Professor Alfons Anker

Hungarian professor (1925-1979), specialised in animal population genetics.

He was not only a theoretician, he also had a large experience in breeding new races of high yielding domestic animals. He has created among others the world famous KA-HYB pig.

He has also applied his knowledge to his hobby: the breeding of high quality racing pigeons. He wrote a book on this subject with the significant title "Flying puzzles". The task of the pigeon breeder is nothing more than that: puzzling, solving crossword puzzles. Anker tried to fix the rules for this game...

Alfons Anker

• The genetic laws defined by Gregor Mendel are of little help for the breeding of racing pigeons. Most athletic properties are not inherited that way.
• Inbreeding is not a mathematical system, it is more like playing a musical instrument. The better the player, the better the music that comes out of the instrument.
• Inbreeding gives the best results when based on a superbreeder. A superracer gives much less guarantee, because too much nonhereditary elements (like condition, vitality) determine the racing results.
• Breeding in the family is not the same as inbreeding. Inbreeding is always accompanied by a loss of vitality. Anker even states that the greater the loss of vitality, the better the effect of inbreeding. Narrowly inbred animals are not fitted for racing, only for breeding.
• Vitality is soon regained when crossing inbred birds. It is a very common practice in industrial breeding of yielding animals to inbred first of all the basic animals and then cross the products of this inbreeding. The inbreeding is done for fixing the hereditary material; the crossing brings the heterosis or gain of vitality and strenght.
• By inbreeding one can also fix bad qualities!
• Inbreeding is a reduction of variation. The more a strain is inbred, the more its products will resemble one another.
• By pairing an excellent breeder to his children, one can obtain birds that continue to give his excellent qualities for 10, 20 or more years. A father-daughter or mother-son pairing is more effective for that purpose than a brother sister combination.

(Picture of Alfons Anker: De kunst van het kweken by Prof. Alfons Anker and Steven van Breemen, Hilversum 1986, page 6).