tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post1495551849256010382..comments2022-04-11T01:28:17.873-07:00Comments on A Blog of Beasts!: Luxury Animals and Selective BreedingAnimals in the Middle Ageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10809281152134119502noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-83724716236642039502010-10-28T17:15:23.133-07:002010-10-28T17:15:23.133-07:00Breeding is clearly a heated topic! I think, Hann...Breeding is clearly a heated topic! I think, Hannah, that you do an excellent job raising a very important question. I think, too, that B.T.C. and T.E. are correct to point to evidence of selective breeding in the very fact of domestication, with or without explicit discussions in the books of husbandry. In the materials we read, Biddick's account of the management of the flocks and herds at Peterborough Abbey likewise seems to suggest a high degree of attention to the ways in which the animals are reproducing. Perhaps we should draw a distinction between breeding in order to enhance the overall healthiness of a population and breeding so as to select for particular traits (although, of course, healthiness might be one of these). I mentioned in class that there are trusts in England set up to maintain historic breeds of domestic animals. Typically, these breeds were selected for the kinds of things one would expect: hardiness in a particular climate or types of wool (in the case of sheep). But it is possible that farmers were also breeding in the sense that we tend to use the word now, to maintain particular lines. For efforts to maintain these historic breeds, see <a href="http://www.cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk/rare-breeds-animals.php?id=sheep-primitive" rel="nofollow">Cotswold Farm Park</a>.<br /><br />RLFBAnimals in the Middle Ageshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10809281152134119502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-44279861288209084592010-10-28T13:33:36.756-07:002010-10-28T13:33:36.756-07:00I honestly do not see much (or any) evidence for *...I honestly do not see much (or any) evidence for *selective breeding* amongst luxury animals. You cite page 10 of the Bailey article (it is actually page 9, the pdf document is different from the journal pagination) for a discussion of problems with inbreeding in rabbits, solved when the warreners introduced more rabbits into their warrens. However, the section in question is a discussion of problems with a proliferation of rabbits out-eating the warrens food supply, along with some problems like liver flukes (a parasite), and murrain picked up from other animals like sheep. The warrens which were re-stocked "for the lord's greater profit" were low in population because of two extremely cold winters which apparently killed off much of the rabbit's food supply, hence the need to plant gorse.<br /><br />You also imply that warreners tried not to overhunt in order to enable natural selection, whether they realized they were doing this or not. However, Bailey seems to be arguing that warreners/lords were not able to cull their rabbits too much because the rabbits had a hard enough time adapting to the environment that unless a very high base population was maintained all of the rabbits would die. Bailey also discusses the extent to which the warreners artificially facilitated the rabbits, such as building burrows for them. This is the opposite of letting natural selection work.<br /><br />On the issue of pike and carp. First, the fact that people managing ponds added predators is good evidence for the argument that medieval people were aware of useful breeding practices. Remember, they started off by adding pike only when they wanted to harvest the carp. You don't add a predator to your crop just before you want to harvest it unless you realize what the effect is going to be. It doesn't take *that* much more thought to realize that this will work to eliminate the weaker fish in general. Also, the inclusion of pike is perhaps just as much meant to discourage overbreeding (ie, overpopulation) as it was to encourage larger fish (see currie's reference on page 105).<br /><br />I'm also not convinced that re-stocking was primarily about adding genetic diversity so much as it was again a measure intended to keep population up. Often when ponds are harvested commercially a large amount of the fish are removed, sometimes even by draining the water from a section of the pond and scooping the fish off the bottom.