Question about breeding from a very small group of birds

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Your answer is sensible, and in different circumstances what I would most likely want to do, but unfortunately not an option here. If I did have the option to buy a different top quality rooster, I would be taking it. This is a rare breed that nearly died out, the different colours were crossed together as a last resort to keep the breed alive, now they don't breed true and from a high quality pair, you might get one out of every 20 or 30 chicks that's worth keeping. If I did have 300 home bred hens to select from, I'd be lucky to find a dozen that were good enough to keep. And I don't mean a dozen excellent ones out of a hundred or so good ones. I mean a dozen out of 300 that barely just turn out the right colour! The wastage is huge and it's hard enough trying to find even half decent examples of the breed so even if I could find another rooster, I'd be extremely wary of introducing it unless I knew its family tree. All of these birds are related in one way or another anyway, so an 'unrelated trio' just isn't going to happen.

I really just want to breed from what I've already got and not introduce new and unknown blood until I absolutely have to.

Edit: I already HAVE paid the money to buy the best trio possible. We don't have commercial hatcheries over here for pure breeds the way you do in the US. Our commercial hatcheries tend to produce hybrid layers, that's all. So we don't really have anything that equates to what you'd call 'hatchery quality'. Our equivalent would just be lesser quality birds bred by folk who weren't as fussy about various traits etc I suppose...

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Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking of doing. That would give you two new trios, or quads, or however many. I just wasn't sure if you should breed birds from the two different groups together. I'm not sure how closely related they would be to each other. As people don't reproduce along those lines and there isn't a word like uncle or cousin to describe the relation I'm having a hard time actually visualising how closely related they'd all be...

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Thanks Saladin, this was exactly the sort of system I was looking for. I'm not sure how closely related the original trio are but I think I'll be able to find out. I'm not collecting them for another week or so yet but when I pick them up I shall quiz the breeder closely. I'm actually getting four different trios/quads - four different colours of this mixed up breed. So I'm going to have a lot of sorting out and tagging work to do come breeding time. What you suggest is excellent. Thanks for taking the time to post it in such detail!

What Chickendales suggests is workable - hatching from both hens in the one year and sorting out which chicks go with which hens could be done, it would just like you say be more work. A LOT more work. But definitely feasible. I could either swap the rooster between two different pens every couple of days to ensure good fertility, or I could keep all the birds in one pen and trap nest them. Both ways would ensure I would know which eggs came from which hen. Then I'd just need to hatch them in two different incubators to make sure they were kept separate, and tag them before I put them in the brooder.

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u can toe bunch the babies that way u breed both hens or use wing bands
i just feel it waist have a hen sitting there doing nothing for a season what she died u didnt get any thing out it

I understand what you're both saying. Saladin's way is excellent because it gives the birds more time to mature before breeding them. Breeding from pullets really isn't a great idea, especially if you're breeding for size, as I'm going to be doing. And it makes it much less likely that you'd get chicks from different mothers mixed up, which is the whole point of breeding them in the way described. I suppose it's also an exercise in patience and taking things slowly, which is a good frame of mind to develop for poultry breeding.

Chickendales does have a fair point though. I could spend next season breeding from one hen, and the other could die from some random illness or accident before I got a chance to breed from her, meaning the Master Plan would have to be binned.

Thanks, both of you. Lots for me to think about!

Let us know how things go. Can you tell us the breed or is that a secret at this point? I completely understand if it is.

Always glad to be of some small help to a cousin.

Naaaw, it's no big secret; they're in my signature! They're Marsh Daisies. Up till now I've only kept relatively mediocre Brown ones - and they were hard enough to get hold of - but I've just managed to secure breeding trios and quartets of three different colours from one of the few people who has been breeding them seriously for quite a while. So now I'm also going to have Wheatens, Buffs and rarest of all, Whites, which are so rare that most chicken books tell you they've been extinct for years. These aren't just very good birds that have been bred to sell, they are the breeder's entire stock. The person I am getting them from has taken the hard decision to stop breeding them, so it's a fabulous opportunity for me as I just love the breed. They're complicated little buggers.

A cousin? Like, you've got a red tag and I've got a blue one? LOL! Whereabouts over here are your folks originally from?

Marsh Daisyies: I think that is great that you are working with these birds.

Question: Are there any good Redcaps left in Scotland?

Family: My main tree (which loops alot because we tend to marry cousins) were from Sussex and Essex. They left in 1635: Puritans. Other close lines: Scotland, Wales, and Huguenots from France.

You know we consider you all cousins.

Redcaps? I'm not sure, but just because I don't know enough about them to know if the ones I've seen are any good or not! I was at a show in the south west of Scotland recently and the 'Rare Breed' pens were almost exclusively filled with Redcaps and Cream Legbars. That was the first time I'd ever seen a Redcap in the flesh, and I thought they were very handsome little birds. I think I have some photos of them, wait a minute....

This is the one that got first prize out of all the Redcaps there.
They all looked pretty much the same to me though, nice consistency in size, colour and comb shape.

Thanks for the picture and the information!