Inzucht in Rinderpopulationen - Ergebnisse einer Expertenbefragung

Summary

Kinship breeding is recommended as an adequate breeding approach for organic farms, because breeders work with their own well adapted cow families and bulls. Therefore kinship breeding is promoted on organic farms in a project conducted in Switzerland and Germany. An often arising question is about a possible negative impact of inbreeding on animal health, performance and welfare, but there is not much and quite varying information available. Therefore, a literature study and 10 interviews with dairy cattle breeding experts were conducted to get a better knowledge on inbreeding impacts in small populations. Results: Inbreeding depressions were described for production, sperm quality and quantity, reproduction, calf vitality, longevity and calving traits and on hereditary diseases. Experts argued that cattle is quite resistant against inbreeding depressions. Their occurrence depends on the degree of inbreeding and on the effective population size, but even more on breeders’ knowledge about their animals’ features in past generations. Natural mating bears a smaller risk of inbreeding on population level than artificial insemination.

Summary translation