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Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together.
Boar–pig hybrids, which are hybrids of wild boars and domestic pigs and exist as an invasive species throughout Eurasia, the Americas, Australia, and in other places where European settlers imported wild boars to use as game animals, are also used for selective breeding to re-create the type of pigs represented in prehistoric artworks dating ...
Selective breeding has been responsible for large increases in productivity. For example, in 2007, a typical broiler chicken at eight weeks old was 4.8 times as heavy as a bird of similar age in 1957, [ 36 ] while in the thirty years to 2007, the average milk yield of a dairy cow in the United States nearly doubled.
In the world of selective animal breeding, to "breed true" means that specimens of an animal breed will breed true-to-type when mated like-to-like; that is, that the progeny of any two individuals of the same breed will show fairly consistent, replicable and predictable characteristics, or traits with sufficiently high heritability.
Usually, the breeding companies conduct progeny testing of their bulls so that they can be commercially promoted. But when the breeding organisations are Government controlled (e.g. India), the onus of conducting the testing also lies with them if required genetic improvement is to be achieved. [2]
Animal breeding is a branch of animal science that addresses the evaluation (using best linear unbiased prediction and other methods) of the genetic value (estimated breeding value, EBV) of livestock. Selecting for breeding animals with superior EBV in growth rate, egg, meat, milk, or wool production, or with other desirable traits has ...
Culling is: ... the rejection or removal of inferior individuals from breeding. The act of selective breeding. As used in the practice of breeding pedigree cats, this refers to the practice of spaying or neutering a kitten or cat that does not measure up to the show standard (or other standard being applied) for that breed.
In order to be considered fully domesticated, most species have undergone significant genetic, behavioural and morphological changes from their wild ancestors, while others have changed very little from their wild ancestors despite hundreds or thousands of years of potential selective breeding. A number of factors determine how quickly any ...