THE PREPOTENT PRODUCER &
FILIAL DEGENERATION by Stephen
K. Bishop – Bishop’s Place Loft & Kennel Prepotency can best be defined as the unusual
ability of an individual or strain to transmit its characteristics to its
offspring due to dominant genes. Genes
contain DNA. DNA serve as the basis of
heredity. Without getting scientific,
genes transmit hereditary characters by specifying the structure of genetic
material. It is what people are
referring to when they say he’s a chip off the old block or the apple doesn’t
fall far from the tree, etc. Let’s say
a child who was separated from his father at an early age meets his dad when
he’s twenty years old. The twenty year
old notices that both him and his dad have quiet dispositions and frequently
smile. These can be said to be
inherited traits. These tendencies come
from genes containing DNA which predisposed them to have quiet, amiable
dispositions. Filial Degeneration can best be explained as the
tendency of an individual of a line to revert to the average of that line. What exactly does this mean? Well a good illustration of this would be if
a family of three generations of short, unattractive people gave birth to a
daughter who grew to be both tall and pretty.
Filial Degeneration would dictate that this tall pretty girl would
probably give birth to short, unattractive children. This is due to the fact that the preponderance of her genes
contain DNA coded with the short unattractive blueprint. Now, knowing that an individual of a line
has a tendency to revert to the average of it’s line gives us something to work
with. We can strive to establish a line
of high performance prepotent racers.
How, you ask? Well if we start
with proven racers, breed youngsters from them and cull severely, we will be left
with proven racers who are bred from proven racers. The birds remaining after the culling process are those that
inherited the winning characteristics/genes from their parents. With each generation bred and culled you are
narrowing your gene pool. What you are doing in effect is increasing the probability of future youngsters inheriting the genes responsible for the winning characteristics of your foundation pairs. A bird receives 50% of its genes from it’s sire and 50% from it’s dam.
When you breed from a pair of winners versus a pair of diploma-less
birds, you increase the likelihood of producing winners greatly. Lets break it down. Say you place 20 balls, 4 red, 4 blue, 4
green, 4 yellow and 4 black in a bag.
Now, you can reach into this bag and extract two balls at a time. Red balls are the designated winning
balls. Two reds win. One red with any other color also wins. Two of any other color, or combination of
colors, other than red lose. Now if
after every draw you throw away the non-red balls and place the red ones back
in the bag, you are increasing the probability of getting a red ball with each
subsequent draw. After every draw and
disposal of the non-red balls you are increasing the percentage of red balls to
the total amount of balls. Eventually
you will be left with all red balls and each and every draw will be a winning
draw. Now substitute red balls with
winning genes and substitute draws with youngsters. If you cull the losers (non-red balls) and only put the winners
(red balls) back in your loft, you are increasing the probability of getting
winning genes passed on to future youngsters.
The name of the game is limiting the gene pool. I once owned a performance bulldog named Red
Feather. She was a caramel colored red
nose dog. She was the daughter,
granddaughter and great-granddaughter of a dog known as Triple Ott Red, a
litter brother to CH. Yellow John. Her
pedigree was as follows. Tramp Red Boy (grandsire) Triple Ott Red (sire) Tramp
Red Boy Granddam Great-granddam Red
Feather Triple Ott Red (grandsire) Whaley’s Red Feather (dam) Triple
Ott Red (great-grandsire) Granddam Great-granddam Red
Feather was genetically 87.5% Triple Ott Red.
This is calculated based on the fact that an individual receives genes
as follows. 50% from each parent 25% from each grandparent 12.5% from each great-grandparent The objective here was to produce a dog as close to Triple Ott Red as possible without cloning (not an option back in 1983). Although Red Feather was a female, she would lift one leg up when urinating as male dogs do. She acted like a male dog. Now I might not race a bird bred like Red Feather, but I sure as hell would do this type of breeding, which I call “Triple Crossing” to preserve an old multi-diploma, proven prepotent producer. The same principle, but not as intense, could be used to produce a consistent family of winning birds. This is the route to increase consistency in a loft. Start with top notch birds and limit the gene pool. Now, to produce the world beating, set the combine on fire, ten times first, type of racer, you would probably have a greater chance outcrossing two diploma winning individuals from unrelated consistent families, but that’s another article. This write-up should give you an idea on how to take advantage of Filial Degeneration to establish a consistent prepotent line of racers. Yours in sport, Steve. |