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How is selective breeding used to produce cows with desired qualities?
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
Selective breeding is a tool that takes particular characteristics of the dam that the producer wishes to expand or increase on, and desired characteristics of the sire that the producer wishes to bring into his herd, and produce daughters that, hopefully, exhibit the desired characteristics later in life.
To make it more clearer, here's a couple examples: one on the beef side, the other on the dairy. A beef cattle producer wishes to produce heifers that have better calving ease, better milking ability, bigger calves, and last longer in his herd in terms of fertility and better forage convertability. Heritability is important in these selections, as some characteristics are more heritable than others, such as bigger calves and milking ability. However, bigger calves are also attributed to what the cow eats in her last trimester. What the producer can do to obtain this goal is do a few or all of a number of options:
1. Cull all undesirable cows in terms of condition and health issues
2. Pay better attention to nutritive needs of his/her pregnant and nursing cows
3. Don't buy bulls simply because they're sold cheap
4. Introduce a cross-breeding program into the herd
5. Select a bull or bulls that have characteristics for producing good daughters (are maternal-type bulls, not terminal-type bulls)
6. Introduce AI into the herd if none of the bulls being looked at meet any of your sepcifications.
7. Introduce body condition scoring to find the cows that keep their condition and fertility better than others.
8. Other things I can't think of off hand.
A herd bull is bought and selected to improve the genetic quality of your herd, not to maintain it nor decrease it. A herd bull with maternal qualities is what the producer needs to produce daughters that meet most if not all of his speficications. Other factors listed above also help in producing desirable calves and also help weed out the cows that are hard-keepers.
The dairy producer wants to produce daughters with higher milking ability and better docility. What this producer has to do to achieve this is similar to above: cull out undesirable cows, and find bulls that meet these specifications. Most dairy producers breed their cows with the use of AI, so selecting bulls for producing these daughters and ordering semen from these bulls' owners is the only way to produce these daughters.
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoSelective breeding in cattle is the selection of genetics from the parent herd in order to produce offspring with genetic traits that are superior to those parents. It is a tool to improve productivity and efficiency in cattle, be they beef cattle or dairy.
Wiki User
∙ 14y agoThey HAVE to be healthy, no exceptions! Any cow that is ill or diseased shouldn't even have a calf, and if they are in calf this illness will compensate the calf's health in much more bad ways than good. An ill cow is not suitable to be bred, and it is just simply not a great idea to breed an unhealthy cow.
Wiki User
∙ 11y agoAbsolutely not. Cows don't drink milk, only calves do, and even then if calves are allowed to "drink only the best of milk" is still not even close to being considered "selective breeding." Cows being bred for producing more milk is an example of selective breeding, not drinking only the best milk.
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What dose selective breeding produce?
it give out hybrid offspring of desired quality.
How did farmers improve their animals genetically before GMO?
Selective breeding. The process in which two animals which posess the desired qualities are mated to produce offspring which posess these characteristics themselves.
What are the major differences between selective breeding hybridization and inbreeding?
Selective breeding is a method of breeding that allows only those individual organisms with desired characteristics to produce the next generation. Humans use selective breeding, which takes advantage of naturally occurring genetic variation, to pass desired traits on to the next generation of organisms.Hybridization is the crossing of dissimilar individuals to bring together the best of both organisms.Inbreeding is the continued breeding of individuals with similar characteristics to maintain desired traits within a line of organisms.
What is the name of the process of allowing only those organisms with desired character is to produce the next generation called?
when imposed by humans - artificial selection or selective breedingwhen imposed by the environment - natural selection
How has selective breeding helped in dairy farms in the United States?
By using selective breeding the farmers can get bedder produce out of the offspring of the animals.
What is the definition of selective breeding?
Selective breeding is when you mate specific plants or animals to pass on a certain genetic trait they may have. For example, if you have two horses with very strong hearts then you may want to breed them so that their offspring may also have a strong heart. Farmers use selective breeding to breed the best plants and animals for feeding, selling or breeding.
When breeders produce changes in a species on purpose they are using what?
selective breeding
What is the crossing of plants and animals to produce specific traits in the offspring?
It is called cross-breeding, selective breeding or hybridization.
The practice of breeding dogs to produce offspring with specific traits is an example of?
natural selecion
How is cross breeding different from selective breeding?
Cross breeding is simply taking two breeds of animals and mating them together (Such as a Charolais crossed with a Hereford). Where selective breeding is selecting the what two animals you want bred together to produce a better animal.
The benefits of selective breeding include?
Selective breeding produces exactly what the person doing the selective breeding needs or wants. Today many Farming industries selectively breed their produce to have certain traits that seem more appealing to the customer buying their vegetables or fruit such as size and color(in respect to what the fruit is naturally like, in other words your not going to create purple apples)
Do people have used selective breeding to produce many different dog breeds?
yes
