Male of Female most important in breeding program

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steady on point
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Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by steady on point » Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:30 pm

I have always been and it seems most breeders are of the mind set to take the best female you have and breed to the most exceptional male that matches the traits you are looking for. Another trainer I know feels the males are simply sperm donors in that the traits of the litter will take more after the female than the male of the litter. He breeds the best possible female to above average males. My questions is which sex carries the most dominant traits over to the litter?
If you have a choice of breeding to a high powered male with your female or a high powered female to your male, which way would produce the best litter?

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by ezzy333 » Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:12 pm

The dominance of the genes is not related to sex. Each give the same genes but there are some dogs that seem to be more dominant than others. The only other thing that must be considered is what does the female teach them when they are young. I do think she can influence attitudes by her actions and reactions to things.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by 3Britts » Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:16 pm

ezzy333 wrote:The dominance of the genes is not related to sex. Each give the same genes but there are some dogs that seem to be more dominant than others. The only other thing that must be considered is what does the female teach them when they are young. I do think she can influence attitudes by her actions and reactions to things.

Ezzy
I'll add my vote to this as well. I think that you will find that most breeders look for the best in either sex for their breeding programmes.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by Greg Jennings » Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:30 am

steady on point wrote:Another trainer I know feels the males are simply sperm donors in that the traits of the litter will take more after the female than the male of the litter. He breeds the best possible female to above average males.
...and it would be so simple and cost effective to breed to the best male and increase the quality of the litter.

You control your breeding program by owning the female. Getting a male to breed to is a matter of plopping down the cash.

Greg J.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by RayGubernat » Fri Jan 22, 2010 8:26 am

Greg J is absolutely right on.

One can debate the genetics and talk about sire lines and dam lines...but in practical terms it is easy as heck to include the very finest sire in the breeding. Just a phone call, a check and a plane ride and you can have the best sire in the country(in YOUR opinion) for your litter.

Finding a female that has the qualities you want is a WHOLE lot more difficult, mostly because anyone who does have a female like that...ain't lettin' loose of the dog or the pups without getting their pick first and their close associates will be right there in line.

RayG

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by Yawallac » Fri Jan 22, 2010 12:33 pm

Interesting topic. I think there is a lot more to it than just "breeding best to best". That may be the only way for the hobby breeder to go, to try to ensure a good pup. But if you want a good "litter" than it takes additional work (or luck) IMO. Are there litters of fine animals being produced by the "best to best" method"? Sure, the only point I'm trying to make is that for a breeder that produces many litters per year, with the goal of improving what he has (not puppy milling) and to consistently produce many fine animals per litter, then some trial and error may be required. It's one thing to produce a better "pup", but quite another to produce a better "litter".

The goal is to find the right "nick" for a particular female. If you have a nice female that you feel is worthy of breeding, than I would start by studying pedigrees and trying to "match up" what you have with the best "match" of what's available. In other words, try to identify a stud whose pedigree lines up with your females pedigree. (This is assuming, of course, that the characteristics you are looking for are available in a stud with a similar pedigree.) I would prefer to breed my female to that stud because I am trying to create some consistency with the litter. I want as many of the good characteristics and traits as possible to show up in the entire litter. Sometimes the best-to-best method will only produce a single pup (or none at all) with the desired traits that you had hoped for. By lining up the pedigrees you can improve your odds ...hopefully.

As an example, I had 4 very nice females with almost identical pedigrees. I bred them all to the same stud. The results were mixed. Three of the females produced a couple of nice pups per litter. One female however, had 14 pups and 10 of the pups were better than any of the pups produced by the other three females with similar pedigrees. Next, I took the female that produced very well to another stud of a completely different line and the results were similar. I have since bred her to two more studs ...and the results are excellent. She is a 'producer' and I could probably breed her to a stump and she'd produce nice pups. What I learned about the other females ...and the stud is that they are not necessarily very propotent producers and I will have to experiment to find the right breeding for them if I intended upon keeping them. I did not however, and all three females and the stud were sold.

Through "experimental" breedings, I have been able to identify three more females that can 'produce'. Those have become my foundation females. Those females are now being bred to the 'best' males that will provide the traits and pedigrees that I am looking for. One of the females produced an excellent litter from a particular stud. I repeated the breeding and achieved the same results, so we have decided that she will only be bred to that stud because the 'nick' is simply outstanding. It is producing great pups with the traits that we were hoping for.

