Purebreeding

(also pedigree breeding), one of the main methods of breeding agricultural animals, in which the progeny are produced by mating animals of the same breed. The concept of purebreeding emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries, when people consciously isolated valuable strains for breeding without mixing with less valuable strains.

The goals of purebreeding are to limit variability within a breed; to impart to a particular breed uniformity in conformation, productivity, and hereditary factors; to create and maintain a particular breed, ensuring not only the retention in the animals of economically valuable qualities inherent to the breed but also the breed’s further improvement in a given direction; and, finally, to impart hereditary stability to the breed.

Purebreeding is used to produce breeding lines with more flexible heritability and greater variability than the native stock; it is also used in breeding some primitive strains, which are less productive but distinguished by high adaptability to local climatic and economic conditions or by high resistance to local diseases. Purebreeding is usually erroneously identified with inbreeding or breeding hybrids (based on the same principles as purebreeding), produced by crossing different breeds and meeting the requirements of the given breed.