What tools does the British Kunekune Pig Society have to help me plan my breeding?

Alongside the traditional method of comparing pedigree certificates for common ancestors the new Cloud Lines herd book has 2 tools which you can use to assist your planned breeding. These can be found under the metrics tab as shown below:

These tools are Kinship & Stud Adviser. 

The Kinship tool compares the ancestors of a Sire/ Dam for common ancestors right back to the start of the British Kunekune Society and give a figure to show the results. This can then be compared to thresholds set by the British Kunekune Society to see if the 2 animals are suitable for mating. 

To use the Kinship tool to predict COI of your pairing, enter the HBN (Herd Book Number) of sire and dam and click ‘Calculate Kinship’ button. We then advise that you go make a cuppa whilst the system does its thing and when you return (this can take up to 30 minutes, if it takes longer please contact our registrar) you will find the results at the bottom of the page. 

Click View to see your results, 

Why is the COI so high on cloud-lines?

Unlike our previous system that only looked at the previous 3-5 generations when calculating the COI the cloud-lines system looks at our whole data set going back to our original imported pigs. This is nothing to worry about and will help the society improve the genetic diversity over time. 

What are the NEW thresholds for COI?

To ensure the best possible genetic diversity for the Kunekune population in the UK the following staggered approach will be taken (this is a similar approach to that being taken by our European counterparts). This will be monitored by the committee and adjusted as necessary over the next few years.

	November 2022	January 2024	January 2025
Green	0% – 15%	0% – 15%	TBA
Amber	15% – 20%	15% – 20%	TBA
Red	Over 20%	Over 20%	TBA

I have a planned pairing and its Amber; can I still breed?

Yes, the society will register offspring who fall into the Green & Amber COI ranges, however, advise that where possible the future pairings are within the Green COI threshold. The society may be able to support with this through the Genetic Diversity Allowance (GDA) program. 

Stud Advisor

The stud advisor tool can be used to find the best possible match in our herd for your DAM. This will show a set of results, which utilise a traffic light system to show the best match. We understand that this tool will initially not be practical for all members as boars that it shows may not be available for stud/ sale, or the animal may not be alive anymore (members didn’t tend to report animals deceased in our old system, over time with the new system members are able to see the ‘herd’ they own and mark animals as sold/ deceased much easier which will hopefully give us a much more realistic set of data for the stud advisor took to work with. 

Enter the DAM’s HBN (Herd Book Number) and click run advisor to use the tool.