We are now also 'testing' our in-house studs. Young dogs that we have identified as true prospects are being bred so that we can evaluate their abilities to sire the traits we are looking for. We breed them very young because we want to see what they can produce BEFORE we dump thousands into campaigning them.
My questions is which sex carries the most dominant traits over to the litter?
So to answer your question, I believe that it is neither ...or it is the female ...or it is the male ...or it is both. In other words, some females are 'blue hens' and some studs are prepotent. So if it's an unproven female, try to eliminate as many of the variables as possible (like outcrossing) and breed her to a known/proven stud that matches both the traits you are looking for with a pedigree that lines up.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by bruns333 » Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:49 pm

I think the either male or female or both is probably correct. To expound upon this I wonder what people think about breeding to grandsons versus sons. Do people think a direct descendant of a producer or one that is double bred has more strength going forward? This would be of course because the original is already dead and not frozen to use. I also wonder if an outcross gives you basically what you wanted is he or she more likely to have less consistent litters? Is outcross to outcross going to give you alphabet soup that is hard to nail down traits?

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by CherrystoneWeims » Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:34 pm

Yawallac is right on with his post. Some bitches are just exceptional producers as are some males. I have a bitch that I have bred to two very different males and got very nice litters. She has proven herself to be quite the foundation for my kennel for both show and field! In all of the litters I got good conformation and pups with great field ability. She herself does not have an impressive pedigree but has become an outstanding bitch both as a producer and in herself.

I also have a stud dog who has produced exceptional pups in pretty much every litter that he has sired. He doesn't overpower the bitch but brings out the best in them and corrects many faults.
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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by A/C Guy » Sat Jan 23, 2010 10:13 am

bruns333 wrote:. To expound upon this I wonder what people think about breeding to grandsons versus sons.
The grandson's genes will not be identical to the grandfather, therefore, you need to consider the mother of that grandson. Is she as good as the original male you want to duplicate? Or does she bring something that he was lacking?
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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by tommyboy72 » Sat Jan 23, 2010 2:46 pm

I always heard that 60% of what a pup gets he gets from his mother rather than his father. Traits like athleticism, intensity, birdiness, quality of nose, how they run, range, etc. I am not sure if this is true it is just something I always heard.

I will let you know if it worked for me when my pup gets a bit older. I have a very intense Miller/Fiddler female who is light on her feet, runs huge, is a bird finding machine but is hyper as heck so I crossed her up with my male Elhew who goes back to Strike several times in hopes of keeping the athleticism and birdiness as well as the excellent nose and getting a bit calmer pup who does not run quite so big while also adding a bit of size. My female is only about 45-50 lbs. and my male is about 55-60 lbs. and a bit taller and more muscular. So far the pup is tall and broad so I think I am going to get my size and she is fearless even at 5 months firing a 12 and 20 gauge around her doesn't bother her the couple of times she has been out with the older dogs on pheasant but she isn't finding birds on her own merely running with the big dogs so in time I hope she is going to hunt like her mother and look and handle like her father. It's probably not realistic to think like this but she is handling like a dream at 5 months and responds well but we will see when she puts it all together.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by Yawallac » Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:24 pm

tommyboy,

So you think a 50lb female is small? From what you described, she sounds PERFECT to me! :D

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by tommyboy72 » Sat Jan 23, 2010 5:26 pm

Well she was 46 lbs. when she was about 40 days pregnant so she may be a bit smaller than that. Probably around 45-50 lbs. now. Leaning toward the 45lb. side.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by PkerStr8Tail » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:57 pm

My two cents........I have also heard, as previously posted, that 60-65% of traits on average come from the female. I have never seen any scientific studies in writing, just folklore. If that is true, it would mean most big breeders are doing it backwards. How is that you say? Most big breeders use only Champion Sires (i.e. proven in the field) and breed to unproven(in the field) brood bitches. Even if the majority of traits do not come from the female, I still wonder why so much emphasis is put on the Sires and so little (in some cases) in the female. I would think both would be equally important and the females should prove themselves in the field as well.

Breeding is like rolling hundreds if not thousands of dice. There are so many combinations that the outcome is uncertain. Let's say the desirable traits equals the number 1 on the dice. Using proven males and females improves the number of theoretical dice with only 1's on all the faces(no matter how you roll them they come up 1). As anyone that has breed much knows, even though you start with proven parents, there are no guarantees. Why? Because you can't control randomness or the outcome of all the combinations. A proven dog in the field shows they possess the right traits, but what you don't know is if they carry many of the 1 dice from my example in their sperm or eggs.
Last edited by PkerStr8Tail on Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by lvrgsp » Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:41 pm

PkerStr8Tail wrote:My two cents........I have also heard, as previously posted, that 60-65% of traits on average come from the female. I have never seen any scientific studies in writing, just folklore. If that is true, it would mean most big breeders are doing it backwards. How is that you say? Most big breeders use only Champion Sires (i.e. proven in the field) and breed to unproven(in the field) brood bitches. Even if the majority of traits do not come from the female, I still wonder why so much emphasis is put on the Sires and so little (in some cases) in the female. I would think both would be equally important and the females should prove themselves in the field as well.

