Value of an animal as a parent. The working definition is twice the difference between a very large number of progeny and the population average when individuals are mated at random within the population and all progeny are managed alike. The difference is doubled because only a sample half (one gene of each pair) is transmitted from a parent to each progeny. Breeding value exists for each trait and is dependent on the population in which the animal is evaluated. For a given trait, an individual pig can be above average in a population defined one way, and below average in a population defined another way.

(1) The value of an individual as a (genetic) parent. (2) The part of an individual's genotypic value that is due to independent and therefore transmittable gene effects.