Beating a dead horse *Changed to Breeding Project Talk Update Post 71*

[ChickenPotPie]

Haiku......

Leave to a rabbit breeder...

Well said! I think we can just about pack up here with that.

Seriously, it's an excellent "map" of how to get what you want in any herd or flock. Rabbit breeders have the advantage of seeing data quickly in their breeding experiments. I've seen breeders buy this and that and the other to try to improve their herds but you know those that rise to the be the cream of the crop are those that have a vision,l line breed, and cull hard. ARBA judge Chris Zemny's presentation on how to cull (and breed) comes to mind. If anyone is going to the ARBA Convention's RabbitCon this year, you must go to her class as she explains basically everything that Haiku just did and makes a very clear picture of it.

As far as genetic diversity goes, you've got it in line breeding. In line breeding, you've got two lines (ie, you ONLY need two flocks and yes, they can be small). Chris keeps her lines separate for the most part. She's got Holland Lops so he's got a "head line" and a "type line". Essentially, she breeds them until she's got improved/excellent specimens from each line then she'll cross them, culls hard, and the results can be outstanding. Her Convention BIS Holland was from a buck with a crappy body but great head/ear and a doe with a really ugly head but killer body. I'll also add that she says she does line breeding so tightly that most would balk at it.

The thing is that you can breed anything to anything as long as you're not afraid to cull AND that line breeding can give you some of the BEST results and some of the WORST. You just gotta cull.

And, line breeding is not line breeding forever. It looks like this: line breed, line breed, line breed, outcross, line breed, line breed, line breed, outcross. (just an example).

I'm seeing excellent results with working with what I've already got in my barn (rabbits). I did a lot of research before I bought 5 years ago and bought the best I could afford at the time. Being a "nobody" to placing in the top 10 in my classes of a popular breed for showing in three years was amazing but it was no fluke. Over five years from the time I began, I have been tempted too many times to buy more rabbits and outcross too much. Its almost always been a mistake and set me back. I can honestly say that my very best rabbits have a very clear, straight genetic line. Yes, I outcross but it works best with either animals related to mine that have the parts I want (don't look much at pedigrees) or animals that are completely unrelated that I ONLY buy for "parts".

I've done outcrossing with other breeds (NOT the easy route!) and in just a few generations surprised myself.

The key there is to look for a specimen that resembles what you want and is not necessarily a good example of the breed that it is. That and a lot of patience.

It's really all a matter of
A) having a vision of what you want
B) breeding for specifics in different animals/lines
C) and then culling hard

In doing those three things, you could develop a chicken that layed Jell-0 eggs and pooped Skittles if you put your mind to it.

 

[Jared77]

HaikuHeritageFarm wrote But if you want a sustainable flock, and have decided that your ideal is a cross, wouldn't you basically have to maintain three separate flocks? One to reproduce your roo, one to reproduce your hens, and then the mixed flock for your meaties?

I see what your getting at but I'm not able to take it to that extreme. If I did then Id just do a line breeding project with multiple flocks.

Yes eventually I will have to order replacement breeders as the current breeders get older. I've got plenty of breeding experience (except in chickens which I've never done but linebreeding is linebreeding and culling is culling and culling hard has never ever been an issue). I'm very familiar with the practice I'm just trying to find a winning combination with F1 chicks instead of how many generations to get what I want? Yes its a short cut but thats the plan all along. Its no different than keeping a head line and the body line like was mentioned with the rabbit post above except they are different breeds vs the same breed and getting winners with F1.

The biggest hurdle I'm faced with is total number of birds. We've decided to stop ordering broilers and trying to breed/raise our own birds for consumption and eggs. We have the space but don't want a huge breeding project. I have no intentions of showing I'm just trying to produce a good meat bird and in the rest of the season have medium to large eggs. That's where I'm coming from. I guess that begs the question how many hens do I need to keep 2 flocks going? I need minimums not maximums. Originally I didn't plan on keeping more than say 6-8 hens and a single roo regardless of what breed I kept. As I've been unable to find what I want and thought about crosses I figured Id keep a single buckeye roo and 6-8 NH hens. That should fill the incubator twice in the spring which should at least 70 chicks (trying to estimate here with fertility rates etc) to send to freezer camp in the fall. Am I wrong with those numbers? If so please let me know.

