Can you inbreed rabbits? More so, should you? What is breeding? What is line breeding? BREEDING Breeding, selective control of mating in animals to produce organisms that better serve human needs for food, work, sport, or aesthetics. Simple breeding methods have been employed throughout human history. From paintings on the walls of Egyptian tombs, archaeologists have determined that dogs were bred at least 4000 years ago, and perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago. Ancient civilizations also domesticated varieties of cattle, sheep, goats, and grains. The history of breeding can be divided into two periods: before and after the rediscovery in 1900 of Mendel's concepts of heredity. Before 1900, breeders worked primarily by selecting from each generation the animals or plants that displayed desired characteristics and then breeding these individuals to produce the next generation. Although this simple method, known as mass selection, produced some favorable resul...