PEDIGREE STOCK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1938, Page 3

PEDIGREE STOCK

IMPORTANCE IN BREEDING AN EXPERT’S OPINION Any breeder of any kind of living thing must have a definite idea as to what he wants to breed if any success is to be attained (writes the wellknown Red Poll breeder, Sir Merrik Burrell, in “The Times”). So the wise man chooses both the parents as near as possible to the type he has in his mind’s eye. This may be nearly sufficient for success if he is breeding some very simple thing in the lower orders of life, but it is very likely to lead to disappointment in complex animals, like our domesticated ones, unless he has knowledge of the antecedents which caused those two parents to look as they do. If he knows that for several generations back the ancestors on both sides have been of the type, or possessed of the qualities he needs, then he can be confident that the progeny will reproduce them, within reasonable limits.

In order that this knowledge should be available, breeders years ago banded themselves into societies, established herd, stud, and flock books, decreed what foundation animals should be registered in those books, and have their progeny registered in succeeding generations and their performances put on record.

Armed with the information thus available, breeders have evolved gradually all the many wonderful pedigree breeds of which this country is so proud from the racehorse to the pig. It must be emphasised that a pedigree should indicate to the breeder not merely a collection of names, but a record of performances and of families with their particular characteristics, which are known to the student of the breeding of any particular kind of animal.

It is well known that the more generations of a certain type of animal has in its ancestry, the more likely it is to reproduce them. Hence the value of pedigree stock. “Pedigree” is merely an assurance that an animal will produce progeny like itself if mated with another registered in the same book, and nothing more. Also when mated with a mongrel the type of the “pedigree” animal —the animal with the many generations of ancestors of like type—dominates that of the mongrel, which may have a variety of ancestors. Modern pedigree animals are the result of careful selection, and steady culling, picking the healthiest, the best doers, the best performers, and discarding the rest. Hence the idea common among farmers that pedigree stock are less hardy and require more care than ordinary commercial animals is quiet erroneous.