Within an established breed, the mating of pairs with no duplicate family relationships for five to six generations of pedigree behind them is called a totally outcrossed breeding. A relative outcross can also be considered at the four generation level. This is considered the safest breeding system for totally novice breeders to follow if they have no assistance (mentoring) from more established breeders. However, finding totally unrelated blood stock within the confines of a breed with small numbers nationwide, may be a trick of it’s own. Once a breed has developed in numbers of available bloodstock in a Country, finding outcross stock of outstanding quality is not such an insurmountable problem. However, it still requires constant replenishing of import brood stock, and with each injection of new blood comes the threat of new defects, inherited disease and resurgence of problems eliminated from the bloodlines of the original root stock in past years.
Many breeders, finding serious heath problems within their “line”, choose to eliminate the members of their family groups perpetuating the problem, retain a few selected blood stock not displaying the problem, and then go well outside their bloodline or even the country to import stock thought to not display the defect. This approach saves face among other breeders since no announcements of trouble are needed, and it can occasionally resolve the immediate problem. However, in the long run, the problem continues because it is now spread among brood stock provided to a number of other breeders forming their kennel stock from that derived from the discarded line. Even duplicating the original breeder’s outcross may not do much to correct the cropping up of that original defect in remnant populations.
Outcross breedings in line-bred systems are useful to maintain hybrid vigor. Since inbreeding tends to reduce size of the individual get and litter size, maintaining a habit of using outcrosses to a new line can be a prudent choice for line-breeding advocates. However with each outcross, the breeder takes the chance of adding problems inherent in the new line to his or her own family population or reintroduction of problems already eradicated or reduced in the breeder’s own line.
Phenotype becomes of astronomical importance in outcross breeding systems since it is the only way the outcross breeder can maintain breed integrity and quality in the brood stock. Pictures, videos and personal observations of prospective sires and dams and the recording of details of these observations become important to the pedigree studies and breeding progress. These can partially be provided by online sources like Tibbies.net pedigree data base because pictures breeding details are included in many of the entries online.