Genetic markershot approach to breeding better livestock and poultry

Kitchener, Ontario - Genetic markers are becoming the hot approach to breeding better livestock and poultry, and Dr. Ben Wood of Hybrid Turkeys outlined why during the 37th Poultry Innovations Conference here recently.

He said more than 60,000 chicken traits can be tracked with computer-chip analysis now, and many of these traits are ones that are nearly impossible to identify by looking at birds and their offspring.

He said that means there could be major advances for traits such as fertility and disease resistance.

No breeding companies are going to deliberately infect their pure-line or grandfather generation of birds with a disease to determine which few will survive, he said. But their offspring could be infected and genetic analysis could identify genes that are unique to the survivors.

That, then, could become the basis for developing pure lines and for genetic screening of the next three generations leading up to commercial production.

But it wont be cheap, at $200 to $300 for a complete set of genetic information.

Wood said the cattle industry is in the vanguard using the genetic approach to breed improvement, but said poultry could leap into the lead because the generation interval is much shorter.

The results of a mating of chickens can be seen within weeks whereas it will take years to track the performance of the offspring of a bull.

Wood said traits such as feed efficiency and growth rate are easy to measure and track, so the genetic analysis approach may not be worth the cost.

He said a new system of GBVs (Genetic Breeding Values) may displace or complement the current system of EBVs (Estimated Breeding Values) for all livestock and poultry.

He said Holland Genetics has begun a genetic-analysis breeding program for Holsteins and expects to have results in four to six years, meaning it will be able to identify genes linked to desirable traits such as disease resistance.

Wood said the poultry industry will be able to identify useful genes within three generations, but cautioned that its not straightforward because the genetic markers can and sometimes do change.

He said fertility and carcass quality traits are two that are high on the priority list for genetic analysis.

Six universities have $25 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with poultry, complementing work also underway with cattle, he said.

They are the universities of Alberta, Wisconsin, Waninga (Australia), Purdue and Norwegian University and INRA, a French research centre.