Tips for Pairing/Grouping Chickens for Breeding?

[Backyard_Alchemist]

Hello ! If this is in the incorrect category, my sincerest apologies.

Background: I have an Olive Egger cockerel (Chip, 7 weeks) that I'm waiting on to grow up. I would like to prove out his genes by breeding him to the brown egg laying females, and depending on the outcome, I would also like to breed for temperament by selecting our nicest girl(s) and pairing them together.

Since we only have four hens, it would be perfectly possible to let Chip do his job "naturally," and simlpy select from the resulting progeny. However, I don't anticipate to be able to tell who the mothers are just by looking at the chicks, as Chip has mostly black feathers with red bleed, and three of the girls are black while one is buff.

My question is as follows: Would it be worthwhile at all to intentionally pair the roo and hen in a pen of some sort ? This would allow for easy tracking of maternal lines and judging qualities associated with them. I'm just not sure about the pecking order being disrupted. I am thinking about this ahead of time, as the best hens produced by the cross will be added to the laying flock.

Thank you for reading and for your time !

 

[AOrchard]

I think this depends on your goals. If you just want to prove that he is an olive (vs a blue, vs a brown), then you don't need to know who the mothers are, as long as you know ALL mothers in the pen lay only brown eggs.

If you are breeding for that and also something more specific (show type, sop, etc), then you probably want to know the mothers for at least the first breeding, so you can assess the traits he passes on well and those he doesn't, and then you'll know which hens you want to cross him with in the future.

If you are just breeding for yourself to keep a few nice hens, then I wouldn't bother separating the hens, just get a nice batch of chicks from all of them, pick out your favorites, and sell the rest.

If genetics and breeding is a fun intriguing hobby for you, then you might find it rewarding to do individual breedings.

To not disturb the pecking order, the breeding pen should be within or next to the main pen so the hens can still see each other. If you only have one rooster on the flock, you could leave him in the flock, and just pull her out to collect her eggs for a few days. They can lay fertile eggs from a breeding that occurred some days prior.

 

[Backyard_Alchemist]

I think this depends on your goals. If you just want to prove that he is an olive (vs a blue, vs a brown), then you don't need to know who the mothers are, as long as you know ALL mothers in the pen lay only brown eggs.

If you are breeding for that and also something more specific (show type, sop, etc), then you probably want to know the mothers for at least the first breeding, so you can assess the traits he passes on well and those he doesn't, and then you'll know which hens you want to cross him with in the future.

If you are just breeding for yourself to keep a few nice hens, then I wouldn't bother separating the hens, just get a nice batch of chicks from all of them, pick out your favorites, and sell the rest.

If genetics and breeding is a fun intriguing hobby for you, then you might find it rewarding to do individual breedings.

To not disturb the pecking order, the breeding pen should be within or next to the main pen so the hens can still see each other. If you only have one rooster on the flock, you could leave him in the flock, and just pull her out to collect her eggs for a few days. They can lay fertile eggs from a breeding that occurred some days prior.

Excellent feedback ! Thank you for the insight <3

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisian, glad you joined.

You don't necessarily need to pair the hen and rooster, you need to know which hen laid which egg. You may already know this but I'll go through it as it might help your planning.

It takes about 25 hours for an egg to go through a hen's internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Thursday, Thursday's egg cannot be fertile from that mating. Friday's egg might or might not be, depending on timing. Don't count on it. Saturday's egg will be.

A rooster does not always mate with every hen in his flock every day, but he doesn't have to. In the last part of the mating act the rooster hops off, his part is done. The hen stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake moves the sperm into a special container near where the egg starts its journey so it can fertilize the eggs. That sperm can remain viable in that container for anywhere from maybe 9 days to over three weeks.
I don't know how you plan to hatch the eggs (incubator or broody hen) or how many you plan to hatch at any one time. That could be important in what you plan.

Sometimes a hen lays a distinctive egg. It may be a certain color, size, or shape. It's unlikely you will be lucky enough to know that for all four hens but it may help you with one or two, which might be enough.

You might consider trap nests. That's where the door closes when a hen goes on the nest to lay an egg and she can't get out until you let her. One problem with this is that you need to be there to let her out when she finishes laying the egg. Maybe check every hour. You have to be there and that is time consuming. Not many people can use this method.

You only plan four hens, at least to start with. You might do something like this video, use different colored dye in the vent to mark each egg. A packet of food coloring comes in four colors. Experiment with it so you are comfortable you can clearly identify each egg and determine how often and when you need to apply the dye.

Who is laying what egg? - YouTube

You might get some benefit with installing a camera to see which hen enters a specific nest. The problem with this is that they usually like to use the same nests so unless you are able to remove the eggs when they are laid this might not narrow it down enough. You might be able to tell which hen did not lay one of those eggs.

That's all I can think of without locking the hen up until she has laid her egg that day. If you house them across wire so they can see each other and let them mingle after they lay their egg the pecking order usually isn't a problem.

Good luck with it and once again

 

[sdm111]

It makes everything alot easier with multiple pens. If yiu don't want to go through the trouble of that then what about the offspring of multiple clutches? They gotta go somewhere also