Dictionary:

breeding

  (brē'dĭng)

1. One's line of descent; ancestry: a person of noble breeding.
2. Training in the proper forms of social and personal conduct.
3. Production of offspring or young.
4. The propagation of animals or plants.

The application of genetic principles to improving heredity for economically important traits in domestic animals. Examples are improvement of milk production in dairy cattle, meatiness in pigs, feed requirements or growth rate in beef cattle, and egg production in chickens. Selection permits the best parents to leave more offspring in the next generation than do poor parents.

Selection is the primary tool for generating directed genetic changes in animals. It may be concentrated on one characteristic, may be directed independently on several traits, or may be conducted on an index or total score which includes information on several traits. In general, the third method is preferable when several important heritable traits need attention. In practice, selection is likely to be a mixture of the second and third methods.

Heritability, the fraction of the total variation in a trait that is due to additive genetic differences, is a key parameter in making decisions in selection. Most traits are strongly to moderately influenced by environmental or managemental differences. Therefore, managing animals to equalize environmental influences on them, or statistically adjusting for environmental differences among animals, is necessary to accurately choose those with the best inheritance for various traits.

The improvement achieved by selection is directly related to the accuracy with which the breeding values of the subjects can be recognized. Accuracy, in turn, depends upon the heritabilities of the traits and upon whether they can be measured directly upon the subjects for selection (mass selection), upon their parents (pedigree selection), upon their brothers and sisters (family selection), or upon their progeny (progeny testing). For traits of medium heritability, the following sources of information are about equally accurate for predicting breeding values of subjects: (1) one record measured on the subject; (2) one record on each ancestor for three previous generations; (3) one record each on five brothers or sisters where there is no environmental correlation between family members; and (4) one record each on five progeny having no environmental correlations, each from a different mate.

Propagation of improved animal stocks is achieved primarily with purebred strains descended from imported or locally developed groups or breeds of animals which have been selected and interbred for a long enough period to be reasonably uniform for certain trademark characteristics, such as coat color. Because the number of breeding animals is finite and because breeders tend to prefer certain bloodlines and sires, some inbreeding occurs within the pure breeds, but this has not limited productivity in most of these breeds. Crossbreeding makes use of the genetic phenomenon of heterosis. Heterosis is improved performance of crossbred progeny, exceeding that of the average performance of their parents. Most commercial pigs, sheep, and beef cattle are produced by crossbreeding. See also Genetics.

Advances in a variety of technologies have application for improvement of domestic animals, including quantitative genetics, reproductive physiology, and molecular genetics. Quantitative geneticists use statistical and genetic information to improve domestic animals. Typically a statistical procedure is used to rank animals based on their estimated breeding values for traits of economic importance. The statistical procedures used allow ranking animals across herds or flocks, provided the animals in different herds or flocks have relatives in common. The primary contribution of reproductive physiology to genetic improvement is to reduce the generation interval. If genetic improvement is increasing at the same rate per generation, more generations can be produced for a fixed time, and thus more gain per unit of time. The most important development was artificial insemination, which allows extensive use of superior males. Another development was embryo transplantation, which allows more extensive use of females. Cloning is a relatively new technique, by which whole and healthy animals have been produced that have the same DNA as the animal from which the cells were taken.

Due to advances in molecular genetics, knowledge is increasing regarding the location of genes on chromosomes and the distance between the genes. In domestic animals, polymorphisms (changes in the order of the four bases) that are discovered in the DNA may be associated with economic traits. When the polymorphisms are associated with or code for economic traits, they are called quantitative trait loci (QTL). When a few or several quantitative trait loci are known that control a portion of the variability in a trait, increasing the frequencies of favorable alleles can enhance the accuracy of selection and augment production. Another use of molecular genetics is to detect the genes that code for genetically predetermined diseases. An example is the bovine leukocyte deficiency gene, which does not allow white blood cells to migrate out of the blood supply into the tissues to fight infection. The calves perish at a young age. Screening all sires that enter artificial breeding organizations and not using sires that transmit the defect has effectively controlled this condition.

noun

The process by which an organism produces others of its kind: multiplication, procreation, proliferation, propagation, reproduction, spawning. Obsolete increase. See reproduction/barrenness.

Definition: good manners
Antonyms: bad manners, vulgarity

For more information on breeding, visit Britannica.com.

1. pedigree.
2. the physical act of mating.
3. capable of being used for reproduction.
4. controlled propagation of animals or plants.

