In this article Jack Windig of the Dutch Wageningen University and Research tells about the increase in inbreeding and how you can make sure that your organization has less to no inbreeding within the population, so a strong and healthy breed is created.
Jack Windig: ‘For the breed it is important that the average inbreeding and kinship do not increase too fast, so a sufficient number of unrelated animals will remain available in the future for the owners to pick from. Selection can monitor the occurrence of new hereditary deficits. The increase in inbreeding per generation (defined as 1 divided by 2 times the inbreeding increase per generation) is a good measure for this.
Inbreeding has possible negative consequences for the population. Concerning inbreeding there are essentially two important aspects, namely:
You will probably think: that is the same thing. But that is not entirely true, these two things are not exactly the same. The breeder/owner is concerned about the health of their own animals and about breeding consistent quality. For this they can look at the inbreeding of the offspring. For the breed it is important that now and in the future non-related animals will be available to breed with. Therefore, for the breeder/owner the kinship and (expected) inbreeding coefficients outcome might be important. For the breed it is important that kinship and inbreeding do not increase too fast over the years. For this, the increase in inbreeding per generation is important.
Many breed clubs use Poprep for calculating the overall kinship and inbreeding percentage.
Jack Windig adds: ‘’Wageningen UR also offers software for analyzing pedigree data. Wageningen UR also gives advice about the outcomes.’
With ZooEasy you can easily create a file to upload to Poprep. No separate module is required for this. As soon as the calculation has been carried out, you will receive a PDF document in your mail with the analysis, followed by the effective population size. Below, a brief video with an explanation how you can easily offer a file to Poprep in ZooEasy for analysis: see https://www.zooeasy.com/support/how-does-poprep-work/
It is very important to monitor and analyze all data of the animals, both from the perspective of the breeder/owner but especially of the population. This way, you prevent hereditary deficits and work on a strong and healthy breed. ZooEasy can help you do this.
Feel free to contact us or plan a non-binding demonstration for your organization.