionally in any breed of any colour. And it has been seen in horse breeds with no silver in their background.

Also, we must remember that years ago, while we knew something was wrong, we didn't know very much about these genetic problems. So much easier today, to breed responsibly and test our horses for possible hidden problems. And therein lies the problem. It is the responsibility of breeders to know as much about what might lie hidden in their breed and lines as possible, before making the decision to breed. Sadly I see people all the time, proudly announcing on all breed forums that they are breeding their mares to such and such a stallion. When asked if they have tested for example, LWO, they have no idea what the person is talking about. This is why many problems continue to be noted, generation after generation.

Personally I'm not sure I want to see a given horse, showing up in a pedigree, a dozen times. However good he or she was/is, pretty soon there are so many alike pedigrees, that they become overly common and are not (I think) achieving anything.

Lizzie

 

[weebiscuit]

I found this to be a very interesting and informative thread. I have never inbred or line bred, although I have given it some passing thought. I have a little filly that I thought would produce an awesome foal if bred to a gorgeous little stallion I have, but they both have the same sire, so I decided against it.

In my case, I understand the genetics fairly well, and I can see how one would want to keep reinforcing the desirable characteristics in a certain line, but on the other hand I feel that in order to produce hardier stock without inherent genetic problems, it might be better to cross horses that are not so closely related.

I am happy to see that perhaps my thinking on this is flawed, and it would not be as much as a problem as my brain tries to tell me it is. For me, it all goes back to the human race and the genetic pool. We know that in humans, when there is inbreeding, the results are often very undesirable, because there are sometimes genetic traits that may be recessive in two closely related people, but become expressive when they have a child together.

It's wonderful to learn new things, and to change one's way of thinking!

 

[Jacki]

I am new to the miniature horse industry. I notice alot of people kinda line breed... My stud colt is top banana top and bottom. Actually, his sire and dam have the same sire (half brother and sister). He seems fine, normal. Is this the usual? Can a half brother and sister be bred?

In addition to our Miniature Horses and Shetland Ponies we also breed Modena Pigeons. We have had a great deal of success in the loft, we always suggest that our customers "Build a Family" or as it is referred to here "linebreed". It is common to breed mother to son and father to daughter in pigeons although I'm not advocating that for horses the concept is not much different. We concentrate on breeding birds with generations of the best qualities behind them, we keep the gene pool tight. I think that is what you are seeing in some pedigrees.

That said, another saying in the Modena Pigeons is "You call it linebreeding when it works and inbreeding when it does not"

Best of luck with your Miniatures and pedigree study!

Jacki Loomis

 

[JennyB]

I LOVE all this information. I am not an expert by any means that is for sure, but I think I have learned enough through the years to hopefully make the right decisions in my breeding program. No matter if you know it all, I don't think it's 100% proof all the time. I believe though IF we were more knowledgable about this we would be MUCH better off.

 

I am not sure why I feel that maternal mating is more dangerous than paternal, except that I have heard this all my life and have seen some horrible babies come from Mother breedings than any other, but with that said there are always exceptions to the rules. I know of many individuals who are a mother/son or full sibling cross who are fantastic. But I believe that in general you only get that great animal a few times and more often than not you get middle of the road to very bad animals. I did recently speak with a cattle genetic expert who has been working breeding cattle that have been tightly inbred and linebred for over 100 years!

...I was veryyyy unsure of what he was saying. He claimed that the main reason people are not successful in breeding their animals is because they don't selectively linebred and inbred. He said when you have all the characteristics you want in an animal then continue to inbreed. When you have a bad animal dispose of it so no one can get their hands on it to breed with!

He said also that when you get that tight herd that you want, don't, don't outcross ever as you would be destroying everything!!! Needless to say like I said I had a hard time swallowing all of this and still do

....I spoke with other cattle people and they are divided as some call him a genetic God which they will never leave and some call him a plain NUT!

My jury is still out concerning this man and what he says...

