Anybody heard this about crossbreeding?

[Miss M]

Down the street, there's a small commercial producer. During our time of having no Cali buck, I mentioned to him that I was considering putting our Cali does with a different buck to keep them breeding.

He told me that if I did, it would take seven breedings to get it all out of their systems again, to have offspring that would be pure.

Is there any truth to this? My beloved Shay told me that it is this way with dogs... that it's five breedings before they can be considered pure again, and that the reputation of the dog may never recover.

???

 

[Dood]

I cannot believe that this MYTH is still around !!!!

It is true in some animals ...

In birds sperm can stay viable for a couple weeks
In reptiles sperm can stay viable for months
In insects sperm can stay viable for years

But

In MAMMALS sperm dies within a couple days - we are too hot for it (heat sterility!!! ) and it is why the testicles of male mammals are on the outside and of the body ! Unlike in the other species mentioned.

So your does will only have mutts for one pregnancy, and if bred to a Cali next time you will only get purebreds

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Is he talking about the progeny, or the bred parent?

There is an old wive's tale that cross breeding (dogs, horses, whatever) has some lingering taint to the dam- like the sperm just hang around waiting to fertilize the next crop of eggs. Obviously that can't happen, unless we are talking about spiders or some other-er- "less evolved" critters that have the ability to "store" sperm for future use.

As far as I know, no mammals have that capability. I could be wrong on that, but know without a doubt that our domesticated mammals don't have that ability.

If he is talking about the progeny, with rabbits it doesn't make any difference on the show table at least. You could even take a first generation cross and show it as a particular breed as long as it conforms to the standard since rabbits are judged on phenotype (how they look) as opposed to genotype (what they truly are genetically speaking).

As soon as that "other breed" is off the 3 generation pedigree, they are once again considered "purebred". However, I personally would be forthcoming that "such and such" was introduced to improve (insert desired quality) however many generations back if I was selling any of the offspring.

***Oooh! Congratulations to Dood for "beating me to the post"! That doesn't happen everyday, lol!***

 

[Dood]

I was told by my reproduction professor that the myth was started to keep girls chaste and full of fear that after their wedding they'd have another mans baby if they had pre-marital sex with someone they didn't marry :shrug:

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Really? Lol!

Well, that goes along with the saying "It is a wise man who knows his own child", since before the advent of DNA testing, there wasn't any conclusive way for a fellow to know for certain who the father was.

 

[Miss M]

:thankyou:

Both of you, I appreciate it! It sounded really strange to me, and if it hadn't come from an old guy who'd been raising rabbits for a long time, I'd have rolled my eyes internally and forgotten it.

But then when Shay told me that about dogs... it still sounded really strange, but I figured maybe I should find out.

In Shay's defense, he never bred dogs. So he probably just heard it from somebody a long time ago.

So your does will only have mutts for one pregnancy, and if bred to a Cali next time you will only get purebreds

Now I wish so badly that I had bred them to another buck, because they don't want to now. Well, Niyuki may have been bred by one of her little boys (sold them at 12 weeks, right after realizing they all had descended testicles... three weeks earlier than I've ever seen them before), but Nefertiti won't breed, either. :roll: I guess they will eventually, and then I'll keep them on a schedule.

Is he talking about the progeny, or the bred parent?

He's talking about the bred parent. So he obviously heard that old wives' tale.

As soon as that "other breed" is off the 3 generation pedigree, they are once again considered "purebred". However, I personally would be forthcoming that "such and such" was introduced to improve (insert desired quality) however many generations back if I was selling any of the offspring.

Makes complete sense.

I was told by my reproduction professor that the myth was started to keep girls chaste and full of fear that after their wedding they'd have another mans baby if they had pre-marital sex with someone they didn't marry :shrug:

Well, that goes along with the saying "It is a wise man who knows his own child", since before the advent of DNA testing, there wasn't any conclusive way for a fellow to know for certain who the father was.

:lol: That figures!

 

[Zass]

Mammals generally do not store sperm...some species of bat being the only exceptions that come readily to mind.

Development of fertilized embryos is sometimes delayed...but rabbits and dogs are not even closely related to any species I know of that are known to be capable of it...

 

[akane]

With rabbits it is a myth. There is some truth with some mammals though. It's not that the sperm itself is stored but some of our odder mammals, for example, sugar gliders can have a litter in pouch, a litter in uterus growing, and a fertilized litter in waiting. It can take growing out 3 litters to get a litter by another male.

 

[Miss M]

Wow! Those sugar gliders are busy!

So it is true for a select few mammals.... but thankfully not for rabbits. Maybe I'll try Nefertiti out with a different buck, then. Maybe she'll go for one of the others.

 

[EnglishSpot]

You know, I just wrote a really long post about how sexist and how it's such a double standard that men make up these stupid sayings to keep their women ignorant and in line (back in the day....fifty years ago) and how it's managed to infiltrate the animal husbandry world also. I deleted it and wrote this instead. The background of these kinds of remarks makes me angry.

End of rant.

 

[JenerationX]

There's some crap in the horse world on both the stallion and mare end of it that crossing breeds will cause that animal to not want to mate with its own breed again. Zero truth to that at all, but I've heard it from several old timers.

Strangest thing I ever heard in my life was a woman on FB who was going after a guy for paternity and he insisted that SHE have her DNA tested as well to prove she was the mother. Ummmmmm :shutup: I had a real hard time keeping my mouth shut on that one.

 

[Dood]

:shock: so he thinks she swapped babies with a different girl he got pregnant :shock:

 

[alforddm]

There is a very very old myth in Arabian Horses. I don't remember all of it but Arabians Horses in the old days were divided into "lines" biased on quality and purity. Breeding a mare to a stallion of a lesser "line" would soil the mare. Any future offspring even from a stallion of great purity would still be considered of the "line" of the original stallion rather than the actual sire.

 

[3mina]

This goes back centuries, long before any understanding of genetics

 

[Miss M]

Strangest thing I ever heard in my life was a woman on FB who was going after a guy for paternity and he insisted that SHE have her DNA tested as well to prove she was the mother. Ummmmmm :shutup: I had a real hard time keeping my mouth shut on that one.

Yikes.

I actually saw one where a WOMAN was wondering how she could know for sure that the baby she had given birth to was hers. Not kidding.

 

[Rabbitdog]

I've heard champion poodle breeders say that if their prize winning, pedigreed poodle was bred by the local "Heinz 57" mutt, that the poodle's pedigree was forever soiled and she should never be bred again. I just laughed and chalked it up to elitist snobbery.

Honeybee queens, however, breed for 2 or 3 mating flights early in life and store the semen necessary for egg laying for up to 5 years. Males have about a 1 in a million chance of being a father. If they are indeed "lucky" enough to be able to mate with a queen (in flight), their genitals are ripped from their bodies and they fall helplessly to the ground to die ..... Gee, tis good that I be not a bee!

 

[JenerationX]

There is a very very old myth in Arabian Horses. I don't remember all of it but Arabians Horses in the old days were divided into "lines" biased on quality and purity. Breeding a mare to a stallion of a lesser "line" would soil the mare. Any future offspring even from a stallion of great purity would still be considered of the "line" of the original stallion rather than the actual sire.

I heard that one too years ago. There was also something about the stallions put to lesser mares may then reject the purer mares. I don't recall the exact story, but remember wondering how the heck a stallion would know or care what the mares pedigree says. It's just a bunch of snobbery to keep the lines separate.