Animal Breeding

Animal Breeding

Human beings have been depending on animals and animal products for food from very early times. Generally high yielding animals produced by hybridization are reared in poultry and dairy farms. In earlier days, animals were produced and selected based on specific characters. With the gain in knowledge on the principles of heredity and genetics, human beings have been successful in rearing animals with the superior qualities through hybridization experiments. Complex issues are faced by the animal breeder during hybridization experiments. Hence animals with maximum desirable characters should be selected.

A group of animals related by descent and with similar characters like general appearance, features, size etc., are said to belong to a breed. Why should we breed animals? Through animal breeding, improved breeds of animals can be produced by improving their genotype through selective breeding.

Objectives of Animal breeding:

a)              To improve growth rate

b)             Enhancing the production of milk, meat. Egg etc.,

c)              Increasing the quality of the animal products

d)             Improved resistance to diseases

e)              Increased reproductive rate

Methods of Animal breeding:

There are two methods of animal breeding, namely inbreeding and outbreeding

1. Inbreeding: Breeding between animals of the same breed for 4-6 generations is called inbreeding. Inbreeding increases homozygosity and exposes the harmful recessive genes. Continuous inbreeding reduces fertility and even productivity, resulting in “inbreeding depression”. This can be avoided by breeding selected animals of the breeding population and they should be mated with superior animals of the same breed but unrelated to the breeding population. It helps to restore fertility and yield.

1.              Outbreeding: The breeding between unrelated animals is called outbreeding. Individuals produced do not have common ancestors for 4-6 generations. Outbreeding helps to produce new and favourable traits, to produce hybrids with superior qualities and helps to create new breeds. New and favourable genes can be introduced into a population through outbreeding.

i. Out crossing: It is the breeding between unrelated animals of the same breed but having no common ancestry. The offspring of such a cross is called outcross. This method is suitable for breeding animals below average in productivity.

ii. Cross breeding: Breeding between a superior male of one breed with a superior female of another breed. The cross bred progeny has superior traits ( hybrid vigour or heterosis.)

iii. Interspecific hybridization: 

In this method of breeding mating is between male and female of two different species. The progeny obtained from such crosses are different from their parents, and may possess the desirable traits of the parents. Have you heard about Mule? It was produced by the process of interspecific hybridization between a male donkey and a female horse.

Controlled breeding experiments

Artificial insemination:

Artificial insemination is a technique in which the semen collected from the male is injected to the reproductive tract of the selected female. Artificial insemination is economical measure where fewer bulls are required and maximum use can be made of the best sire.

Advantages of artificial insemination

a.              It increases the rate of conception

b.              It avoids genital diseases

c.               Semen can be collected from injured bulls which have desirable traits.

d.              Superior animals located apart can be bred successfully.

Multiple ovulation embryo transfer technology (MOET)

It is another method of propagation of animals with desirable traits. This method is applied when the success rate of crossing is low even after artificial insemination. In this method Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is administered to cows for inducing follicular maturation and super ovulation. Instead of one egg per cycle, 6-8 eggs can be produced by this technology. The eggs are carefully recovered non-surgically from the genetic mother and fertilized artificially. The embryos at 8-32 celled stages are recovered and transferred to a surrogate mother. For another round of ovulation, the same genetic mother is utilized. This technology can be applied to cattle, sheep and buffaloes. Advantage of this technology is to produce high milk yielding females and high-quality meat yielding bulls in a short time.

Breeds of Dairy animals

Dairying is the production and marketing of milk and its products. Dairy operation consists of proper maintenance of cattle, the collection and processing the milk and its by products. There are 26 well defined breeds of cattle and 6 breeds of buffaloes in India. Cattles are classified under three groups based on the purpose they serve to man (Figure 13. 13). They are

1.         Dairy breeds or Milch breeds: They are high milk yielders with extended lactation. Eg., Sindhi, Gir, Sahiwal, Jersy, Brown Swiss, Holstein cattle.

2.         Draught purpose breeds: Bullocks are good for draught purpose. Eg. Kangayam, Malvi

3.         Dual Purpose breeds: Cows are meant for yielding more milk and bullocks are used for better drought purpose. Eg. Ongole, Hariana

To meet the milk demand of the growing population, milk breeds are preferred by farmers in small scale farms. Goats are also used all over India for supplementing deficiencies in milk production. Some of the breeds of cattle that are good milkers are Jamunapari in Ganga-Jamuna riverine tracts, Beetal in Punjab, Bar–bari in Uttarpradesh.

Common diseases of cattle: A healthy animal eat, drinks and sleeps well regularly. Healthy cattle appear bright, alert and active in their movement with a shiny coat. Cattle are affected by a large number of diseases.  

Cattle in ill health appear dull, restless and change posture frequently with drop in milk yield. The main diseases of dairy cattle are rinderpest, foot and mouth disease, cow pox, hemorrhagic fever, anthrax.

Uses of dairy products:

Milk products: Milk is produced by dairy animals which is an emulsion of fat and lactose. Milk also contains enzymes which are destroyed during pasteurization. Milk is a rich source of vitamin A, B2 , B1 , and deficient in Vitamin C. Due to its high nutrition value, it serves as a complete food for infants. Dairy products such as yoghurt, cheese, butter, ice cream, condensed milk, curd, and milk powder processed from milk make dairy, a highly farming attraction.

Meat: Meat is rich in protein and also contains many minerals like iron, zinc, vitamins and selenium. It also contains vitamins needed for human diet.

Land management: Grazing of livestock is sometimes used as a way to control weeds and undergrowth.

Manure: Manure can be spread on agriculture fields to increase crop yields.