# Bloodlines help?



## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

I know nothing about Paint bloodlines but yes, he is extremely inbred.


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## Uze (Feb 23, 2013)

Avna said:


> I know nothing about Paint bloodlines but yes, he is extremely inbred.


That's what stuck out to me looking at it! Good thing he's a gelding  Not sure why someone would inbreed to that extent?


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## Spec (Jun 13, 2015)

His sire and dam are full blood brother and sister. No responsible breeder would do that on purpose. Doesn't mean you should love him any less. A good horse is a good horse


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## Uze (Feb 23, 2013)

Spec said:


> His sire and dam are full blood brother and sister. No responsible breeder would do that on purpose. Doesn't mean you should love him any less. A good horse is a good horse


Oh jesus lol And he was probably just born because someone wanted a baby, but who knows. Point is he's a gelding so luckily he can't ever pass his genetics on! And of course I wouldn't love him any less, he's an amazing horse, one of a kind in my eye, even with his questionable genetics lol


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

Sounds like he's probably the result of accidental pasture breeding, but if he's a good horse without any of the bad possibilities of in-breeding, who cares? If he were a stallion I'd recommend gelding - but that's been done.

Despite the inbreeding (and his dam and sire are not full sibs - different dams) he does have some note-worthies 3-4 generations back.


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## Uze (Feb 23, 2013)

Change said:


> Sounds like he's probably the result of accidental pasture breeding, but if he's a good horse without any of the bad possibilities of in-breeding, who cares? If he were a stallion I'd recommend gelding - but that's been done.
> 
> Despite the inbreeding (and his dam and sire are not full sibs - different dams) he does have some note-worthies 3-4 generations back.


I'm not sure I know what the bad qualities of an inbred horse are, but he's pretty good in my opinion. Vet (and myself) like the way he's put together, great temperament except for extreme laziness, haha. And I don't care that he's inbred, I was just curious about his genetic history since I found his papers when looking through my files


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

Does his papers say the same thing? Cause if they say something different someone may have messed up on the allbreedpedigree website. 
If not, then good thing he was gelded.. He could be an accidental bred or backyard bred.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Uze said:


> I'm not sure I know what the bad qualities of an inbred horse are, but he's pretty good in my opinion. Vet (and myself) like the way he's put together, great temperament except for extreme laziness, haha. And I don't care that he's inbred, I was just curious about his genetic history since I found his papers when looking through my files


There is inbreeding and linebreeding, sometimes the words are interchangeable. Sometimes breeding this closely of relatives is intentional, best left for professionals though. When breeding close relatives, not only can you strengthen the positives they possess to make a more perfected example that is more potent in genetics to pass onto the next generation, but you also run the high risk of increasing the negatives which can create an ugly mess.


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## KLJcowgirl (Oct 13, 2015)

Spec said:


> His sire and dam are full blood brother and sister. No responsible breeder would do that on purpose. Doesn't mean you should love him any less. A good horse is a good horse


I don't want to be "that person", but they're only half brother and sister, same Sire, different Dam. So that's a little better right? ;-) BUT those two mares are also half sisters.

Also, OP, according to that link, your guy's mother had two dads haha  Why is that mare blue?


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Funny thing about horses, if the resulting offspring is considered good quality, then he/she is "line bred". If they are poor quality, they are "inbred".

I've seen a lot of really nice show horses that were much more heavily inbred than your guy. That said, it's still not an ideal thing. Sorry, I know nothing of paint bloodlines either, but so long as he's a good boy for what you want to do with him, that's all that matters.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

KLJcowgirl said:


> I don't want to be "that person", but they're only half brother and sister, same Sire, different Dam. So that's a little better right? ;-) BUT those two mares are also half sisters.
> 
> Also, OP, according to that link, your guy's mother had two dads haha  Why is that mare blue?


Not half siblings, 3/4 siblings because their dams were also half siblings. 

The blue color for that one dam is because someone entered the gender as "horse" not "mare"


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## KLJcowgirl (Oct 13, 2015)

@SunnyDraco, Thank you! I just knew they weren't full. And that totally makes sense about the blue.


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## Uze (Feb 23, 2013)

Lots of replies while I was a way! I really appreciate everyone's input! I've learned many new things now  If I didn't know he was inbred, I wouldn't have guessed, honestly, so I'm happy he turned out the way he did despite his breeding


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

There are two main bad things about inbreeding. First, you get what is called "inbreeding depression" which essentially is the result of too much homozygosity within the cell structures themselves. Manifests as difficulties in reproduction (not going to be a problem here) Also manifests in auto-immune problems, often subtly, like "failure to thrive" or harder for animal to resist disease etc. You don't see these in every individual, by a long shot, it's more of a population statistics things. 

Second, recessive traits which never show up in the phenotype of an outcross horse with one copy of the gene will start showing up in an inbred horse with two copies of the gene (because his parents both have at least one copy, being related). This is the mechanism of HYPP and most other "breed specific" weird genetic problems. That's why inbreeding is a dangerous tool, one that can actually ruin a breed beyond saving, used indiscriminately by the genetically ignorant, which is exactly what almost all horse breeders are, to be quite frank. 

