On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 11:26:11AM -0800, Judy Ryder wrote: > If Iceland has been eating their bad horses for a > thousand years.... why are there still bad horses to be eaten? > > Has something gone wrong with the breeding program? > Is the emphasis on the right things?
i guess the same question could be asked in any non-eating horse population where we geld: why are there still bad horses? i guess my answers would be: . other factors that govern how many horses are eaten (such as famines in other parts of the food chain) . non-genetic or complexly-genetic heritable factors that a simple "don't breed the overtly bad" wouldn't fix (such as a recessive on an X that would propagate in a "good" stallion's Y chromosome, and only show up on daughters of "bad" mares as well) . entirely non-heritable matters such as manner of rearing (not all herd environments are alike, no more than all human families are alike), early trauma, nutrition . varieties of prioritization of what makes a "good" horse (VERY VERY visible in some non-icelandic breeds!) --vicka
