5 ms·

I've often wondered why breeders don't do more cross-breeding across areas. Travel time aside, I think it would be a good investment into what is literally a bu

I've often wondered why breeders don't do more cross-breeding across areas. Travel time aside, I think it would be a good investment into what is literally a business. e.g. If I'm a Border Collie breeder in Nevada, I could meet up with another Border Collie breeder in Arizona or Idaho and do an "exchange". While this does water down the lines, as each breed is probably generally in the top-tier form of whatever they've been bred for the past X00 years, I think a little genetic diversity would go a long way to help with these issues. Perhaps I'm just naive and this is what happens already, but I feel like anytime that I've been on a dog breeder's website, it's just 5-10 males, 10-30 females, and their resulting litters.

hycaria 5y ago
This happens. Mostly buying fresh blood from overseas in my (European) experience. Like Maine coons from Russia, bull terriers from Australia … It’s more rare in the same country (where they could just buy sperm). Sometimes they just use a fellow breeders (and friend I suppose) male for a few litters.
drakonka 5y ago
I think the problem for now is more pronounced with dogs than cats, but I just checked my Maine Coon breeder's site. Out of their two current litters, only one is from one of their own cats; two are from other breeders in the same country, and one is from Holland. On their planned litter page, only two cats out of six are from their own lines. The rest are from other Swedish lines, Holland, and Italy. I think responsible breeders do already do this. I worry that as cat breeding progresses, standards will slip like they have with so many dog breeds. It's already started with some breeds.