What is an animal breed?
With a relatively small number of farm animal species, the development of animal genetic resources has historically beeen focussed on developing new breeds within species. A breed is a race or variety of animals, perpetuating its special or distinctive characteristics by inheritance. Animal breeds are man-made and they have been created and lost, over millennia. There is no concise definition, but in the UK a breed is generally recognised by a package of performance and adaptive fitness characteristics, with a largely uniform appearance.
