This might sound stupid but can you do this?

[Volkova]

Ok this might sounds silly but I am raising a flock of orpingtons, unrelated.

If I get chicks from this flock, can I put them back into the flock, even with the cockerel/their dad in there. I thought you had to get rid of them but someone said as long as you change it over certain generations it's fine.

Is this true? Could I use the chickens eggs and hatch them out then put them back with the chickens, and repeating it again without changing cockerel until the 3rd or 4th time?

Thanks for any help. Sorry this is a strange question, I just think it's important for me to know.

 

[speckledhen]

Yes, you can breed daughter to father or grandfather and mother to son or grandson. It's called linebreeding. Perfectly acceptable.

Most folks don't want to breed brother to sister, but you can also do that--it will just intensify all traits they genetically share, good and bad.

 

[aoxa]

Yes, you can breed daughter to father or grandfather and mother to son or grandson. It's called linebreeding. Perfectly acceptable.

Most folks don't want to breed brother to sister, but you can also do that--it will just intensify all traits they genetically share, good and bad.

 

The traits that would be bad with brother x sister, would this make the offspring weak and sickly? Or are the traits mainly visual/personality/egg laying?

 

[Ridgerunner]

What you are talking about is called line breeding. You might want to do some research about that.

Every breed of chickens was developed by some type of inbreeding program. The chickens that win prizes at chicken shows are bred by some means of inbreeding. There are techniques other than line breeding that are used, spiral breeding being a quick example. The difference between the people doing that and you and me is that they know what they are doing. They are good!!!

But you are talking about line breeding, a specific inbreeding technique. You have two concerns with line breeding. One is recessive genes. If your flock has a recessive gene that causes traits you do not want, that recessive gene can match up and show itself. You may wind up with a flock that has defects you don't want. But if your flock has traits you do want, line breeding can reinforce those good traits. That's why the people that know what they are doing use it. They can pick out which birds to cross to reinforce the good traits and they can find out which of their flock has traits they don't want so they can eliminate them.

The other problem with inbreeding is that you lose genetic diversity. With each mating you lose certain genes. Over time, this can cause several problems. You get specialized chickens that are more susceptible to diseases. The flock loses vitality. They don't grow as well, don't lay as well, or may lose fertility. You may have heard of hybrid vigor. That's the boost you get when you introduce new genes into a line that has been inbred to the point that it has lost genetic diversity. With chickens, you don't have to cross breeds to get hybrid vigor. You can cross two flocks of purebreds that have been genetically separated for several generations and get that same boost. This is why many breeders use spiral breeding or some other techniques, to keep up the genetic diversity.

A really good breeder that knows what they are doing can go decades with inbreeding and keep up the genetic diversity of the flock. It’s not easy. It requires great record-keeping, carefully picking your breeders, keeping several roosters, and the extra facilities needed costs money. One thing that will keep you from going on indefinitely is that you are only going to have one rooster, whether the same one or one of his sons. You just can’t keep genetic diversity up for many generations with only one rooster.

With all this said, many of us do like you are talking about. It's pretty much the way many of the farms that raised chickens to feed their families eggs and meat did it. Sometimes they would keep the same rooster a few years but often they would keep a different rooster every year or two. Often, they would have more than one active rooster. Every so often, they would bring in new blood to give their flocks some more genetic diversity. How often they would need to do that depended some on how many roosters they had with the flock.

Something to consider. An older rooster gets less active. If you keep the same one for too long, you can see a big decrease in fertility of the eggs. I can’t give you a set age where this becomes a problem because it varies with each individual rooster. How many hens you have in the flock factors in too. You will probably be OK with three or four years, but if you notice a decrease in fertility of the eggs, it’s time for a new rooster.

I suggest you go for it. Be careful picking which chicks you allow to become breeding members of your flock. Keep the good ones and don’t allow the bad ones to breed. It sounds simple but it does require you to pay attention to your chickens.

Good luck with it. It can certainly be done.

 

[speckledhen]

The traits that would be bad with brother x sister, would this make the offspring weak and sickly? Or are the traits mainly visual/personality/egg laying?

Not weak and sickly, no, just visual traits mostly. For instance, had a rooster with a small bump on the side of his comb. Genetics person told me it wasn't a side sprig but just an anomaly, but that I would have to breed to see if it passed on. His half sister, no comb issue, was bred with him. Their daughter had a small bump on both sides of her comb at the back side, almost imperceptible, but definitely there, so stands to reason that the sire of my rooster and his half sister, their only parent in common, had that same trait. I removed his daughter from the breeding pen because the trait would be set if I bred father to daughter. When the rooster was bred to unrelated females, the trait never was seen again.

Conversely, if brother and sister are stellar examples of the breed, then there is no reason not to breed them. Good traits will be set as well, IMHO. Of course, I'm not some big time breeder and many will disagree with me, which is fine. Just telling my experience and what I learned from other breeders.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The traits that would be bad with brother x sister, would this make the offspring weak and sickly? Or are the traits mainly visual/personality/egg laying?

All traits, good or bad.

