There are theories that claim that everything that lives on earth is essentially related to each other. If we believe in the Bible, we are all distant sisters or brothers of Adam and Eve. And if we rely on Darwin, we are all descended from a single cell, which indirectly means that animals are also related to us. Genealogy has never been so popular. We like to know where we come from. However, this usually takes a lot of time and energy. Fortunately, ZooEasy makes it easy for its users to find out to what extent their animals are related to each other.
What is relationship percentage really?
The relationship percentage indicates the extent to which (in this case) two animals are genetically similar. If two parent animals have children, they each pass on 50% of their genes to the young animal. So the animal is 50% related to its father and 50% related to its mother. The genes are passed on from generation to generation. Based on the pedigree, the relationship coefficient is thus calculated by ZooEasy. The percentages below apply if the parents are not related. If this is the case, the percentages are higher:
Is that the same as inbreeding?
No, the inbreeding coefficient is a different measure and is the percentage of chance that both parents pass on the exact same gene to their offspring. The coefficient is determined by calculating the probability that the animal actually receives two exactly the same genes from both parents.
Did you know that you can also calculate the relationship between two animals without storing them as a combination in your system? This video shows you how.