Breeding is always aimed at the future. Decisions you make now will influence the future generation(s). The breeding goal that you have defined indicates what you think will be important in the future. You have analysed the market and have an idea about what customers will demand some years from now. Will it be mainly milk or butter or cheese? Will it be mainly pork chops or ham or bacon? Will it be mainly breast meat or legs or full carcasses? Will it be top class sport horses or recreational horses? You also have an idea about how the market will develop in size: will it grow or downsize? Is that a temporary or long term development? Should you increase your breeding population or sell animals off? Will the market be the same at national and at international level? Finally, you have an idea about the expected developments in production systems and regulations. What are new developments related to housing systems, nutrition, etc and how are they expected to influence the performance of your animals? Has the (inter)national government announced new regulations that may limit your current production system? Should you anticipate to these upcoming changes?
Defining and updating your breeding goal is a very important part of the potential success of your breeding program. It is important to keep in mind that decisions you make today will only start to show after the offspring is born and start to perform. And, depending on the species, that may be years from now. Real effect of your decisions will only show after a number of generations. The breeding goal is aimed at the future, and often defined for a period of 10 to 15 years.
Thus:
Breeding is about predicting the future. All expected developments in the market and the production circumstances play a role in what the future will look like. All need to be anticipated when defining the breeding goal. |
Given the breeding goal, you will need to decide on the number of animals that you will need to select for breeding, and the number of offspring that these selected parents will produce. The selection strategy of your choice allows you to predict the performance of the offspring. Results may suggest some changes in the strategy. Therefore it is important to predict these results beforehand, so that adjustments can be made if necessary. That is what we will focus on in this chapter: how to predict the performance in the offspring, how can that prediction be improved, and what are consequences of selection decisions.