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Ok, so I am new to poultry breeding, and I have my own ideas about how I want to approach it, so prepare to shoot me!
Several conversations along this line have helped shape my thinking. I grew up in a rural area and with the thinking that all farm animals had to pull their weight or they were culled, and I still believe this. It is common knowledge that production and fertility tend to be lower in many show quality lines in many breeds. It is also a well documented fact that inbreeding/linebreeding is behind this trend. By crossing two unrelated purebred lines of the same breed one can get the same hybrid vigor that is seen in mutts according to the the authors of "The Mating and Breeding of Poultry" . I understand that by line breeding one concentrates the desired phenotype genes and achieves a more consistent 'type' of bird through out the flock. But in our quest for perfecting the type we are losing what I feel are the most important things: production and vigor. I myself would rather see a bit of variety of type and maintain the production and vigor. So I plan on doing more careful outbreeding and minimize the linebreeding. I know many of the experienced show breeders will disagree with my plan, but what is the point of having the most perfect looking bird if it can't do its job?
I can't afford a flock of freeloading chickens, I expect them to pay for themselves, or they are off to freezer camp.
I see many trends in breeding show birds that don't make sense to me like breeding silkies to have such a big top knot that they can't find food and water when turned out in a large area, and breeding them to have a hole in the skull that the brain protrudes through.
This makes as much sense as it did breeding huge bodied quarter horses to have tiny feet for halter classes which gave us generations of navicular disease in horses. I also know that many people are practicing AI in breeds like Cochins with a lot of fluff. Does it make sense to breed them to be sooo fluffy that the can't procreate without human intervention? I don't think so. ( My daughter is also raising bantam cochins for 4H, and we don't plan to pratice AI). I just think we, the human breed, need to rethink our priorities and be careful about the long range effects of our choices are on the creatures we love. Sorry this is a rant, I love a friendly debate, and I won't be offended if lots of people disagree with me.
In fact I expect several will, but these thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for months and this topic is the perfect time to express them.
Oh I know where you are coming from. I have pondered many, many times about giving up on the wheatens completely. I spend all year feeding and cleaning up after these chickens that only produce 2 months out of 12? Its sooo frustrating, BUT I have also put so much time and money into them....I am giving them til February. If they don't improve (young ones should be laying soon) then I will take the few that do lay well and use them for making splits with my buffs. Certainly don't want to pass on the low-productivity genes.
I just got my BW/Ws in he last two months. I have two lines now and I am working on getting a few more so I won't be inbreeding/line breeding mine at all after I get my first generation from each line. It may mean I have 6 different pens of them, but I have never been a fan of in/line breeding to extremes. Ditto to the QH breeding - although most of that was from the Impressive line. I didn't understand why you'd breed a horse with a known potentially deadly disease so future generations can have or carry it. HYPP was a topic on many of my school papers - not that my teachers cared about my QHs like I did.
Anyways, the point is, I am hoping my breeding goals help with egg production and vigor. I am also aiming for nice, blue eggs and type, but yeah, we have a low income and I can't keep freeloaders either.
Quote:
Ok, so I am new to poultry breeding, and I have my own ideas about how I want to approach it, so prepare to shoot me!
Several conversations along this line have helped shape my thinking. I grew up in a rural area and with the thinking that all farm animals had to pull their weight or they were culled, and I still believe this. It is common knowledge that production and fertility tend to be lower in many show quality lines in many breeds. It is also a well documented fact that inbreeding/linebreeding is behind this trend. By crossing two unrelated purebred lines of the same breed one can get the same hybrid vigor that is seen in mutts according to the the authors of "The Mating and Breeding of Poultry" . I understand that by line breeding one concentrates the desired phenotype genes and achieves a more consistent 'type' of bird through out the flock. But in our quest for perfecting the type we are losing what I feel are the most important things: production and vigor. I myself would rather see a bit of variety of type and maintain the production and vigor. So I plan on doing more careful outbreeding and minimize the linebreeding. I know many of the experienced show breeders will disagree with my plan, but what is the point of having the most perfect looking bird if it can't do its job?
I can't afford a flock of freeloading chickens, I expect them to pay for themselves, or they are off to freezer camp.
I see many trends in breeding show birds that don't make sense to me like breeding silkies to have such a big top knot that they can't find food and water when turned out in a large area, and breeding them to have a hole in the skull that the brain protrudes through.
This makes as much sense as it did breeding huge bodied quarter horses to have tiny feet for halter classes which gave us generations of navicular disease in horses. I also know that many people are practicing AI in breeds like Cochins with a lot of fluff. Does it make sense to breed them to be sooo fluffy that the can't procreate without human intervention? I don't think so. ( My daughter is also raising bantam cochins for 4H, and we don't plan to pratice AI). I just think we, the human breed, need to rethink our priorities and be careful about the long range effects of our choices are on the creatures we love. Sorry this is a rant, I love a friendly debate, and I won't be offended if lots of people disagree with me.
In fact I expect several will, but these thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for months and this topic is the perfect time to express them.
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So just a thought HappyMTN, why not try to introduce some new blood into the wheatons you have? Buy a roo or hatch some eggs from a breeder whose lines you haven't used before that have good qualities you would like to see in your flock. You could improve the weaknesses and give your vigor and production a jump start at the same time? I don't think you need to give up on them, just freshen up your genetic pool so to speak.
