I am looking at another batch of eggs to start incubating. I really love these wheaton marans I found on Gabbard Hatching Eggs website. My question is (and I really hope I'm asking in the right place!) if I buy a half dozen or so from her, and hatch the eggs successfully, and they grow up and I want to hatch eggs out of them, *takes a breath* do I need eggs from someone else as well or can they be bred to each other and hatched out? Thanks!
I think you can breed them in a fashion called line breeding. I don't know the details real well, but you an search line breeding on the forum. I remember seeing a post by Speckledhen that describes it really well.
Line breeding (if indeed all the birds you are hatching would be related) is a common breeding technique used by many breeders. The only line-bred cross I'm aware of that is hazardous on the spot is sibling mating, as their genes are too similar. If you start out with enough birds, some people never have to introduce new blood. But if you're starting out with only a small flock, then eventually you would have to add new blood or the birds would become too inbred. Hope this helped
Pathfinders (Laura Haggarty) has written an article about it. http://pathfindersfarm.com/Spiral.html She has other articles you may be interested in here ... http://pathfindersfarm.com/Articles.html
You may want to read through this tread. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=252720&p=1
