MiPob - A simulation software for learning in Animal Breeding

 

MiPob is a simulation software aimed helping to understand the interest, the limitations and consequences of selecting an animal population, developed for the first introductory courses of Animal Breeding.

By the simulation of a cattle population and the decision making of students about the way animals can be mated, the objective is to understand the basic concepts of animal selection and its implications in closed populations of small size.

The software is inspired in "Cowgame"¹, picking up the idea that was indicated in its User's manual, back in 1988: "....we felt that the student would gain more understanding of the selection process if he or she were directly responsible for the operation of their herd on the simulation". In other words the program wants to follow in some way the proverb: "What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I understand", and since we can not wait twenty years to see what happens in our flock, we play by simulating it.

DOWNLOAD      Last version: January 2014