I agree. I line-breed (inbreed) everything I breed. But I don't breed anything with a problem. Our quail are only on their fourth generation, but by selecting only big, healthy (and gentle!) roos, we have healthy birds that reach well over 1 lb by 10 weeks, and the eggs are so big that they don't fit in the egg cartons made for quail eggs. Outside of incubator malfunctions, my hatch rates never drop below about 85%, and most hatches are 100%. As the breeder we got the initial stock from counseled, we keep the top 5% of males (by weight) and the top 50% of females. (Not keeping/breeding any with foot, beak or hatch problems goes without saying.) And selection for temperament is important unless you want to lose birds and your own skin - breeding big coturnix seems to increase the level of aggressiveness in both sexes.
My Satin rabbits are pushing 10-11 generations of linebreeding. Any rabbit with a problem does not reproduce, and the ones that do, produce beautiful, healthy rabbits. Many years ago I brought in a big, beautiful, unrelated white Satin buck, and immediately began having problems with split penis in my bucks, and slow-developing reproductive organs in both males and females. I tried for a while, but within three generations I had none of his offspring left.
Sometimes one of my breeder friends brings up new stock, and uses them to cross into their existing lines (which are related to my lines, since several of us co-breed). Usually these rabbits are from lines that already appear on our pedigrees. Once in a while I'll bring in one of those offspring (from the distant relative x existing stock) into my herd. That's the nearest I do to outcrossing.
Bringing in a couple of new males might solve some problems initially, but if you don't get rid of the underlying genetic issue, it'll come back. By the same token, bringing in new stock might have the opposite effect, of bringing in new problems. This is especially true when you bring in new males, which have a disproportionate effect on the flock/herd since they breed so many females. Shifting back to rabbits, my daughter used an outcross buck with her Polish and ended up fighting malocclusion - which her rabbits had not suffered from before - for a long time in his descendants.
Of course if all of your beginning stock is faulty, you'll have to bring in something else. My Champagnes are in year #2 (these are not inbred rabbits), and I am still working on eliminating an assortment of issues, including malocculsion, sore hocks, and nasty temperament. I am actually using my "inbred" Satins to do that!
But mostly I think that regular outcrossing is what you do if you don't want to (or don't know how to) keep up regular selection pressure in your herd/flock.
Last edited:
