# Is in breeding an issue?



## broadsword (Apr 16, 2012)

Excellent to find such a great forum with such a wide range of topics and active membership. I have a genetics question:

I understand the difference between "line breeding" and "in breeding". In essence, in breeding could almost be defined as "successive breeding between close relatives".

Surely if I start with a pair of doves and leave them to their devices in a dovecote sooner or later I will (or the birds will) have a problem with in breeding.

Any thoughts or experience?

Many thanks.


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## Libis (Oct 8, 2010)

broadsword said:


> Excellent to find such a great forum with such a wide range of topics and active membership. I have a genetics question:
> 
> I understand the difference between "line breeding" and "in breeding". In essence, in breeding could almost be defined as "successive breeding between close relatives".
> 
> ...


This is why you'll want some wooden eggs for population control. Doves and pigeons lay two eggs every month or two and you can see how quickly this would have you buried in birds if you didn't regulate them. So just check for eggs each day and when you find them, if you don't want more babies at the time, switch them out right away--before development occurs. 

Mostly I hear inbreeding in pigeons makes them smaller. I'm sure with extremes, though, there could be further problems. 

So, are you looking at getting "garden doves?) (aka garden fantail pigeons by most people in the US, since they are really a breed of pigeon.) Or are you looking at another breed?


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

I sort of had the same problem as I bought allot of related young birds from the same loft..so what I did was introduce some new young birds to settle from someone else so their young can join the young of my originals... three different lines should be fine as they will pick their pairs but some may be related but most won't be. I would get say three pairs of different lines and then they can mate up as they want.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

broadsword said:


> I understand the difference between "line breeding" and "in breeding". In essence, in breeding could almost be defined as "successive breeding between close relatives".
> 
> Any thoughts or experience?


In essence, line breeding is a non-extreme form of inbreeding (see wikipedia), and the question then becomes how 'close' is 'too close', when it comes to inbreeding.

Personally, I have never had any problems related to inbreeding. In this season, almost half the pairs I mated were cousins, full or half siblings, aunt-nephew, grandparent-child and in one case even parent-child. I raised 10 birds from these pairs, and didn't have any trouble with deformities (nor did I have any trouble with decreased size or vigour). Inbreeding is only a problem when the inbreeding coefficient becomes too large, and this takes many generations. Even the closest inbreeding pedigrees I have seen only have inbreeding coefficients below 50%. (I could give a few examples for the calculations if someone is interested in the maths of populaion genetics)



broadsword said:


> Surely if I start with a pair of doves and leave them to their devices in a dovecote sooner or later I will (or the birds will) have a problem with in breeding.


Also, if you start with a single pair, there is no guarantee that you will ever run into trouble (it depends on procreation rate, original genetic make-up and mutation rate among other things).

I haven't seen any formal studies, but personally know of at least two populations of white garden fantails that started with a single pair years ago (at least 10 years in one case). These populations nest freely in barns / cotes, and there is very little intervention from the 'owners', so I cannot be sure that no genetic anomalies exist. I assume that natural selection (cats,rats and other predators) helps rid the population of deformed or less vigorous birds. As such, the most important criteria for inbreeding (and indeed for ALL breeding) is strict selection. If a breeding program ever allows a sub-standerd or sickly bird to procreate, chances are that the bad genes will have the opportunity to proliferate.


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