The only reason I have a closed flock is to prevent disease. All breeding methods have its problems. Just because you inbreed or line breed does not make a good breeder or a good breeding program. Its not the method that makes a good breeder.Using your dog example, do you think your puppy would have been a better dog if the mom was bred to her father? Look at the History of Midget Whites for example. Two very different methods were used for breeding them. You could not predict what happened with a closed breeding program. This quote is from Motherearth News. First they started with crossing two breeds.
At the University of Massachusetts, J. R. Smyth Jr. crossed an excellent line of broad-breasted whites with royal palm turkeys he had obtained from Dr. Edward Buss of Pennsylvania State University. The royal palms were a small exhibition strain, with reasonably good breast fleshing. Starting with the first generation crossbreds, Smyth selected on an individual bird basis (no records of specific pedigrees were kept) for small size, good breast fleshing and total balance.
After three generations, a financial problem and need for more space and the birds where given away. Wentworth was the new owner.
During the spring of 1972, these midget white turkeys were photostimulated with 14 hours of light and 10 hours of darkness to induce egg-laying. Wentworth mated these Midget turkeys artificially. During March, tom A was mated with two hens and tom B was used to mate with the other two hens. These eggs were all set and poults from the April hatch were pedigreed. Starting the first of April, the two toms were switched to mate with the opposite two hens. The eggs were collected during May and a second hatch was obtained in June. The poults from the second hatch were also pedigreed (records were kept of each birds lineage). The poults from the second mating may not have been an accurate pedigree, because the eggs saved in May could have been fertilized by the male used in March.
Wentworth used a rigorous pedigree approach to expand this flock of Midget white turkeys each year with great effort to avoid further inbreeding. He fixed the white color and continued to improve fleshing over the years. In the late 1970s an embryonic lethal gene began to be expressed (causing some poults to die before hatching). Over a period of about three years Wentworth was successful in eliminating the stock carrying this lethal gene.
From the mid 70s on, selection pressure was maintained to fix tom body weight to about 13 pounds and hens at about 8 pounds. About every third year, breast meat volume was included as selection index in addition to body weight. Wentworth selected annually for higher egg production, fertility and hatchability. The hatchability averaged about 80 percent when the flock was dispersed. The original stock Wentworth obtained did not lay very well, averaging only about 30 or 40 eggs during a breeding season.
Currently the midgets lay 60 to 80 eggs per year. The eggs are quite large and appear similar to the eggs laid by the large broadbreasted lines of turkeys; they weigh only 3 to 5 grams less. The midget white turkey has the appearance of a miniature of the large commercial white line, for it has a very broad breast. This is not a commercially economically important meat bird, as Wentworth estimates the feed conversion is about 4 pounds of feed per pound of weight gain.
Do you raise Midget White turkeys? Instead of cutting and pasting pieces of the article you should have done the whole thing or posted a link to Mother Earth news. I thought I had seen it before, sometimes I write for them as well.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/History-Midget-White-Turkey.aspx
There were 2 toms and 4 hens in the starter flock. A very small gene pool to work with. What the article only hints on is the breeding method.... classic line breeding from the short description. Line breeding is controled inbreeding.
Steve