 

I do feel that inbreeding and linebreeding have help to cause some real problems with some horse breeds. I come from an Arabian background and so far they have 6 very serious diseases; Severe Combined Immunodeficiency(scid), Cerebellar abiotrophy(ca OR cca), Occipital Atlanto-Axial Malformation(oaam), Equine juvenile epilepsy and Guttural Pouch Tympany (GPT)..Those are BIG words and very sad diseases

..They had thought it came from one stallion, Skowronek or another, Mesaoud or a single line from a desert bred mare and now another single line from the desert

..who knows for sure! Arabians are not the only breed stricken, American Quarter Horse, American Paint Horse, American Saddlebred, Appaloosa, Miniature horse, and Belgian lines all suffer from one or more diseases. I used to research Arabian horse pedigree's and do handwritten pedigree's for clients and some horses went back to the same horse over 200 times!!!

...but that is nothing some cattle lines go back to a single bull for thousands of times. Now that is really crazy so I guess I don't even know where to begin with genetics as I have just made myself even more dizzy and nauseous

 

 

To answer the question should I breed my stallion to my mare and they have the same dam...well if it was me and I knew the background VERY well and these two had very little faults, I might breed them together. If I was new to the horse raising scene, NO...because there are so many semi to un-related individuals out there who are very nice that you can breed together and 99% of the time get very nice foals. Those are just some of my opinions on this subject which I have really enjoyed. I have learned some things and hope other continue to post so we can learn more

 

Many blessings,

Jenny

 

[supaspot]

I did read a study once that found inbred horses had a much higher incidence of still births , late term abortions and foals dying in the first weeks after birth from unknown causes , it concluded that more study was needed

I know very little about it but I do know it locks in good points as well as bad and although it has been done very successfully by well known breeders in the past we have to remember that in those days there were very few modern type miniatures to breed to, there are an abundance of good horses available now and dont see a need for it , I might be presuaded if a horse is EXCEPTIONAL .....anyone one that considers it should take a long hard look at the animals first and be honest with themselves

 

[Minimor]

I am a fan of line breeding; in Morgans it is a very common thing & I have seen how well a line breeding program works when the breeder knows what he's doing. In Miniatures people always talk about how foals can be all over the map--full siblings that are entirely different from each other. Well, with line breeding--generations of it--you know what you're going to get from your breedings. (It does take more than breeding paternal siblings achieve this! That is a start, but it will take more than 1 generation to really set characteristics in your animals.) When you use a stallion that is heavily line bred you can count on his foals all looking very much alike, regardless of what mare he is bred to.

I've always been taught that when you are line breeding you do have to add in an outcross from time to time; this keeps your herd strong--I don't agree with the above cattleman's theory of only linebreeding generation after generation. When you have a herd that is heavily linebred, adding in an outcross will not ruin the entire program. I've seen too many breeders do it, with good results, to believe that is true.

I believe that line breeding is something that can improve the Miniatures, but only if people really know what they're doing when they decide to do it. You have to know conformation and you have to be brutally honest about your horses--because if you overlook a flaw or pretend that the flaw isn't there you are not going to succeed with your linebreeding program. Even if it is a minor flaw, you cannot gloss it over and pretend it doesn't matter--and when that minor flaw shows up twofold (or tenfold) in your foals, you must admit that it is there & then you must take steps to eliminate it.

 

[Mominis]

Many years ago, I asked an old breeder, "What is the difference between line breeding and in-breeding?" He replied with a smile, "It's line breeding if it works an in-breeding when it doesn't."

 

[Riverdance]

I have been breeding Tibetan Terriers for over 34 years and have had some of the top dogs in the country in the past. In dogs we call it a line. That dog looks like the "....line". I agree whole heartedly with the cattle breeder. When line breeding, one can get rid of bad traits, hereditary problems and stamp a certain look or motion. My dogs are known not only for their look, but their motion. The top breeder in England started their lines with my dogs and they brag about being known now for their dogs motion. I also know plenty of kennels who feel that line breeding is incorrect and are always outcrossing. There is no consistency with their dogs. One does not look like another and when they breed, they have no idea whet they are going to get. This includes heath problems. As a matter of fact, they have created new problems it Tibetans that did not exist 30 years ago.

