Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose F1 outbreeding depression?

ewest, IIRC the cattlemen who run Black Baldies are always breeding Black Angus (cows, I believe) to Polled Herefords (bull - who wants to deal with a Angus bull?) for each generation. They do not breed the "F1" black baldies and use the resulting Fx cattle. They want that hybrid vigor from the F1 Black Baldy mix.

I wish I knew more, but we stick just with the Polled Hereford side of the situation.

I will ask Fish Wife if she knows of any analogous or contrary breeding practices in horses.

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Crossing domestic breeds is not exactly the same as crossing wild supspecies, but must be similar. Speculation follows:

WRT mutts in the dog world (it seems like this would apply for all domesticated animals as well), when two or more breeds are crossed, you are not dealing with natural occurring subspecies that have a full compliment of genes/traits optimized my Mother Nature for an environment. Domestic breeds IMHO contain subsets of the gene pool found in the natural speceis which was domesticated (the original wild horse, aurochs for cattle, or s species of desert wolf for domesticated dogs). "Mutts" obtained by crossing different subsets of those residual genes foten have a fuller, more diverse set of genes than either pure blood parent, frequently giving "hybrid vigor" in the form of the absence of pure bred problems such as hip dysplasia.