Breeding for PERSONALITY. AKA Hello SWEET ROO!

[lazy gardener]

I respectfully beg to differ, and am setting out on a path to prove you wrong. There are plenty of folks on the Natural Chicken keeper's thread who will state that they have bred aggression out of their flocks. And, they've done so without going to great lengths in the record keeping department. Simply put, aggressive animals are invited to the dinner table. The ones left behind get to play in the gene pool.

 

[CrazyTalk]

Oh you can do all the selective breeding that your heart desires, the question is that if after a lifetime of selective breeding are you any closer to realizing your selective breeding goal than you were when you began breeding selectively?

George, why is it that you seem to think that isolating more aggressive roosters is near impossible? This isn't all that difficult of a task - and there are quite a few people on here who have completed this sort of project without doing what you're talking about. There are a LOT of people on here who breed all sorts of animals and actively select for temperament.

The population won't drift as quickly without all the linebreeding, but putting heavy selective pressure on a population causes it to shift pretty quickly. If attacking a human means that a rooster is removed from the gene pool, and calmer roosters get to breed, you'll see significant changes in a couple generations.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Its not impossible, it is pointless.

If you refuse to breed a rooster because of that roosters temperament, then that rooster may as well be

soup for all the good (or harm) that he is doing for the gene pool.

But the rooster is at best 1/2 of the equation.

Without also putting selective pressure on the hen line with the same goals in mind I doubt that there will be

much if any long term improvement in the personality of any rooster in a given flock.

 

[CrazyTalk]

George,

This is simply not true. A hen's genetics are 50% the rooster that she was born from. When you put selective pressure on your roosters, you ARE putting selective pressure on your hens. If you're back breeding, and not swapping roosters every year, your hens are going to get most of their genetics from the rooster.

The offspring of a hen backbred to her father gets 75% of it's DNA from the father. If you don't think that puts selective pressure on the female line, you don't understand how selection works. As long as you're not replacing your rooster every generation, your population is going to drift toward the rooster.

Chickens are the opposite of humans - Males are ZZ and females are ZW - the only things you can't select via the males are genes specifically on the W chromosome. At this point there's absolutely no evidence that the genes that cause human aggression are on the sex specific chromosomes.

 

[enola]

Someone needs to point out that NONE of us is breeding tigers... Just saying......

 

[chickengeorgeto]

George,

This is simply not true. A hen's genetics are 50% the rooster that she was born from. When you put selective pressure on your roosters, you ARE putting selective pressure on your hens. If you're back breeding, and not swapping roosters every year, your hens are going to get most of their genetics from the rooster.

The offspring of a hen backbred to her father gets 75% of it's DNA from the father. If you don't think that puts selective pressure on the female line, you don't understand how selection works. As long as you're not replacing your rooster every generation, your population is going to drift toward the rooster.

Chickens are the opposite of humans - Males are ZZ and females are ZW - the only things you can't select via the males are genes specifically on the W chromosome. At this point there's absolutely no evidence that the genes that cause human aggression are on the sex specific chromosomes.

Where are we going with the human aggression statement. As someone has already mentioned here we are not breeding tigers, but neither are we breeding feathered Mike Tysons.

Genes are not an either or proposition but rather a combination or combinations of genes or factors all clustered together to produce a specific trait. Prof of success at breeding aggression out of a male line of chickens is easy to produce. Just give 100 immature roosters away to 100 different owners all to be reared in 100 different circumstances and if all 100 turn out to be good little pacifists then victory laps are in order. I will even be waiting for you at the finish line to spray you with Champaign.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

Quote:
Originally Posted by chickengeorgeto

Where are we going with the human aggression statement. As someone has already mentioned here we are not breeding tigers, but neither are we breeding feathered Mike Tysons.

Genes are not an either or proposition but rather a combination or combinations of genes or factors all clustered together to produce a specific trait. Prof of success at breading aggression out of a male line of chickens is easy to produce. Just give 100 immature roosters away to 100 different owners all to be reared in 100 different circumstances and if all 100 turn out to be good little pacifists the victory laps are in order. ?I

OK. We get it. You believe this is a fool's game. Too difficult, and pointless to boot.

That's OK. But we're going to try anyhow.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

OK. We get it. You believe this is a fool's game. Too difficult, and pointless to boot.

That's OK. But we're going to try anyhow.

I wish you all the luck in the world. I would definitely not say that it is pointless.

To difficult to accomplish by selecting from only the male line...? Yes I do believe that.

I also believe that without deep culling (not breeding) all females whose male offspring exhibit human aggression, that any progress that one human can accomplish in his or her lifetime

will be quickly eaten up by genetic drift once the culling pressure is removed and the population reverts to the base line from which it started.

 

[Free Feather]

This is very confusing. Can someone please dumb down the two points of argument?

 

[MargaretYakoda]

This is very confusing. Can someone please dumb down the two points of argument?

Pro:
1) We would like to try breeding our backyard flocks in an attempt to get roosters who are not a danger to humans. We believe we can do it if we try.
2) We are not expecting to get lap roosters, or feathered tribbles.
3) We understand that it will take time, and that we will need to use careful recording techniques, and breeding pens to do this right.
4) We also understand that we will need to pay attention to any aggressive behavior in the potential breeding hens.

Con:
1) Aggressive roosters are needed to keep flocks safe from predators.
2) Selective breeding and culling are essentially the same thing. And in order to achieve our goal we would need to do constant and very deep culling.
3) We would need to have many pens, and a burdensome level of record keeping.
4) The characteristics of a gentle rooster will revert back to the mean in very few generations.

Did I get that right?