Breed Standards - Sussex Cattle Breeders Society

Economics of Breeding
Improvement
In conclusion, a few remarks on the
economics of breeding improvement.
Strictly speaking breeding improvement
should not be expensive and in view of
the cumulative effect is should yield an
excellent long-term profit. In practice,
however, this Is frequently not the case
because of a general tendency to pay
prices for breeding animals that are
hopelessly out of proportion to the
possible improvement that they can
achieve. This attitude is again due to
the disregard of the role of sexual
reproduction in nature. An outstanding
ram or bull on average always breeds
poorer than what he himself is, and an
extremely poor individual, on average,
better than itself. Sexual reproduction
sees to this, because it tends to
maintain the status quo of the
population. The breeder can,
conversely, force the population into a
direction through selection, but this
usually takes place at a relatively slow
pace.
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