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It works /terribly/ in pure-bred animals. The extreme selection for desired traits (e.g. milk-production in dairy cows, wool-fibre length in wool sheep) leads t

It works /terribly/ in pure-bred animals. The extreme selection for desired traits (e.g. milk-production in dairy cows, wool-fibre length in wool sheep) leads to a host of deformities and abnormalities. For example, (I live in Cow Country) I see the farmer-next-door's cows walking to and from the milking "parlour" (factory would be more accurate), their /enormous/ distended udders knocking against their ankles. This is not normal. This is grotesque. Every one of those cows is severely prone to mastitis and a host of bacterial infections. Routine antibiotic dosing is the factory-farm answer. They all suffer from a variety of skeletal problems. On average they last about 3 years before being culled for dogfood and McD's. These distortions are ALL a result of extreme selection pressures. I could go on about my (Belgian Shepherd purebred) dogs who suffer from an insufficiency of grandparents, but life is short. I love them anyway, but in future will be looking for crossbred puppies.

hycaria 9y ago
I'm really sorry to have to say such things, but you clearly don't know what you are talking about. No correlation between udder size and milk production, so you can clearly try to orientate your production towards nice shaped udders. Especially crucial with milking robots anyways, so that's going the right way. Each bull and its offspring has genetic testing to try to give such indicators. See https://issuu.com/eurogeneais/docs/spring_2016_low_res https://issuu.com/eurogeneais/docs/spring_2016_low_res for an example, you can see udder there amongst other regarding milk of course but also posture, with positive or negative factors. The skeletal problems are 1 - not the most common factor of reform, and not really that common 2 - not hereditary most of the times but come from housing and such. The average is certainly not 3 years but a bit higher, around the double actually, as at 3 years you barely had the time to end the first lactation, which is the worst one for milk production. Antibiotics are needed because of the environmental pressure and modern breeding methods more than genetic factors, by far. Honestly you just threw a bunch of non-sense about a field you clearly don't know at all. I really would like to know how people can have such vigorous claims about things they don't know an ounce about. As for your dog you're proving my point : hereditary diseases are a big thing in purebred and you sadly got one that wasn't from a very clean pedigree (honestly Belgian Shepherd are by the way really far from the worst breed in that aspect btw so either you're unlucky or you didn't search too much for a good breeder before acquiring your pet). But good breeders now are systematically testing reproductors and offspring for well known diseases in each breed and it helps reducing their incidence.

hycaria 9y ago

I'm really sorry to have to say such things, but you clearly don't know what you are talking about. No correlation between udder size and milk production, so you can clearly try to orientate your production towards nice shaped udders. Especially crucial with milking robots anyways, so that's going the right way. Each bull and its offspring has genetic testing to try to give such indicators. See https://issuu.com/eurogeneais/docs/spring_2016_low_res https://issuu.com/eurogeneais/docs/spring_2016_low_res for an example, you can see udder there amongst other regarding milk of course but also posture, with positive or negative factors. The skeletal problems are 1 - not the most common factor of reform, and not really that common 2 - not hereditary most of the times but come from housing and such. The average is certainly not 3 years but a bit higher, around the double actually, as at 3 years you barely had the time to end the first lactation, which is the worst one for milk production. Antibiotics are needed because of the environmental pressure and modern breeding methods more than genetic factors, by far. Honestly you just threw a bunch of non-sense about a field you clearly don't know at all. I really would like to know how people can have such vigorous claims about things they don't know an ounce about. As for your dog you're proving my point : hereditary diseases are a big thing in purebred and you sadly got one that wasn't from a very clean pedigree (honestly Belgian Shepherd are by the way really far from the worst breed in that aspect btw so either you're unlucky or you didn't search too much for a good breeder before acquiring your pet). But good breeders now are systematically testing reproductors and offspring for well known diseases in each breed and it helps reducing their incidence.