Line breeding: how do I get started?

[Yoyo with chick]

I've been reading up on it but have never found out how to get started.

 

[chooks4life]

:/ lol it's quite simple, you allow descendants to breed with their own progenitors.

I take it though that your question is intended more along the lines of 'how do I achieve my intended outcome via linebreeding'? (Correct me if I'm wrong). But nobody can help you with that when we don't know what genetics you're starting with or what end result you want to achieve.

In order to answer that question in a relevant way or make plans/take steps towards the ideal, well, you'd need to have some idea of a breeding plan, i.e. an objective list of what you want in terms of results, time period to achieve that, the genotype/phenotype faults you want to address, the positives you want to introduce or maintain, and some understanding of chook genetics (there are a lot of great books and online sources that can help you there) so you can weed out problems along the way and prevent others from happening.

The plan for your linebreeding depends in large part on what sort of genetics and the good and bad points your chooks have.

Best wishes. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. More information is needed.

 

[Yoyo with chick]

Thanks! That is a lot of help

 

[Yoyo with chick]

So what should my parent stock be? A bro sis pair or non related pair?

 

[Matt1616]

So what should my parent stock be? A bro sis pair or non related pair?

If they are not related...it is not "linebreeding".

 

[Yoyo with chick]

I get it know!

 

[gjensen]

Line breeding is based on the concept of emphasizing the merits of superior individual(s). The concept is useless concerning substandard stock. What you are trying to accomplish, in a sense, is to take advantage of the influence the superior bird(s) has/have.
Once a family, or families, is established then it is a process through relationships. The first step is securing birds that are worthy of line breeding.

The method fixes both good and bad traits. That is why it is important to base a family on quality birds.

 

[chooks4life]

So what should my parent stock be? A bro sis pair or non related pair?

The other two repliers gave some good answers but generally if you want to begin linebreeding you should secure multiples from the same family, ideally, removing the worst individuals and keeping the best, because the less chooks you start with the more inbred they get, and faster too. Ideally you'd get two great parent birds, minimum, and breed multiple generations from those to work from, but it all depends on the desired outcome and so forth. You can also get multiple parent pairs/trios (with pairs it's easier to trace genetics exactly though) and work with that. You could start with multiple unrelated parent pairs and linebreed mixed lines, like many horse breeders do.

Those are generalizations though, some people are wizards at taking terrible stock like severely inbred and dilapidated stock and restoring them to greatness despite having to inbreed to maintain the genetics.

A bit of research on how rare breeds are maintained, restored, etc should help there, as well as any information on breeding out bad traits and breeding in good ones. Often the only solution with badly inbred stock is to cross other breeds back into them to reintroduce vigor etc, and then carefully breed from there to get the breed's appearance and production characteristics/other back as per standard.

Excessive inbreeding causes infertility in most cases or becomes terminal in other ways i.e. via severe deformities, lethal genes, etc.

Personally I would not start a breeding project as a beginner breeder with traits that are lethal or carry severe faults, so no ear-tuft genes, no very short legged genes, no frizzle genes, etc as those are all linked to some very serious and often fatal health issues.

Here is a site with a good store of info on genes... You should check all the links on the site if you're not already familiar with it, it's all good info:

Quote:
Also there are many breeders are on this site with threads full of good info.

While overall I agree with what gjensen said, you can use substandard stock to linebreed and still achieve good things but almost as a rule that's a job for the experts, very complicated and long term project there requiring a lot of knowledge and experience. And a heck of a lot of culling. Another thing to consider there, linebreeding even more than normal breeding or outbreeding/outcrossing requires a lot of culling.

Best wishes with your project.

 

[3riverschick]

I've been reading up on it but have never found out how to get started.

Hi !
Here ya goL
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/908142/line-breeding
Best Regards,
Karen and the Light Sussex
in western PA, USA

 

[Yoyo with chick]

So what should my parent stock be? A bro sis pair or non related pair?

The other two repliers gave some good answers but generally if you want to begin linebreeding you should secure multiples from the same family, ideally, removing the worst individuals and keeping the best, because the less chooks you start with the more inbred they get, and faster too. Ideally you'd get two great parent birds, minimum, and breed multiple generations from those to work from, but it all depends on the desired outcome and so forth. You can also get multiple parent pairs/trios (with pairs it's easier to trace genetics exactly though) and work with that. You could start with multiple unrelated parent pairs and linebreed mixed lines, like many horse breeders do.

Those are generalizations though, some people are wizards at taking terrible stock like severely inbred and dilapidated stock and restoring them to greatness despite having to inbreed to maintain the genetics.

A bit of research on how rare breeds are maintained, restored, etc should help there, as well as any information on breeding out bad traits and breeding in good ones. Often the only solution with badly inbred stock is to cross other breeds back into them to reintroduce vigor etc, and then carefully breed from there to get the breed's appearance and production characteristics/other back as per standard.

Excessive inbreeding causes infertility in most cases or becomes terminal in other ways i.e. via severe deformities, lethal genes, etc.

Personally I would not start a breeding project as a beginner breeder with traits that are lethal or carry severe faults, so no ear-tuft genes, no very short legged genes, no frizzle genes, etc as those are all linked to some very serious and often fatal health issues.

Here is a site with a good store of info on genes... You should check all the links on the site if you're not already familiar with it, it's all good info:

[quote url="[URL]http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/default.html[/URL]"]
 http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/default.html

Also there are many breeders are on this site with threads full of good info.

While overall I agree with what gjensen said, you can use substandard stock to linebreed and still achieve good things but almost as a rule that's a job for the experts, very complicated and long term project there requiring a lot of knowledge and experience. And a heck of a lot of culling. Another thing to consider there, linebreeding even more than normal breeding or outbreeding/outcrossing requires a lot of culling.

Best wishes with your project.
[/quote] thanks I'm going to be working with some pretty simple breeds it sounds like. I'm working with EE's, BLRW, And RC Light brown leghorn. Thanks a lot great info.