Establishment of herd books

• With the growing number of generations of selective breeding, it became increasingly difficult to remember the relationships between the animals, especially further back in the pedigree.
• This was the reason to start recording pedigree on paper, so that correct information could be reproduced and it could be proven that an animal was of a certain breed.
• The first herdbook was for the thoroughbred horse and was established in England in 1791.
• This book did not contain all pedigree, but only those of horses that were winning important races.
• Following the race horses, the Shorthorn cattle (1822) were next to start a herdbook.
• In the rest of Europe, herdbooks only started to be established in from 1826 onwards for horses (in France), and from 1855 onwards for cattle (also in France).
• The first international herdbook was established for the American Berkshire pigs in 1876.
• The first dog in the Netherlands was registered by the Koningklijke Nederlandsche Jachtvereeninging Nimrod (predecessor of the Raad van Beheer op Kynologisch Gebied in Nederland) in 1874.
• After the turn of the century animal breeding within herdbook settings became standard.

Breed

• A breed is a group of animals of a certain species that through generations of selective breeding has become uniform in performance, appearance, and selection history
• A species is the largest group of animals that are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.