Animal selection and breeding

Organic farmers aim to use breeds that are adapted to the local conditions, both in their ability to tolerate the stresses of local climate, the feeding requirements related to locally available feed and the commonly prevalent parasites and diseases.

Introducing large exotic breeds with a high production potential may not succeed, and may lead to heavy losses in the form of abrupt deaths. Exotic breeds need high quality feed, a well-constructed animal house and frequent treatment to avoid infections, in order to achieve their high production potential. Crossbreeding indigenous and exotic breeds has been employed by many farmers as a strategy to combine the good characteristics of adaptability to local conditions from the indigenous breeds with improved performance from the exotic breeds. This strategy has been successful especially where management conditions in terms of feed supply and health management have also been improved. Although cross breeding is a good way to improve animal traits, further cross breeding of crossbred animals usually leads to higher variation with the 2nd generation not yielding similar results as the 1st generation.

Natural mating is common in all animals including poultry. The most common method is allowing properly selected males to mate in order to promote good and favourable traits. The males should be alternated or exchanged regularly to avoid problems of inbreeding. Animals should not mate with their own daughters or sons.

Artificial insemination is also widely being used as an alternative to keeping own bulls on the farm. For appropriate results, the semen must be carefully chosen using semen from bulls of well- adapted breeds and with good health traits only. It is not recommended to use semen from bulls, from which incomplete information is available.

Discussion on animal selection and breeding

With reference to a particular animal species, discuss with the farmers what characteristics they normally consider when selecting animals to breed. Do they allow mature bulls to move freely with mature females? How do they prevent inbreeding? Explain the disadvantages of inbreeding and suggest ways of avoiding it.

Selection of breeding animals

Good selection is based on accurate and good assessment of the differences in performance of individual animals and on the possibility to pass those features to the offspring. Good characteristics can be seen by looking at the individual animal, its relatives and the whole family line. The farmer can only succeed in breeding, if he knows what characteristics he or she wants, focuses on them and keeps proper records to monitor the whole process. The appearance of an animal (phenotype) is influenced by the genetic potential of the animal (genotype) and the environmental factors such as health and nutrition, which contribute 60 to 80 % to the phenotype. Qualitative characteristics can be influenced through appropriate management like nutrition or housing. Good comparisons of animals can only be made when the animals are of the same age, sex and are managed in the same environment. Some characteristics (qualitative) can be passed on from the mother to the offspring. These characteristics, for example skin colour, will be present or absent in an individual animal, while other quantitative characteristics such as growth rate, body weight or level of production are inherited to an extent of 10 to 30 % and are largely influenced by management conditions.

Organic breeding builds on four main principles:

Species-specific breeding - The breeding goals must be adequate for the species. They should promote the special features of the animal species.
Site-related breeding - Selection for production traits should fit well with the environment. For example, selection for high production is only possible in a very good environment with adequate, good feed.
Disease resistance-related breeding - The breeding goals should include health traits like easy births, proper legs, low somatic cell counts or little requirement for veterinary treatments.
Flexibility-related breeding - The breeding goals should also include flexibility traits, which show that animals can cope with unstable environments such as low supply of feed.

Recommendations to farmers regarding proper selection of animals for breeding:

Select livestock breeds that are easily adaptable to local conditions in terms of feeding, diseases and other infections. This will incur fewer expenses to manage them and result in fewer sudden deaths.
Put strong emphasis on functional traits such as longevity, ease of births, strong legs and on the quality of animal products such as somatic cell counts, fat and protein content in milk.
Allow animals to breed and reproduce under natural conditions as far as possible. Artificial insemination should only be used as an occasional, rather than a routine, practise.
Cooperate with other farmers to exchange (male) animals from time to time to prevent inbreeding.
To prevent inbreeding, castrate young male animals if they are not to be used as breeding animals.