American serama thread!

[nchls school]

The next generation. Not as good as I would like; not by a far shot. BUT, they do show improvement over the first generation.


Sandy-12 weeks 8.7 ounces


Ashes-12 weeks 10.7 ounces. Love the coloration. I hope she makes a go broody foster hen.


Midget-20 weeks 10.7 ounces. I'm still waiting for an egg with a shell.


Teeny-9.5 ounces 12 weeks I wish the red lacing showed in the picture.


Junior-11 weeks 9.5 ounces


Junior again He has a longer than normal tail for his age. Wonder what it will look like when he matures. He was the only one that was freaked having his picture taken. Might have the frizzle gene.


Tiny Tina-7.8 ounces 11 weeks. The picture does not do her justice. May also have the frizzle gene.

Another month or so I should be getting my third generation. I hope the improvement continues. This generation shows some improvement in stance. Now how do I improve the back length? It is obvious that it is not a dominant trait.

Oddly, these smaller birds are maturing much slower than their parents. The father to most of these was providing me with fertile eggs at 12 weeks. These roosters are no where near mature.

 

[Ra_]

The next generation.


Ashes-12 weeks 10.7 ounces. Love the coloration.



Teeny-9.5 ounces 12 weeks

She is cool and he is awesome.

 

[nchls school]

She is cool and he is awesome.

I wish she were smaller like Sandy. Ashes is quite broad for her age and I think she is going to be much larger than the other pullets; heck, she already is! Teeny, I think will be a big improvement over the roosters I am currently using. Thank you for the kind words.

 

[formerchickenlass]

Another month or so I should be getting my third generation. I hope the improvement continues. This generation shows some improvement in stance. Now how do I improve the back length? It is obvious that it is not a dominant trait.

These are questions of concern to me as well, how to improve this and that trait through breeding. Genetics is SO complicated!

While it is difficult to find serama-specific information, I HAVE been reading a book that gives a general treat on chicken genetics that factor into the form and feathering. According to that author, a lot of the traits that would factor into type are quantitative. What this means for something like back length, assuming my understanding of the reading is correct, is that there are a number of genes and gene modifiers at play. Some dominant and others recessive, and so you want to select for back length generation after generation by always pairing up the birds with the shortest backs and eventually it should lead to a concentration of the genes you're after. You're basically selecting for a higher quantity of the desired genes. Improving the genetics, the genotype, by breeding for the best phenotype, the outward appearance.

So for example: If rooster X has 1 genetic trait that causes him to have a shorter back, and hen Y has a different trait that factored into her shorter back, breeding them should provide some offspring that have both X and Y traits and therefore hopefully shorter backs than parents. You can breed offspring back to parents to continue increasing the probability of matching identical desirable genes. What this means is that offspring will become increasingly homozygous (have two copies, and thus a visible outward expression) for more recessive genetic traits that the parents carried but weren't expressing as they only had one copy. With seramas especially we can see how there are lots of "hidden" recessive traits at play that can combine when both parents are carriers and give us such variety of offspring colors and shapes.

So visually it's somewhat simple, you're generally just looking to breed your best to your best as much as you can while at the same time not getting too inbred. Basically if you're inbreeding (concentrating your recessive traits) too much, you tend to start seeing a lot of negative traits come to the surface too, and you can restrict the gene pool to the extent that you start losing valuable genetic traits. There are also traits that for the sake of fitness are better when an animal only has one copy. For that reason it can be good to have a couple of genetic lines going in your breeding program so you can make crosses periodically.

One way you can speed up a breeding program is to bring in better stock to work with. I started not very long ago at all with what I think would be considered pet quality birds. I've hatched over 20 offspring from them and so far 1 shows real promise to me as a breeder. I can breed her back to father and continue to the next generation, and so on for the next few years. But that's a lot of birds to run through and have to sell off as pet quality in the meantime.

So I decided to buy some show quality birds both to bring in a second bloodline and to speed things up. My plan is to primarily or exclusively hatch out of my show breeders this year. Meanwhile I'm holding onto a lot of my pullets already hatched from my original flock, even though they are average or pet quality. What I'm hoping is that I'll hatch some nice short-backed well-typed roosters from my show breeders and then I'll pair them to the less typey pullets. This should improve my original bloodline and at the same time I can also be making matches among the cream of the crop birds and continue improving those lines.

My end goal isn't to show birds personally, but I want to improve all my birds and be able to sell birds to others who are interested in showing and/or breeding toward show quality. I hope to get my original line up to a quality where I can sell a lot of the offspring as starter breeding pairs, which I think will probably work better for local sales at swaps and such, and then also sell show birds from the offspring of my nicer pairs once I'm at a level where I'm ready to ship birds.

 

[formerchickenlass]

A question-Is there literature available that shows the various traits for serama and the genetics of the traits. Breeding these little birds would be so much easier if it were known what is dominant, recessive, incomplete dominant, multi gene, and codominant.

Otherwise breeding is just a shot in the dark and no way of knowing which bird to pair with which bird.

The book I mentioned before is by Brian Reeder. It's An Introduction to the Form and Feathering of the Domestic Fowl. It's maybe $35 for a print copy but you can get a digital copy for $15 on the google play store.

 

[solomine]

Babies from @Ra_!

 

[solomine]

And from @TJChickens!

 

[Ra_]

Babies from @Ra_ !

Woohoo!

 

[nchls school]

These are questions of concern to me as well, how to improve this and that trait through breeding. Genetics is SO complicated!

My end goal isn't to show birds personally, but I want to improve all my birds and be able to sell birds to others who are interested in showing and/or breeding toward show quality. I hope to get my original line up to a quality where I can sell a lot of the offspring as starter breeding pairs, which I think will probably work better for local sales at swaps and such, and then also sell show birds from the offspring of my nicer pairs once I'm at a level where I'm ready to ship birds.

This is precisely what I am trying to do. Unfortunately, with a very limited budget. But I am learning. We've bought eggs from so-called show birds and they were poorer quality than the eggs from pet quality. Live and learn. Now I know I should have bought from a reliable source. At the time I believed the source was good. Belonging to this group has shown me the folly of my ways.

I have saved your post to my desk top so I can refer to it as needed.

Thank you for your reply and the information.

 

[nchls school]

Solomine-absolutely wonderful and so many wonderful chicks. Lucky-lucky!