<br /><br />As far as farmers of other livestock knowing how to breed selectively, I've already given several reasons for why we should believe this to be the case. I'll add one more, standing by my (and your) assertion that this is basic common sense. Farmers had to decide which male animals to kill or castrate early on. Oxen, wethers, capons, and geldings are all missing their reproductive organs, for all the same reasons as goats as explained by TE above. Male animals were a liability, not an asset, except in so far as they offered breeding stock or some other useful thing (strength, as in oxen). Therefore farmers had to decide which animals to castrate and which to mate with their females. Do you really think that for the last 6,000 years pre-17th century or so farmers would not distinguish between their less and more valuable animals while doing this? Do you think that they were oblivious to the fact that new adaptations were developing that made the animals more successful in certain environments, or that one animal seemed to be more likely to be useful than another for a specific task? Farming is a process that takes much more thought, planning, and decision making than you seem to think, and the techniques used for it have been developed and passed down orally for thousands of years.B.T.Carolushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10549741099055782849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-68187682747386909472010-10-28T11:51:30.553-07:002010-10-28T11:51:30.553-07:00Breeding has definitely been going on since we beg...Breeding has definitely been going on since we began raising animals. Assuming they have been doing this selectively, why is it mentioned only in the cases of luxury animals? Because they were harder to take care of or breed? Because there was more interest in literature about them (or that the people involved were more likely to be literate)?Hannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07035944042961181003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-58661320228790438362010-10-27T01:06:08.968-07:002010-10-27T01:06:08.968-07:00Heifer International is distributing nannies (fema...Heifer International is distributing nannies (female goats) for a good reason. They are working under the assumption that the community to which they are donating these animals already possesses a billy (male goat), which can produce as many offspring as there are available nannies. As such, there is the possibility of each of the two nannies producing a kid, rather than only one nanny producing a kid (which is what would happen if you gave the community only a male and a female). In that case, you end up with two kids fathered by the same billy. Nannies also have added utility in that they can produce dairy products, which are a renewable source of food. The primary use of a billy is breeding. In general, it is always best to have more females than males because this will lead to a faster rate of population growth and prevent the males from fighting during the mating season.<br /><br />[TE]<br /><br />On your points about selective breeding, I think you are *greatly* underestimating its development and the sophistication of people in agricultural societies. We do not have many records or instructions for how to make breeding selections because it is, in your words, "basic common sense" to match your best animals together. Nobody needed to write instructions out for farmers because farmers knew how to do this and didn't need (and couldn't read) written instructions. Choosing breeding stock does not take any knowledge of genetics, it only takes the knowledge that offspring carry some mixture of the traits of the parents. How this occurred was explained in ways that seem patently ridiculous to us now, but it was a known fact that it did happen.<br /><br />The very fact that humans have domesticated and bred animals for literally thousands of years attests to this. Let's consider horses for a moment. Not only did humans domesticate the horse, we have managed to breed very specific types of horse for different types of environments. Consider the Arabian horse, the Mongolian horse (steppe pony), the Andalusian (descended from the Arabians but bred specifically for Spain), the Icelandic pony, the Belgian draft horse, and I could go on. Horses have been selected for their abilities as riding horses or as work horses, depending on what was needed. Long before genetics came about people were breeding excellent race horses as well. In any type of animal that is useful for food production we see huge variations in breed from long before the modern era. Although professor Fulton Brown has questioned the accuracy of tracing breeds back into the Middle Ages, it is definitely a sure thing that animals originating in places like Mesopotamia and Africa (which is where many of the common European/American livestock like cows and horses seem to come from) underwent a great deal of human driven modification before they were thriving in places like England and Iceland.<br /><br />Another thing that might surprise you is that humans were also able to domesticate and develop plant species. There are hundreds of varieties of apple, the same for corn, wheat, rice, etc.<br /><br />Essentially, my point is that selective breeding is and has been the bread and butter of farmers, not something that happened accidentally as people bred luxury animals.B.T.Carolushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10549741099055782849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-33942194649376310772010-10-26T17:47:55.177-07:002010-10-26T17:47:55.177-07:00Sorry the formatting is so ugly (changing fonts, l...Sorry the formatting is so ugly (changing fonts, lines that stretch too long) - I'm not sure what the problem is or how to fix it. If anyone does, please feel free to go in and edit my post to make it pretty!Hannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07035944042961181003noreply@blogger.com