Right Breeding Strategy A Must
The right strategy in breeding livestock and poultry is more important than you think. That is why Dr. Syrian Baguio, assistant director of the Livestock Research Division of Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), is worried. There are so many breeds of goats being imported and if everybody is going to breed and crossbreed without the right strategy (bara-bara in Tagalog), he is afraid the goat industry could be “mongrelized.” Mongrels, he explained, don’t have predictable performance.
He is afraid that growers would be crossing different kinds of animals without really having specific targets in mind. That could result in mongrel animals. When that happens, the offspring could be very variable. There’s no uniformity and that is bad for a commercial operation. Using the best-looking animals (the products of crossing) is not the best way to breed. That is often a mistake, according to Dr. Baguio. What is more important is to produce a pure or purified line with the right genes for breeding purposes. A purified line could be achieved through sustained selection until the animals produced are uniform in size, appearance, productivity, adaptability and other attributes.
Dr. Baguio laments the fact that we have not even produced an animal breed of our own. There is no purified native chicken, for instance. One that is uniform in size and appearance. He is somehow elated to know that one fellow in Negros Occidental, Johnny Tagamolila, through the help of the West Visayas State University is now producing native chickens that are more or less uniform in plumage. Dr. Baguio stresses that one should have a clear idea of what type of animal he is going to produce before embarking on his breeding program. He cites, for instance, what they plan to do to improve the milk yield of the native cattle in a project in Lanao. First, they will cross the native cattle with a purebred Jersey bull. Jersey is a dairy breed that is much smaller than the Holstein. The resulting cross will be smaller in size but with high milk yield. One advantage is that smaller animals require less feed.
The first generation offspring or F1 will be backcrossed to a purebred Jersey bull. That will produce the second generation or F2. The next step is to mate F2 with another F2 of the same breed but with different parents to avoid inbreeding. With constant selection of the best performing animals, the breeder would be able to produce the animal he is looking for. Constant selection will do the trick.
What are the traits they are aiming at in the case of the milk cow? One with high milk yield with the desired butterfat content, one that is adapted to the local environment, one with disease resistance, etc.
In the case of the native chicken, PCARRD’s program is not to increase the size or the egg-laying capacity of the bird. After a survey they made, they concluded that the market needs a chicken that is less than one kilo, with rounded body that resembles the shape of the banana blossom (preferred by traders). The PCARRD experts are after chickens that will have predictable performance. That is important in commercial production.