More than the owner of a nice gelding probably wants to know . . .


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## Uze (Feb 23, 2013)

Avna said:


> There are two main bad things about inbreeding. First, you get what is called "inbreeding depression" which essentially is the result of too much homozygosity within the cell structures themselves. Manifests as difficulties in reproduction (not going to be a problem here) Also manifests in auto-immune problems, often subtly, like "failure to thrive" or harder for animal to resist disease etc. You don't see these in every individual, by a long shot, it's more of a population statistics things.
> 
> Second, recessive traits which never show up in the phenotype of an outcross horse with one copy of the gene will start showing up in an inbred horse with two copies of the gene (because his parents both have at least one copy, being related). This is the mechanism of HYPP and most other "breed specific" weird genetic problems. That's why inbreeding is a dangerous tool, one that can actually ruin a breed beyond saving, used indiscriminately by the genetically ignorant, which is exactly what almost all horse breeders are, to be quite frank.
> 
> More than the owner of a nice gelding probably wants to know . . .


Are you kiddin', I was put on this earth to learn! If there's one thing I hate for myself, it's being ignorant, even if I don't like the truth, so I appreciate anything I can learn from anyone  
Honestly breeding/genetics/etc is a huge "That looks complicated to me" so I really don't know much about it. Never learned punnet squares or anything lol. I have heard that breeding mother/son or father/daughter is less damaging than siblings


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## FrostedLilly (Nov 4, 2012)

I know "line breeding" or inbreeding used to be more common than it is now before people understood genetics. This is the pedigree of an Arabian mare that we owned in the early 90's and you can see further back in her pedigree how closely related the breedings were. She ended up having a heart condition and died of heart failure in 1995. Whether or not it was congenital or related to her line breeding history, I don't know. As far as your guy's bloodlines go, there are a few notables I recognize further back like Poco Bueno. I'm not the best with bloodlines, so others could probably provide more input. 

El Amira Arabian


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

Punnett squares are the easiest part! Even I understand them.

I am no genetics expert, boy howdy. I only know the shallowest basics. But I have read what I could. A great deal of folk knowledge about breeding is just plain hooey, sad to say. The reason it is still with us is partly because at the level of complexity of the genome of a mammal, you can make up any dang theory and it'll be true some of the time. 

Horses and dogs are also particularly prone to folk-wisdom breeding ideas because the things we want from them are hard to measure and very hard to get all in the same package. If you do just a bit of reading on other livestock, you'll find that commercial breeders long ago started breeding for things that could be measured and quantified, such as number of offspring raised to weaning (mothering), weight at six weeks, fat marbling, wool staple length. You can see it is hard to go for goals like that with horses. 

There are computer programs now where you can input all the ancestors you know of and it will spit out how related your individual is to them. I did this with a dog of mine and it turned out a famous ancestor born in 1952 was more closely related to him than a grandfather. Other famous ancestors closer in, nothing like so much. You could not tell that by staring at the pedigree. That long-dead dog and my dog could be twins, from the photo I have.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Avna said:


> Second, recessive traits which never show up in the phenotype of an outcross horse with one copy of the gene will start showing up in an inbred horse with two copies of the gene (because his parents both have at least one copy, being related). This is the mechanism of HYPP and most other "breed specific" weird genetic problems.


A better example would be HERDA or GBED. 

In the case of HYPP, even a single carrier can be symptomatic which is why it would be ideal if it was bred out of the gene pool. The origin of HYPP is the AQHA stallion Impressive, he was not the product of line breeding/inbreeding but a mutation occurred which later was identified as HYPP through his defendants. Mutations occur naturally all the time, almost all have unknown impacts in the overall genetic health. New white pattern mutations are appearing all the time, perhaps some of these patterns are potentially as dangerous as frame overo in homozygous form. New coat color dilutions are appearing that are not yet understood, they could also be carrying some nasty unknown. But like the stallion Impressive, he had no physical signs of possessing a hidden mutation yet proved to carry and pass on a genetic disease that can be so nasty that every single descendant, no matter how many generations away, must be tested for HYPP before being allowed AQHA papers (although they are only denying papers to homozygous HYPP descendants). But HYPP is also in the paint and appy registries because Impressive and his descendants have been popular in more than AQHA breeding. Also, there are grade horses who carry HYPP so the disease itself is not exclusive to registered horses. Another forum member had a mare produce a grade HYPP carrier colt, unplanned breeding as they had no idea that a nearby neighbor owned a homozygous HYPP stallion (unable to be registered AQHA due to his HYPP status which means that all his foals are ineligible for registration) and that stallion had apparently gotten out of his pasture and visited the mare down the road just long enough at the right time of the month.

