Basic advice for a beginner breeder, please.

[Mareslee]

I have been running a small flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes just for eggs for about 3 years, have raised a small number of chicks (all roos!) and now think I'd like to have a go at breeding.
I'm hoping to have a go at Blue Laced Reds if i can find some, but would anyone mind offering me some answers to some pretty dumb questions?
Practically speaking, how many birds would you run for one breed - would i need several unrelated trios at once, or can you take a generation at a time approach?
How close (relationwise) is it normal to breed chickens? If i started with one trio, presumably i wouldn't breed the pullets back to the father, so straight away i'd be needing a second rooster? We live on 10 acres, so have room enough, but I find the things I do best are the things I start simply, so I don't want to have to start off with a massive set up. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

 

[call ducks]

Welcome,

You can start with 2 lines (say two trios) and breed rooster 1 to hens from line 2. And then you can line breed, line breeding is a good choice although you can have a lot of records going at one time. I would seguest you look into Zooeasy For Poultry it is a very nice program, and is easy to see records.

 

[tadkerson]

Back crossing offspring to a father or mother is ok in chickens. This is called line breeding. You want to use a very good representative of a breed/variety to start a line.

Tim

 

[Mareslee]

Thank you for your replies, that sounds encouraging!
I'll have to start seriously looking for my starter birds.
One more dumb question - whenever I look at breeder's websites, they always seem to have pictures of large flocks of birds of different breeds running around together, but surely you can't do this with birds you are breeding from - because then you couldn't control the parentage, and I always find if I take a hen out of the main group to raise chickens, she gets a hard time for a bit when she goes back with the flock, so even separating them temporarily while they produce the eggs/chicks you need to identify and then putting them back wouldn't work? Even brother roosters raised together eventually started having some pretty bloody fights, so I'd have to commit to multiple separate pens, yes?

 

[punky rooster]

Quote:
For best results in breeding, multiple pens. What you might be able to do is just put some screening between them so when reintroduced they don't have problems.