advice needed: Culling out bad genetics in my flock.

[MrsBachbach]

We are in a bit of a downhill slid. A couple years ago I introduced Marans to my flock. I paid premium prices but these are not premium birds. I have had nothing bug genetic issues in my hatches and birds with a weak immune system. Egg bound and sour crops too. Only ever with the marans. All my other birds are fine. Problem is as older birds passed I have kept up my numbers with marans. Great layers but gah always something wrong. Every hatch I will lose about half of those egg that hatch. Crossed beaks and deformaties.

So My maran roo is meeting mr axe and the girls will slowly be phased out. I plan for now to focus on the full blooded ones and let the mix breeds be. It seems with the mixing I still get a fair bird. I think. Should I consider weeding these out too? I think I need to start over a bit.  Opinions on better breeds. I do have a breeding trio of lavender orps that I was considering putting in the breeding coop.

Sometimes just introducing new blood will end those problems. Your flock may have been too inbred. Get a new rooster, maybe even two, from different sources and maintain two different lines that you can cross later down the line when genetics get too close.

 

[Mrs. K]

NewTo The Flock - I am really not sure, I had two roosters and they were, one still is a very nice mannered..... but not quite as good at protection as other roosters I have had. Laying was only ok with the hens..... they were just kind of blah to me.

Now on the other hand, I loved my Delawares. I think I like a heavier bird. And the Delawares were good layers..... but they are white, and a white bird is a predator magnet where I live.

There are all kinds of birds out there, I really like a mixed flock.

Mrs K

 

[NewToTheFlock]

Ok. I thought you may have had a traumatic experience with them. I have 7 Dominique's, 2 being Roos, that are 9 weeks old. My brown leghorns that are the same age are definitely dominate over them.

 

[chooks4life]

I also wanted to say that you can have a bad experience with hatchery stock and then get the same breed, the true breed as it was meant to be from good stock, heritage lines if it's a heritage breed, and have an entirely different experience with them. I did with Delawares. So, it may not be the breed, per se, but the quality of what you get as well.

I agree with this, X2 for sure, but I'd also like to add that different family lines of the same breed, or different strains of the same breed, can also be like a different breed unto themselves when compared to the ones you disliked.

Any breed you found you didn't love, it's a safe bet that there are some family lines of that breed you would love, as long as the faults were not merely cosmetic. If you don't like the appearance, there's not much hope for you and that breed... Well, actually, even then, which one of us hasn't ended up keeping some animal of a type they normally disliked simply due to its exceptional nature?

I personally strongly dislike Leghorns of all sorts based on a few very common and annoying faults all the lines I got showed, but that said, a good bird is a good bird, and when I see a Leghorn lacking the faults that prejudiced me against the breed type as a whole, my dislike is not applicable to that line.

Sometimes just introducing new blood will end those problems. Your flock may have been too inbred. Get a new rooster, maybe even two, from different sources and maintain two different lines that you can cross later down the line when genetics get too close.

While that's true, these are multiple and rather severe faults, showing in pretty much every individual. That's a severe strike rate. I won't tolerate faults that cause ill health and only show up in a fifth of all offspring, never mind 100% or close to it. I wouldn't tolerate health issues that are inherited by even half or a third of all offspring.

I would not bother with such a family line unless I were some ultra-rare-breed savior of great skill, experience and knowledge, LOL! (Not to mention in possession of the time and resources it would take to complete that undertaking.) Don't know why anyone else would bother either, unless they want to make it their life's work to resurrect a family line of a common breed from a terribly dilapidated state despite the abundance of other superior lines of that breed. Even once you get them 'good', chances are some are still carrying those genetics, just waiting to slide back into that sorry state once in the hands of someone who doesn't know what background they had... Which can be made all the harder by the effective invisibility of some of these traits.

Even using two good roosters isn't going to save this line without some complicated and long term breeding, complete with one heck of a lot of test breedings resulting in one heck of a lot of culls, and some decent record-keeping.

That would necessarily involve deliberately bringing damaged birds into this world to suffer and die, so that maybe many generations down the track, some of their offspring will lack the traits that caused their ill health.

Good job for the expert, waste of time for the novice. Obviously that wouldn't apply to all novices, some would love the challenge... But not all could stomach leaping into the deep end of genetic stewardship like that. It could prematurely blunten some passion, in some sorts who aren't into chooks for that side of things, or are softer-hearted than that (and there's nothing wrong with being like that either). Just my thoughts on it.

Best wishes.

 

[speckledhen]

I agree with this, X2 for sure, but I'd also like to add that different family lines of the same breed, or different strains of the same breed breed can also be like a different breed unto themselves when compared to the ones you disliked.

Any breed you found you didn't love, it's a safe bet that there are some family lines of that breed you would love.

I personally strongly dislike Leghorns of all sorts based on a few very common and annoying faults all the lines I got showed, but that said, a good bird is a good bird, and when I see a Leghorn lacking the faults that prejudiced me against the breed type as a whole, my dislike is not applied to that line.

Yes, this too!