Animal Genetics (was Useful Software / Website Homestead Links

[BoatGuy]

Sounds cool! I am always looking for software that will make my life easier... lol

speaking of which... should anyone know of software that will let me do pedigrees of my animals and calculate levels of in-breeding, I'd sure like to see it. When you breed rare and endangered heritage animals, inbreeding becomes a fact of life. But, you don't want it to go too far.

For instance, there are only about 650 American Guinea Hogs and we have about 30 of them...

[icesphere]

Boatguy, I might be wrong but all I learnt in genetics the are couple of draw backs to inbreeding.

Reason why inbreeding is a problem is in the wild it reduce gene diversity making it harder for species to adapt to different conditions.

Inbreeding is also a problem due to the quality of genes, for example if each member of the breeding population had the best example of each gene of the species then the would be no fitness cost for them to interbreed. But if the are lot of poor genes but they are recessive meaning you need two copies of the same gene for it to become delibetating condition then obviously interbreeding increase the chance of those animals picking up two of those copies. Though long as you can have a breeding pair with good genes then the is a chance that animals offspring will have two copies of the desireable genes. Though there are 100,000 genes and it is further complicated that some genes that seem like disadvantage can be a really selective advantage in a new environment.

hmmm I can have a think on the subject see if I can write you some software or find some software that can do it but maybe a while due to my illness decreasing my productivity .

[BoatGuy]

I am probably the worlds worst about thread drift on this board. But, Johnny gave me the ability to correct my own mistakes by splitting the topic off. So, that's what I did... 

I also made the mistake of discussing genetics with Icesphere... a geneticist. Not my brightest moment... since I have such a limited understanding of it.

My goal, as the in-house ranch geneticist (actually Karnie holds that title and I am her gopher), is to bolster those traits that we like and, if possible, to suppress the traits that we don't. Of course, since our knowledge of the whole genome is incomplete, I can inadvertently pass on undesirable traits that I didn't recognize, or didn't have any control over.

So, in the case of our guinea hogs, I have several traits that I like:

1. Long bodies = more bacon
2. Longer legs = better ability to keep their bodies above ground and less chance of infection.
3. Shorter noses = less ability to "root" and tear up the pasture.
4. Gentle temperament = I never want to get bit by a hog. It will not end well for either of us.
5. Good mothering skills = it goes without saying.

None of these can probably be traced to a single gene. But, with the exception of 4 and 5, they do seem to follow the parents. Numbers 4 and 5 can be heavily influenced by environment, also.

As far as our cattle go, we are heavily involved in Dexter cattle, another relatively rare breed. We are experimenting (it started accidentally with a chance Dexter/Angus breeding... The Dang-us) with mixing the angus and dexter to get a good dual purpose breed, with good beef and good milk, no horns, and a gentle temperament. So far, if it can be stabilized, it has turned out great.

We also had an unexpected benefit. The angus tends to throw a small calf and the dexter is a small breed. So, a large calf could kill the mother, due to size. But, the angus tends to grow very fast. Our Dang-us bull, at two years, is about 1.5 times the size of his Dexter mother. We have now mated him back to a dexter heifer and hope to see promising results.

Milk quality is also a factor, since we are seeking to achieve an A2/A2 gene pool, in the end.

Like I said, my knowledge of genetics is a lot on the light side.But, we're trying.

[icesphere]

I will wrestle you for the title of drift king, I am terrible for it . Have to get me trained to be house broken sshomestead forum member lol.

No mistake boatguy, I am still young got to learn about genetics and I bet I don't even come close to knowing half the stuff you do especially about homesteading .
Boatguy I am happy to help teach or try and answer any questions and work on fixing problems, went into science to help people and giving me an oppertunity to do that while I can't work in lab makes me feel useful .

Great thing is if your breeding animals you probably got natural selection (pairing off animals with desireable traits better than me) because you have more experience in this. Book smart will only take you so far so a chance to get my hands dirty learn something is cool.