Breeding is like rolling hundreds if not thousands of dice. There are so many combinations that the outcome is uncertain. Let's say the desirable traits equals the number 1 on the dice. Using proven males and females improves the number of theoretical dice with only 1's on all the faces(no matter how you roll them the come up 1). As anyone that has breed much knows though even with proven parents, there are no guarantees. Why? Because you can't control randomness or the outcome of all these combinations. A proven dog in the field shows they possess the right traits, but what you don't know is if they care many of the 1 dice from my example in their sperm or eggs.
Very nicely said.......but rest assured if the litter produced one or two above average dogs, or the litter has a few bad apples, 90% of the time the sire gets the blame. Almost always never the female......IMO it takes two to tango..... :)
I think it really does come down to good evaluation of both dogs, and hopefully the will compliment each other, to many times a male will dominate the traits of the female being passed, or vice versa....IMO good females are the key to maintaining a good breeding program.

JMO.
Last edited by lvrgsp on Mon Jan 25, 2010 6:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by birddogger » Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:26 pm

tommyboy72 wrote:I always heard that 60% of what a pup gets he gets from his mother rather than his father. Traits like athleticism, intensity, birdiness, quality of nose, how they run, range, etc. I am not sure if this is true it is just something I always heard.

I will let you know if it worked for me when my pup gets a bit older. I have a very intense Miller/Fiddler female who is light on her feet, runs huge, is a bird finding machine but is hyper as heck so I crossed her up with my male Elhew who goes back to Strike several times in hopes of keeping the athleticism and birdiness as well as the excellent nose and getting a bit calmer pup who does not run quite so big while also adding a bit of size. My female is only about 45-50 lbs. and my male is about 55-60 lbs. and a bit taller and more muscular. So far the pup is tall and broad so I think I am going to get my size and she is fearless even at 5 months firing a 12 and 20 gauge around her doesn't bother her the couple of times she has been out with the older dogs on pheasant but she isn't finding birds on her own merely running with the big dogs so in time I hope she is going to hunt like her mother and look and handle like her father. It's probably not realistic to think like this but she is handling like a dream at 5 months and responds well but we will see when she puts it all together.
Getting a little off topic here Tom, but if I were you, I would start running her by herself. I am betting she would start hunting, gain confidence, start finding and pointing birds on her own. Good luck with her. :)

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by tommyboy72 » Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:33 pm

Thanks Charlie, she is just now 5 months and I am waiting till after the bird seasons end in February to start running her solo and doing some training. I am even considering buying a coop and getting some pigeons from a buddy and maybe some of last years breeder quail from a farm and doing some organized training with this one as opposed to running her simply on wild birds like I have all my other ones.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by Grange » Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:45 pm

So when you decide to breed a female do you look at the traits of the female and then compare them to the traits of the potential stud for the right match or do you look at the traits (assuming you have some idea) of the dogs in both the female's and the potential stud's pedigrees.

Say a person has first hand knowledge of a male and female and when the person looks at the strengths of each dog he or she can envision how each dog's strength compliments the other dog's strength and they don't share the same faults so hopefully any weakness wouldn't be enhanced. So based on the first hand knowledge of the two dogs the person may feel it would be a good breeding, but what if the knowledge of the pedigrees would lead the person to rule out a breeding at least based on paper.

For example what if the pedgrees indicated the potential to throw bad bites, or a sickle tail or some other undesireable quality. Now while the two dogs the person may be interested in breeding don't have these faults wouldn't there be potential for these faults to be passes on?

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by Birddog3412 » Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:03 am

I agree with bits and pieces of alot that has been said. I found this article a couple months ago. It is very funny how the most well known English Pointer breeder ever is so modest, and also feels it is sometimes just the luck of the draw when breeding dogs.

http://www.superiorpointers.com/pdf/Weh ... eeding.pdf

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by Yawallac » Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:47 am

Great article, thank you for posting.

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Re: Male of Female most important in breeding program

Post by ezzy333 » Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:23 am

Birddog3412 wrote:I agree with bits and pieces of alot that has been said. I found this article a couple months ago. It is very funny how the most well known English Pointer breeder ever is so modest, and also feels it is sometimes just the luck of the draw when breeding dogs.

http://www.superiorpointers.com/pdf/Weh ... eeding.pdf

Great article by a great breeder. Natural ability is what makes a dog great and not what the training produced. If the pup can't point, back, retrieve, find birds and fit in the standard of your breed before you start your training then you have less than a great dog to work with. It explains very well why I refuse to train a dog for a JH title or any title that is based on natural ability and why I want to see a show champion in the pedigree if I haven't seen the dog in person.

Ezzy
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http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=207

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