I get bogged down in the math really quickly mainly because you are dealing with genetic pairs, not single genes. There are two ways of looking at it and they revolve around the genetic pair factor. If you cross two chickens (and ignore the sex-linked genes. The math is already too complicated without trying to figure that in) the chick gets half its genes from its father and half from its mother, but it gets a full set from each. They just pair up. When that offspring fertilizes an egg, it only gives up half of a pair and you don't know which gene it gives up. It could be from its mother or its father. But there are enough genes involved you can safely say about half are from the father and half are from the mother.

If you cross that offspring with its mother or father, about half the genes that offspring provides are available to match up with the other parent. So with a father-daughter or mother-son mating, half will pair up with genes from that parent and half won’t.

If you cross brother-sister, you have half the genes from each parent. But you don’t know which genes they are offering to pair up. This is where the “pairs” complication comes in. You could assume that the gene from either side of the genetic pair from the father is the same gene, especially if he is purebred. But that is not necessarily true. If there is reasonable genetic diversity in that purebred rooster, it won’t be the same gene. So you add another layer of randomness to the gene pool. Instead of half the genes coming from the same parent like the father-daughter mating, a brother-sister mating will give you ¼ of the grandfather’s genes and ¼ of the grandmother’s genes to match up, thus giving you the same ½ of the matching genes. The matching genes just come from different parents.

If the brother-sister are not really brother-sister but are half-brother-sister, say the same father but a different mother, then the possibility of matched genes further declines.

I’m sure I did not explain it well and I get bogged down in the math but maybe you can sort of follow. How genetically diverse the grandparents are to start with factors in too. But I don’t see a brother-sister mating and especially a halfbrother-sister mating as the end of the world.

One big advantage of father-daughter or mother-son mating is that you get a huge boost of influence from the grandparent. If say the hen has traits you really like and you breed her to her son, her traits will be intensified in the offspring, much more so that a brother-sister mating.

 

[aoxa]

Not weak and sickly, no,  just visual traits mostly. For instance, had a rooster with a small bump on the side of his comb. Genetics person told me it wasn't a side sprig but just an anomaly, but that I would have to breed to see if it passed on. His half sister, no comb issue, was bred with him. Their daughter had a small bump on both sides of her comb at the back side, almost imperceptible, but definitely there, so stands to reason that the sire of my rooster and his half sister, their only parent in common, had that same trait. I removed his daughter from the breeding pen because the trait would be set if I bred father to daughter. When the rooster was bred to unrelated females, the trait never was seen again.

Conversely, if brother and sister are stellar examples of the breed, then there is no reason not to breed them. Good traits will be set as well, IMHO. Of course, I'm not some big time breeder and many will disagree with me, which is fine. Just telling my experience and what I learned from other breeders.

I can only get my mottled houdans from one breeder in my area, so there is high chances that they are at least half, and could possibly be full. He has two roosters and many hens. They could be, but not for sure. I want to breed these guys, and just want to know if by doing so, I risk hatching sickly offspring. If I see anything visually, I will reconsider my options. I do have some chicks in the grow out pen, so thankfully I will have more than one rooster if this one does not work out well.

All traits, good or bad.
I get bogged down in the math really quickly mainly because you are dealing with genetic pairs, not single genes. There are two ways of looking at it and they revolve around the genetic pair factor. If you cross two chickens (and ignore the sex-linked genes. The math is already too complicated without trying to figure that in) the chick gets half its genes from its father and half from its mother, but it gets a full set from each. They just pair up. When that offspring fertilizes an egg, it only gives up half of a pair and you don't know which gene it gives up. It could be from its mother or its father. But there are enough genes involved you can safely say about half are from the father and half are from the mother.
If you cross that offspring with its mother or father, about half the genes that offspring provides are available to match up with the other parent. So with a father-daughter or mother-son mating, half will pair up with genes from that parent and half won’t.
If you cross brother-sister, you have half the genes from each parent. But you don’t know which genes they are offering to pair up. This is where the “pairs” complication comes in. You could assume that the gene from either side of the genetic pair from the father is the same gene, especially if he is purebred. But that is not necessarily true. If there is reasonable genetic diversity in that purebred rooster, it won’t be the same gene. So you add another layer of randomness to the gene pool. Instead of half the genes coming from the same parent like the father-daughter mating, a brother-sister mating will give you ¼ of the grandfather’s genes and ¼ of the grandmother’s genes to match up, thus giving you the same ½ of the matching genes. The matching genes just come from different parents.
If the brother-sister are not really brother-sister but are half-brother-sister, say the same father but a different mother, then the possibility of matched genes further declines.
I’m sure I did not explain it well and I get bogged down in the math but maybe you can sort of follow. How genetically diverse the grandparents are to start with factors in too. But I don’t see a brother-sister mating and especially a halfbrother-sister mating as the end of the world.
One big advantage of father-daughter or mother-son mating is that you get a huge boost of influence from the grandparent. If say the hen has traits you really like and you breed her to her son, her traits will be intensified in the offspring, much more so that a brother-sister mating.

Ridgerunner, thank you for the detail! That really helps

With rare breeds, it's hard to come up with genetic diversity. I really want to improve on the houdans, so I will be very selective on which of their offspring I keep.

 

[Volkova]

Thanks everyone, fantastic information.

I think I will use line breeding with my Orpingtons, as I am happy with the breed characteristics and traits. Once again, thanks!