The dam is the most important part of breeding. Take Secretariat for instance. A triple crown winner, he never did produce much in the way of a race horse, BUT.... his daughters sure did. Too manny Mini breeders feel that as long as you have a good stallion, you can breed it to any old mare. Because many Mini breeders ( or for that matter, any breeder) go after the get of the stallion winning today, they spend big bucks on that stallions offspring. Never paying attention to who the dam is and what she looks like. Then they can not understand when their prospect grows up, it turns out to be nothing much, often looking very much likes it's dam. Sure, it may win as a yearling, but a true test of quality is what the horse looks like as an adult. If it's dam was junk, then it is most likely going to produce junk. The stallion owner wants to make the big bucks in the first two years (or more) of a winning stallions offspring, because it will not be too long before people realize that the horse they bought is not all that great and not a good producer at all.

The more money a stallion owner has to promote their stallion, the more people they will get to buy his offspring. The more people they get to buy their offspring, the more they buy cheap mares to produce more offspring. More money for the stallion owner. Some of those offspring are going to do very well in the show ring, most will not. The ones that do, most often have a top quality dam. A correctly line bred dam, could turn out to be a gold mine as far as producing quality foals. (thought if this mare has been line bred based upon poor quality mares, you are not going to get the desired offspring). Also, if one line breeds over and over and over and over again to the same stallion with junky mares, the results could be disastrous.

 

[sihri]

Yes half brother and sister can be bred together but I do not recommend it for the for the previously mentioned resons faults. The difference between inbreeding and linebreeding as far as I've been taught is: Inbreeding is the practice of breeding brother to sister(I do not differentiate between half or full, mother to son, sire to daughter. Line breeding is the practice of breeding family lines or strains it is based on the mares bottom female line the only pedigrees that I've been able to trace this back in are on purebred Arabians as from what I understand this was how the bedouin tribes recorded their horses pedigrees. I"ve tried to do this on my miniature mare unsuccessfully as I her grandam has unknown in her pedigree but I only use it as a tool along with other breeding tools. A horse can be a suprior individual ( phenotypically) but may not be able to produce as well or better than himself because he is (genotypically) weak. This is usually the case with outcrosses and It was recommended to me to breed a horse (outcross) back to eithier the sire or dams line. Your horse is inbred to his grandsires line and should be genotypically stong in producing the stregths and faults of that line.

 

[minigrub]

Yes half brother and sister can be bred together but I do not recommend it for the for the previously mentioned resons faults.

Sorry, maybe it is Monday brain, but are you citing faults with the practice or the actual Top Banana line?

 

[bluerogue]

I believe Sihri is citing faults with the practice (that's how I read it).

I do line breed, but I will not breed anything closer than common grandparents. That's my personal preference. When it works, the results are worth it. When it doesn't, it can be heart breaking. However, I feel that by not breeding as closely, I am not running as big a risk at terrible outcomes. This also means that the types I am wanting to set take longer to set, however (more crosses will probably be required, since I am dealing with more distance from the original horse I am line breeding). And sometimes the wanted attributes don't appear in the foal. My breeding program is not huge, nor have I been breeding for a long time (my first born foal is now 6, and is the great-granddaughter of Rowdy mentioned below).

For example, I have 2 double Rowdy bred mares. One is a double great-granddaughter, and the other is a granddaughter and great-granddaughter. They are half sisters (same sire- a grandson of Rowdy). In their bodies, these two mares are built very similarly (correct, with good bone, and resembling morgans). But in their heads, they are completely different.

The great-grand has a gorgeous arab type head, somewhat dry, refined, dishy, and one of the most beautiful heads I've seen on a mini. Her mother has a beautiful arab type head, just not quite as nice as her daughters (but hers is dryer, she does have a longer nose though).

The sister (the granddaughter) has a much plainer head, and resembles HER dam (a direct Rowdy daughter), with her head being prettier, dryer, and more refined than her dams head.

So, the body type seems to have set, while the head type did not. Neither of these young mares has had a foal yet, but the grand is hopefully bred for next spring. The great-grand is scheduled to be bred in the spring to the same stallion her sister was exposed to. We'll find out how set their types are when they foal.

To explain a word I used: to call a head "dry" is an arab term describing the bone structure of a horses head. Dry heads have clear bone structure, with little "extra" flesh. These heads can also be called chiseled. They tend to have small muzzles, big eyes, and very noticable bone structure that can be clearly seen. Having a dishy head is not required to have a dry head. To see an example, google egyptian arabs, as the egyptian lines are well known for producing dry heads.