What are the advantages of a rotational system?

The aim of the rotational mating is to keep the genetic base of the breed as diverse as possible. The benefits are the opposite to inbreeding depression: using a rotation system the recessive hereditary disorders are kept in check, as they will appear less frequently in a diverse population. It's less likely that a puppy will inherit a rare recessive gene from both parents. Recessively inherited diseases only appear when the dog inherits the faulty gene from both parents.

When the inbreeding coefficient is low, the dog has a more efficient immune system, higher fertility and higher vitality than inbred individuals.

In many breeds the genes available are very similar. A big percentage of the gene pool originally present has been lost or minimally used. The only reason for this has been breeding as similar show or working dogs as possible. Unfortunately this has led to a decrease in vitality and this is now reaped in many breeds as autoimmune deficiencies, allergies and the preponderance of infections, as well as difficulties in reproduction.

We aim to maintain as wide a variety as possible of the old working lines of JRTs for coming generations. The project breeding groups work as a genetic deposit for the breed. The JRT already has several hereditary disorders and you never know what diseases or disorders breeders have to fight against in the future. If all the individual dogs in a breed are starting to be related to each other, the breed faces a very vulnerable future.

What is a rotational mating system?

When there aren't any unrelated dogs left to be mated within a breeding group (the criteria will be an inbreeding coefficient of less than 6.25%) we'll start using the other lines and also the common Finnish JRT lines as outcross. One of the possible ways to do this is using a rotational mating. Our aim is not to start a closed population of our own but to maintain as many different genes as possible.

When using a rotational mating you start by mating a dog from group 1 with a dog from group 2. If the puppies are of good enough health and temperament to be used for breeding, one bitch and one dog will go forward into the project. For the next litter one parent will be this 1x2 dog and the mate will be from group number 3. Their offspring will have 25% genes from group 1, 25% from group 2 and 50% from group 3. Then we return to group 1. This makes the maximum amount of genes available in every generations.

The previous example was using three breeding groups. Our aim is however to start at least two groups more, so that the benefits of the rotation breeding system will be greater still.

The "recycling" of genes using the different breeding groups is only one example of a rotational mating system. When breeding pigs, for instance, completely different breeds are used to maximise the heterosis effect.