• artificial b. — see artificial insemination.
• b. bitch — a sexually entire bitch to be used for breeding.
• b. bulls — bulls used for paddock mating.
• close b. — see inbreeding.
• controlled b. — 1. the animals are mated in such a way that the offspring can be guaranteed to be the progeny of the animals concerned, the number of matings can be counted and the use of the animals for breeding is tightly controlled. See also hand mating.
— 2. controlled mating in that the occurrence of the estrus cycle, the probability of ovulation and fertilization and the termination are controlled by manipulation of the dam's internal hormonal environment.
• b. display — behavior likely to attract an animal of the opposite sex to mate. Used almost exclusively in relation to birds.
• b. examination — postpartum examination of cow to ascertain readiness for next mating; includes rectal examination of uterus and ovaries, vaginoscopic examination, possibly sample of cervical mucus for laboratory examination; in bulls the examination is for breeding soundness.
• b. herds — herds used for breeding in contrast to fattening herds.
• b. history — lifetime history of all events in a female's reproductive history, including postpartum and pre-mating examinations.
• b. injuries — incurred during mating and as a result of it. Examples are penile hematoma and vaginal rupture.
• line b. — breeding of animals with the same blood lines but not closely related.
• optimal b. time — the time during the estral period when a mating is most likely to be fertile.
• b. organizations — bodies which advise on and assist in breeding programs, e.g. artificial insemination and embryo transfer centers, cow evaluation and mating advisory services, breed society classification programs, dairy herd improvement programs and the like.
• b. problems — see abortion, mummification, stillbirth, no visible estrus, failure to conceive.
• b. programs — arrangement of matings on a farm to produce the desired effect in terms of cows in milk at a particular season, lambs being born when the weather is most clement, lowering the micron count of the wool by mating ewes with a low micron ram and so on.
• pyramid b. system — see pyramid breed structure.
• b. record — see breeding history.
• b. season — those parts of the year in which animals mate. This may be artificially arranged by humans. In animals that are not controlled there are periods of the year when they are more sexually active.
• b. soundness — the ability of the animal to mate and to initiate reproduction. In agricultural animals where the objective is to limit the number of sires, breeding soundness also embraces the ability to mate effectively on a large number of occasions over a brief period of time.
• b. soundness examination — conducted on behalf of intending vendors and purchasers, or before a limited breeding season in which high reproductive efficiency is desired. Should include perusal of results of previous reproductive performance, physical examination of the animal, especially of the genitalia, collection and examination of samples where these are an integral part of an examination for specific diseases of reproduction, e.g. blood test for brucellosis, preputial or vaginal swab examination for campylobacteriosis, and in the male a collection and examination of semen and a serving capacity test. The latter has not received universal acceptance, at least not in the form in which it is presently performed.
• b. stock — livestock used for breeding.
• b. wheel — a system of recording reproductive events on a disk which rotates once each year. The relationship between the expected calvings, the number of infertile matings and the required milk flow and feed need is readily understood from the overall pattern on the disk.

Breeding generally refers to the act of biological reproduction or but may also refer to:

• Artificial selection, the intentional breeding of certain traits, or combinations of traits, over others
  • Selective breeding, in domesticated animals is the process of developing a cultivated breed over time
  • Cat breeding, Dog breeding, Horse breeding, Plant breeding, Cuniculture (rabbit breeding)

See also

• Purebred, cultivars of a species
• Inbreeding, breeding between close relatives, whether plant or animal
• Provenance, the origin or source from which something comes, and the history of subsequent owners
• Manners, the unenforced standards of conduct which show the actor to be cultured, polite, and refined

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - formering, avl

idioms:

• breeding ground    yngleplads, udklækningssted

Nederlands (Dutch)
teelt, fokkerij, manieren

Français (French)
n. - procréation, reproduction, élevage, bonnes manières

idioms:

• breeding ground    lieu de reproduction, terrain propice à, pépinière de

Deutsch (German)
n. - Anbau, Zucht, Manieren

idioms:

• breeding ground    Brutstätte

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πολλαπλασιασμός, αναπαραγωγή, ανατροφή, τρόποι, καταγωγή

idioms:

• breeding ground    εκτροφείο, εστία

Italiano (Italian)
coltura, allevamento, educazione

idioms:

• breeding ground    terreno di coltura, vivaio

Português (Portuguese)
n. - procriação (f)

idioms:

• breeding ground    local (m) de procriação

Русский (Russian)
разведение, воспитание

idioms:

• breeding ground    рассадник, очаг, источник

Español (Spanish)
n. - cría, cultivo, modales, educación

idioms:

• breeding ground    nido, origen

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - alstring, uppfödande, avel, fortplantning

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
生育, 生殖, 饲养, 繁殖, 培植

idioms:

• breeding ground    滋生地

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 生育, 生殖, 飼養, 繁殖, 培植

idioms:

• breeding ground    滋生地

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 번식 , 양육, 예절

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 繁殖, 飼育, 家系, 保育, しつけ, 教養

idioms:

• breeding ground    飼養場, 飼育所, 好適な場所, 温床

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تربيه ( الخيل), تهذيب, حسن السلوك‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮גידול, נימוס, חינוך‬

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