kadence blevins wrote:good question on the other thread so i'm copying it over to here. for ease of finding for me at least (:
kadence blevins wrote:
Devon Olsen wrote:would you mind sharing your ideas for protecting diversity in your "herd"?
i admit i hadnt actually written or drawn this out yet until i saw this. hahaha naughty me.
note that in all possibilities i would *always* be removing young boars into a boar pen or boar colony.
****big 'ol snip****.... i think this would be the best for no record keeping and least probablility of getting inbred.
I'm a little tired so pardon me if you actually covered this in your several methods. Another method that comes to mind is the "rolling method" (which I first saw in Harvey Ussery's "The Small-Scale Poultry Flock" but I've since seen it elsewhere). It's supposedly a pretty low-recordkeeping method.
-Start 3 (or more is better) flocks/herds with at least one boar (or closely related boars) and several unrelated sows (whatever number the boars can cover).
-Label each herd A, B, C, etc. Think of it as a last name in a traditional European marriage pattern.
-When the baby sows (sowlets?) from each litter are old enough to be bred, they are permanently reassigned to the next herd (A sows go to B, B go to C, C to A). This is now their new home and they are never passed on.
-Baby boars (boarbies?) that you want to keep for breeding STAY in Dad's herd. This can be either "taking over the family 'business'" or helping Dad on the farm (retire Dad or keep him, your choice).
-This method completely eliminates brother-sister and father-daughter matings. The only inbreeding possible is mother-son, and this can be eliminated by retiring Mom or temporarily removing her.
-With three herds, the closest breeding would be great-grandfather to great-granddaughter (with 4 herds it's great-great, etc.) which is generally considered linebreeding (except the possible mom-son or aunt-nephew, which WOULD be inbreeding, but is okay if you're selectively improving your herd).
-According to Ussery, with three flocks, you can go 10 years without concern about excessive inbreeding and 20 years with 5 flocks. Depending on how young you breed, it's probably about half that time with cavies. Chickens can be bred around 6 months (?) but I think mostly it's about 11 months.
-You can pretty easily control the birthrate in a particular herd by removing the boars temporarily.
I think I explained that reasonably well, but I've been up all night at work so... And sorry about the puns and wordplay, I get punchy this time of daynight.
.png)
