Lately as I have been my family and I have been thinking about adding livestock to the farm, other than the cattle or horses, I have been pondering the idea of having purebred herds or just grade market herds. If you have been following the blog for awhile you will remember that we are specifically thinking about adding hogs or sheep in the not to distant future. But, should we try and go with purebred breed or just a market/grade/crossbreed?Right now we are somewhat locked into purebreds with our Dexters. We now have nine registered cows/heifers and are in the process of looking for a herd bull so it is important to me that our bull is registered also. I don't think it would be wise to crossbreed the Dexters that we have now, but we could always try and go another route in the future. But, I like the direction that the Dexters will take us and I love the many great aspects of the specific breed ... for the time being we will only have a purebred registered cattle herd.
I know that Joel Salatin and some of the other authors along his lines (Allan Nation, Gene Logsdon, etc.) would probably advise having crossbred or grade livestock rather than registered purebred animals for a few reasons. One of those factors might be plain old cost, but another and possibly more interesting factor is the idea of "hybrid vigor" or heterosis. Basically the idea of hybrid vigor is that if you cross two distinct breeds you will gain the best of those two specific breeds. There is a whole genetic basis for this and all sorts of good smart people facts and figures on the topic so I suggest you check the link above for a basic overview of the topic.
Also, if you would like to know more about crossbreeding systems or other reasons for having a crossbreeding program I encourage you to check out this LINK from Virginia Tech University. It gives some great information and goes into greater detail.
While I find the whole heterosis idea interesting the financial thing does speak very loudly to me. Most of the time you will have to pay a greater price to have the registered animals. Thus it will take more money, and in my case a longer time, to build up the herd to the size you would like. I intend on having a closed herd once we have built it up, but it does take outside animals to get to that point. As we look at sheep and hogs the higher prices do seem a bit daunting ... especially when we are talking about edible animals. Most people don't care if they are eating a Dexter burger, Angus burger, or whatever the steers parentage is burger (notice I said most people because I think Dexter burgers are the best!). With that in mind it is difficult to go the purebred route (again, I realize that I already have gone that route).
One thing really keeps drawing me to the registered livestock side of things though ... heritage breeds. History is my passion and keeping history alive is equally part of that passion so I have been drawn to the heritage breeds from the beginning. I have a couple of thoughts that I will just through out there about these breeds... First of all, I think it is important to keep these breeds going because they are an important part of our human history and a link to that history. If we don't remember our history ... well, that is just a bad thing! But, it is also important I believe to remember that these heritage breeds were developed and raised under the exact (or close to it) conditions that I wish to farm within. Many were selected (all breeds are crossbreeds at some point) because they were good foragers, were hardy, easy breeders, good mothers, and on and on and on. So, if it worked then I don't see why it can't work today.
I still haven't decided which direction to go, but it is an interesting debate in my mind nonetheless.
**The picture at the top is of an Ossabaw Island Pig at the Living History Farms in Iowa. They have them at the Living History Farms because they are similar to what an 1850's pig would look like**
