Lineages & COI

ScaleVault automatically calculates ancestry whenever sire and dam fields are populated. From that it derives:

• A visual lineage tree rooted at any animal you mark as a founder.
• A COI (coefficient of inbreeding) for each animal whose ancestry it can resolve.

Setting up a lineage

Go to /lineages → + New lineage. Pick a name (often a project or morph name like "Coral Glow Project") and a founder animal. The lineage page renders descendants downward.

You can pick a color for each lineage; it tints the lineage badge on animal cards and tables.

Coefficient of inbreeding (COI)

COI is the probability that two alleles at a random locus in an individual are identical by descent — a number between 0 (no shared ancestry) and 1 (clones).

ScaleVault uses the path-counting method (Wright, 1922). It only considers ancestors it can find in your data — animals not in the system are treated as unrelated. So COI gets more accurate as you fill in pedigrees.

Animals with COI ≥ 0.125 (equivalent to first-cousin breeding) get a COI badge on cards and tables so you can spot them at a glance.

Practical use

• Avoid back-crosses by checking proposed pairings against the lineage tree first.
• Plan outcrosses — bring in unrelated animals to drop COI in your next generation.
• Sales transparency — public profiles can optionally show the lineage badge.

Limits

• COI only counts ancestors known to ScaleVault. Imported animals with no parent records show COI = 0 even if they're inbred.
• If two ancestors share the same name but are different animals, you must give them distinct records or COI will be wrong.