Genetic mutations occur frequently, whether or not there are negative consequences of the mutation is unknown until it rears its ugly head and it can be identified as a genetic trait versus a fluke.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

SunnyDraco said:


> A better example would be HERDA or GBED.
> 
> In the case of HYPP, even a single carrier can be symptomatic which is why it would be ideal if it was bred out of the gene pool. The origin of HYPP is the AQHA stallion Impressive, he was not the product of line breeding/inbreeding but a mutation occurred which later was identified as HYPP through his defendants. Mutations occur naturally all the time, almost all have unknown impacts in the overall genetic health. New white pattern mutations are appearing all the time, perhaps some of these patterns are potentially as dangerous as frame overo in homozygous form. New coat color dilutions are appearing that are not yet understood, they could also be carrying some nasty unknown. But like the stallion Impressive, he had no physical signs of possessing a hidden mutation yet proved to carry and pass on a genetic disease that can be so nasty that every single descendant, no matter how many generations away, must be tested for HYPP before being allowed AQHA papers (although they are only denying papers to homozygous HYPP descendants). But HYPP is also in the paint and appy registries because Impressive and his descendants have been popular in more than AQHA breeding. Also, there are grade horses who carry HYPP so the disease itself is not exclusive to registered horses. Another forum member had a mare produce a grade HYPP carrier colt, unplanned breeding as they had no idea that a nearby neighbor owned a homozygous HYPP stallion (unable to be registered AQHA due to his HYPP status which means that all his foals are ineligible for registration) and that stallion had apparently gotten out of his pasture and visited the mare down the road just long enough at the right time of the month.
> 
> Genetic mutations occur frequently, whether or not there are negative consequences of the mutation is unknown until it rears its ugly head and it can be identified as a genetic trait versus a fluke.


Unwanted mutations become imbedded in breeds via inbreeding. So do wanted ones. The difference is usually that the unwanted ones are recessive in some way (don't show up until both parents have the gene). There are simple recessives (Punnett squares!), and then there are really complicated ones which are the result of the interactions of several genes and a certain environment. If it was easy all horses would be perfect.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Avna said:


> Unwanted mutations become imbedded in breeds via inbreeding. So do wanted ones. The difference is usually that the unwanted ones are recessive in some way (don't show up until both parents have the gene). There are simple recessives (Punnett squares!), and then there are really complicated ones which are the result of the interactions of several genes and a certain environment. If it was easy all horses would be perfect.


But at what point is a horse considered inbred? If a horse has the same ancestor 6 or more generations away, one on the sire side and one on the dam side, are they "inbred"? If that name repeat was Impressive, there is a chance that HYPP was carried all the way on both sides to still produce a homozygous HYPP descendant. 

If all horses that were bred could not be crossed to any other that shared an ancestor within recorded pedigrees, it would become next to impossible to find horses within a breed to continue the breed generation after generation while still improving the breed, breeding for disciplines, and preserving the breed type.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

SunnyDraco said:


> But at what point is a horse considered inbred? If a horse has the same ancestor 6 or more generations away, one on the sire side and one on the dam side, are they "inbred"? If that name repeat was Impressive, there is a chance that HYPP was carried all the way on both sides to still produce a homozygous HYPP descendant.
> 
> If all horses that were bred could not be crossed to any other that shared an ancestor within recorded pedigrees, it would become next to impossible to find horses within a breed to continue the breed generation after generation while still improving the breed, breeding for disciplines, and preserving the breed type.


Degree of inbreeding is always relative. Inbreeding can be a sharp tool, but when you combine it with a closed studbook, it will sooner or later become the only tool you have, whether you want to use it or not. That's when it really becomes destructive. 

Genetically speaking all closed or semi-closed studbook breeds of horses are inbred, in that individuals are more closely related to each other than a group of free-roaming horses with access to whatever mates they wanted. Inbreeding is also, despite popular belief, not the only way to preserve and improve type. It's just the shortcut way. The other way is to focus on phenotypic mating, in which you select mates not according to whether they are registered members of the same breed (which usually presupposes a small founding group hence relatedness), but according to what they look like or act like. 

For example, I have a horse that looks and acts like a Morgan, but she was a rescue and her ancestry was lost. Probably she comes from registered stock, but what if instead she happened to be, I don't know, part Canadian, part Saddlebred, and part Mustang, and ended up looking just like a Morgan? In our present pedigree set-up, she could not be registered as a Morgan, but in a phenotype set-up, she could. Phenotype-breeding brings in outcross genes without changing the type. 

Yes, you will get more odd ducks that way short term, but long-term it is a sound practice. Inbreeding cannot be practiced indefinitely without problems, often terrible and insoluble. It is a short-range technique. 

I'm much more familiar with dog breeds, and with landrace working Australian Shepherds in particular. They were a common named breed in the American West from the late 19th century; any dog with a bob tail, which either was merle or produced it, and was a tough, medium-sized, rough-coated cow dog and all-purpose ranch hand, was called an Aussie. It was not invented by inbreeding, but by selection for type from a very large group of dogs. The AKC show Aussie was developed by inbreeding, and virtually all AKC Aussies trace back to a single pair of brothers born in the 1970's.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Close relations bred that result in more than 50% of the genetic material coming from one horse is inbreeding. Line breeding is breeding horses from the same line (genetically related) but the resulting genetic material is less than 50% from any one animal. At least that is my understanding of it.


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