Aspiring Chicken Farmer

[mealphamale]

The commercial red layer chickens, much like the commercial Cornish cross meat chickens, are the product of the same sort of selective breeding as a heritage chicken, but with the primary goal of increased egg production. Instead of breeding for a specific body conformation or feather colors , they bred the best layers to the best layers, and so on for many generations.

It’s essentially the same process people have been using for livestock for hundreds of years, just more finely tuned and carefully managed. No “GMO” (in the conventional sense) or cloning or weird science involved.

For me the primary reasons I’m interested in heritage breeds is so I can keep a reliable breeding flock. When you breed RIR and RIR you get RIR, but when you breed the commercial hybrids you get a bird that isn’t really similar to its parents in characteristics, it reverts back to a mixture of its grandparents breeds traits in an unpredictable way.

If you’re familiar with some popular western dog breeds think of the commercial chickens as a Labradoodle.
Poodle+poodle=Poodle
Lab+lab=lab
Lab+poodle=labradoodle
Labradoodle+labradoodle=????

Where in the ???? Litter of 8 puppies 3 look mostly but not quite like poodles, 3 look mostly but not quite like labs, and 2 are a strange combination of lab and poodle, but definitely not a labradoodle.

Without managed breeding, animals fairly quickly revert to ancestral traits for survivability. I live on an island in Canada with a large Feral Goat population. Several breeds of meat and dairy goats have been naturally selecting for almost 100 years, every now and then someone would bring in a new breed, and it would escape and join the feral herds. Though they are not native here, and several distinct breeds to start with, they thrive and now tend to look somewhat similar, with a few dominant coat and horn patterns.

I hope this was helpful for you!

TLDR: the commercial layers are essentially bred the same way as heritage birds but with different goals.

Now I understand it. Thanks for making things clear for me.

 

[Animals45]

Welcome to backyard chickens!