4.12 Value of information of ancestors (2024)

When an animal is born, or even when an embryo is available, a breeder likes to know the value of this individual for breeding. The first opportunity is to study the pedigree and to collect all the information of the ancestors in the pedigree of this young animal. The breeder wants to know whether this young animal is capable to perform the intended job, production, leisure activities or company and can he use this animal also as parent for the next generation? Can he use it to improve future generations? The information of the parents is very valuable as the additive genetic relationship between parents and its progeny is 0.5. Information of grandparents and ancestors in later generations is only valuable when the information of parents is absent or limited. For, alleles that are not passed from a grandparent to a parent cannot be present in the animal at stake. Pedigree information is very useful at the time that the traits or performance of an animal itself cannot be established (yet). You may think of males you want to select for traits only expressed in females and of traits only expressed after puberty (milk and egg production, fertility), after slaughter (carcass traits) or late in life (age related defects, longevity).

In the genomic era, when the DNA-composition of an animal is known and is used for genomic selection, the pedigree information becomes less valuable.