Boatguy genetics is really complex (by that I mean lots of stuff happening all at once) and we know only a fraction of it really.
4 temperament can be definitetly impacted on environment and diet I bet and number 5.
5 If the mother has good mother skills it might be a learnt behaviour as well as instinct. How good I they at raising babies that aren't their own?

3 Hogs (well pigs are very smart animals I am betting hogs will be too) so you might be able to train them to eat a certain type of thing rather than getting them to "root" and tear up the pasture. Though what they are going for might be very important for their diet and might suffer from not getting whatever they are rooting around for.

1 and 2 can also be diet and environment can play a major role.

I am probably rambling your have to forgive me my health effects how good I can organise my thoughts.

Some neat ideas that might me food for thought. Animals gene's are like the blue prints for a building. How well those blue prints are constructed (gene's expressed) depends on what resources they got (food and nutriution) just like a construction job where you have to get it done if you got some rubish materials your do the best job to make the design but unless it is really well designed not going to get brilliant results. Same with environment if you got a plan for a homestead for dessert conditions use it in a monsoon environment not going to be surprised if it runs into difficulty. Now the really surprising thing is that those blue prints can be modified by the artitects (parents) depending on what experience they have had which could give you a really good start or a poor start. Obviously during the early building phase of the blueprints (pregnancy) how good a working environment for the aritect (who usually is involved with mamals) can effect how good the blue prints are carried out obviously if the aritect is stressed or can't get something they need it can impact the project (baby).

! Epigenetics is where environment and health or condition of the parents can be passed on to the children (offspring), I know what your thinking that sounds bit crazy icesphere. Well let me give you some example and tell you how it happens, during the second world war the was lots of towns where their was serve starvation children that were born in this period were found to develop to be very obese they would eat and eat as more food arrived because the war finished food supplies returned it was observed in some villages and towns. How this might happen or one of the ways it can happen. The genes that are expressed can be chemically turned on and off while some genes are expressed all the time in every cell, some genes are only expressed in certain cells and some genes will only be expressed in certain cells when a certain condition happens. Think of it like you only switch your generator on when the is a powercut or your internal sprinklers go off when it detects a fire or some prankers sets them off, otherwise things would be a lot more costly or hard to function. So certain genes or regions of DNA can be switched on and off by methylation fancy word for a chemical on and off switch. So in the starving children situation previously in human evolution when populations have had food shortages or periods where food would switch from plenty to few, those that could stock up and build up reserves were better off under those conditions then and children who already had their food storing genes switched on obviously better off than children that didn't. So the is a inbuilt system that allows some flexibility in blue prints think of it as different configurations in blue print or moving around of internal walls. Obviously the is a certain limited amount of things you can do with the blueprint but you can play around with it. Probably heard about certain chemicals in the water effecting male and female fish ratios this can be environmental effect changing gene expression whether this occurs both before the eggs are laid or after may differ form species to species.

So if you know what blue prints look like the DNA or what genes they got and how they are passed on that's when I can really help. Though some traits are passed on as blocks so you might notice that longer snouts and longer ears for example always seem to be passed on (this may not be the case infact i would be suprised I haven't read anything really about hog genetics). Though giving the animals the best nutrutrion and environment will give them the best chance to express their genetic strengths not show their weakness (though what might be best nutrution and environment might not be exactly know). lol.

So you might of noticed that farmers who got animals from the same breeding stock had differing results and when you looked at their farming methods it could be down to that. So a bit of looking at who is getting the best results and is it with just one animal or are the other animals seeming pretty good, gives a clue not always but if all the animals are prized animals and coming from similar breeding stock from others that aren't be likely that farming methods play major role. If the is one king of the hill, might be that the animal had bit of an edge with it's blue prints (DNA --> genes).

Hopefully the are some nugets of wisdom that will help. I have think of working out a way to track inbreeding and pairing strageties, is the any rush ? When you likely to want to mate them?