Roots To Branches
CLOSEBREEDING is a form of extreme inbreeding. It usually takes the form of mating between siblings or between parents and offspring.
The detrimental effects of inbreeding (noed above) are usually exaggerated in a closebreeding system, especially when average stock are used with little or no culling. Closebreeding can ccasionally produce extremely good, or more likely, extremely poor, results. Success and failure depend on many factors: foundation stock, strict culling of parents and offspring, planning and completeness and accuracy of pedigree and performance records, etc. To avoid haphazard closebreeding, a careful, honest, study of the traits of the breeding stock (both good and bad) should precede a closebreeding program. In a long term closebreeding program, only the most outstanding parents can be used with any degree of confidence.
Closebreeding is a valuable tool in genetic research, since it quickly exposes hidden traits that a given individual carries. Operators of a large and well organized breeding program, might utilize closebreeding if they wish to progeny test their sires. (One method of progeny testing a sire is to mate him to a large group of his own daughters. A study of the offspring determines whether he carries undesirable recessives.) After a sire proves that his superior gene type, the experienced breeder may choose to continue the closebreeding to increase prepotency of future breeding stock.
Image 2 shows a brother/sister mating - in this form the genetics trace to four animals.
