First I would like to state I took the article/study with "a grain of salt" for a reason and that is sometimes people do not present all the facts, they have an agenda, and then skew the study or findings to their agenda. I am suspicious the info I read might be such a study or a study taken out of context... thus I also made sure to state I had some concerns about the source material but had not done a follow up. Still have not... I did not bookmark that article. There is a lot of bad science, articles based on bad science and poorly done studies being passed around on many subjects. It burns my biscuits, I want well done studies, not political agendas by a sociologist (who just made up the data anyway), or a company or group of companies trying to target a competing food or other junk studies for dubious goals.
I am a big believer in figuring out your genetics: one of your stock, two of any stock you introduce to a breeding program, and three understanding how the genes interact, split, mutate, compound, suppress, and so on so you can achieve your goals. I am this way because when I attended school I was heavily chided for stating that the basic r/D thing was not 100% as to getting you results, as I had observed in real animals it only sort of worked that way. I knew from observation that something else was going on, and that the opinions of the people breeding was right on and could be observed in various species including humans. I tried to explain but I was just wrong & filled with "uneducated ideas & superstitions". Turns out I was right on a lot of what I had observed in the breeding of animals on my great-grand parents farm & what I had been taught to me as a child about breeding was right on genetically. All of the stuff I observed or was taught as breeding rule of thumb if you will actually have genetic reasons behind them that someone in science has now studied and proved or explained. I also believe in studying all the old stuff/knowledge, as they are/where actually breeding not just doing the math. (Just found some electronic scans of some old poultry books I have been hunting for just for this reason). Theory is nice and all, but I want results.
I want to say I am not offended, and your advice in my opinion is right on. I consider my self a novice, yes I had chickens which I did well with including Jungle Fowl/Bird, but a lot has changed between then & now. Thus my learn, learn, learn activities while I wait till I can have them again. I want to do it better and up my game so to speak. A lot of my understanding on breeding comes from being around people who do/did breed animals for a living, mainly horses and dog folks though. I had certain things drummed into my head concerning breeding as a child by the farm side of the family, with real visible results in the offspring for me to see. Now chickens are a wee bit different, they where around but no one ever spoke to me specifically about breeding them or even how do you know if one bird is good or bad.
You have all good points:
Personally I think as long as many breeds are being maintained and differences in the breed and between breeds is maintained biodiversity will be okay. There are lines I think maybe are bottled neck for various reasons or have hurt their ability to reproduce in certain breeds or lines, but that is all fixable with a little common sense in my opinion. There is always a danger to of fad breeding which always results in my observation in poor breeding of animals. There is also the danger of people just not breeding a breed any longer, crossing it out of existence or destroying through crossing or bad breeding the unique traits it was bred for.
I agree for a breed to develop it must start someplace with usually a small pool of animals (aka line breeding), or sometimes an exceptional animal that then left their strong genetic mark on other animals. Horse example would be the Morgan Breed, one stallion so improved and left clear genetic traits that it started a breed, a stallion that can do that is btw extremely rare for a bunch of genetic reasons.
I agree willy-nilly breeding gets you willy-nilly results, thus my hand banging
I also agree inbreeding indiscriminately will also create problems. I do think you need to be very choosy and careful with any breeding plan.
Totally agree with culling: Keep the best, eat the rest... is a good motto in my opinion. I also think if you are unwilling to face the fact that you will have to cull if you breed then you should not breed. I learned about culling and you can't keep them all on the farm as a kid.
To have hybrid vigor (I have mixed feelings about this term btw) you have to have pure bred, same applies to line-breeding and then crossing those lines within a breed to get the best of, so if you like a certain cross purebred or mixed breed it is important for you to maintain a good healthy breeding pool of the two groups. To do this I agree you must understand the what you are maintaining in your genetic pools and how to do that. I also would like to point out and I am sure you will agree that you can not get "hybrid vigor" by using defective, genetically flawed stock... genetically poor animals crossed with genetically poor animals will still equal genetically poor birds/dogs/horses etc. I find it appalling people breed animals that should not be bred with obvious genetic defects and then are all shocked when most are so deformed they have to be put down/culled or will develop serious problems latter. One bad animal genetically can quickly destroy a breeding pool.
I also agree you do have to consider the whole animal... not just the parts. I only mentioned the Skin Genes as it occurred to me when looking at the birds it might be helpful, but in the end the whole bird is more important.
Honestly you and I probably see eye to eye on a lot of the breeding stuff in general even though my breeding experience comes from mammals as a child and is very limited (I did get to pick a few breedings based on what I was being taught) and by watching other people breed for results in their animals.
BTW I am thick skinned.