If I could get away with say 10-12 hens total divided into 2 flocks I'd be totally open to the idea and would be more than happy to work with a single breed which was my goal all along but as I've read and read it seemed like it wasn't reasonable. I'm just trying to get the most out of a breeding project with the smallest amount of birds total.​

 

[DIYSeattle]

Im inthe same boat as Jared77 is. Whatever I do Id have to have a small flock. I can split it up but no more than 7 or 8 birds total.

I think having only 1 rooster will put a damper on a serious breeding program wont it? As far as progressing with a heritage or purebred bird. I am beginning to understand more about chickens but still ahve a long way to go.

The way it seems to me is that in a small flock perhaps crossbreeds is easier to keep running.

However if one had a single roo and say 2 or 3 hens from one line and 2 or 3 hens from another line you couls select a new rooster from the cockerels to replace the original rooster in a line breeding program. If you bought a really nice rooster you wouldnt likely know waht kind of offspring he would throw until the cockerels started growing and the hens started laying.

With the hens it would seem that any pullets that started laying early and a lot would be the ones to keep and make soup out of the slower laying hens so that you didint keep breeding late and low rate layers.

The new rooster I wouldnt know the best way to tell as you would only have one rooster to compare the flocks with (group a and group b comparisons and possibly switch them to check?). With only one rooster I really dont know what kind of plan to take, other than growth and maturity rate, size, filling out, and body structure.

I guess it is a start with what little knowledge I have of a small scale breeding plan. A logn time ago we had chickens and those that didnt cut the mustard went to freezer camp but it was for egg production which made it seem simple compared to this. That was a more haphazard approach with no real end in sight other than replacing poor layers. There was no body structure, growth or anything like that taken into consideration.

Any suggstions on how to manage a single rooster in a small plan with 2 groups of 3 or 4 hens of a heritage breed?

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

DIY, I don't think it has to be any more complicated than the background you have with selecting for layers.

When it comes time to butcher, you would simply save the biggest, best roo (basically the one you would most like to eat! LOL) and use him the next year. Go ahead and put the older roo in the freezer too, so you keep making progress.

You can keep separate lines of hens and rotate the one rooster back and forth every day or every couple of days depending on how many hens were in each group. Then you would take turns selecting which group you saved offspring from.

 

[knjinnm]

Hi,
Great thread.
I thought I read a post, can't find it now, which mentioned breeding a roo to a Cornish X. Has anyone done that in the past? If so what was the result?
Several years ago I kept two Cornish X hens but I never hatch any of their eggs which were often double yolk, now I wish I had tried some of the single yolk eggs.
Joe

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

I just got some cornish in and was thinking about keeping a couple hens to see if my SLW would breed with...

 

[DIYSeattle]

I may be wrong in thinking about the cornishxrocks commercially but to me it seems that they have so many issues that I dont want to keep them or use themt o breed with. I am more interested in working on a heritage breed or a mix of two if space permitted. I have a very limiting set of parameters that I must adhere to.

CornishX have genetincs that are from two or three or maybe more sets, the cornex as far as I know have fertility issues, leg issues, and ascites issues I dont know about how to deal with breeding it out of them. I feel like it is buying the Walmart of chickens to raise, or modeling my household after a McDonalds or something. I personally would use a cornish but not a cornishX commercial.

Im sure there are others that have experimented with breeding the cornex that can add some real information to it. I have a small area to keep my birds and fast growing birds would be nice but I have heard many times that the cornex birds eating patterns or growing or whatever makes them a really stinky bird. I tend to lean towards heritage breeds or older breeds, and while cornex have been in the works a long time the birds tahatwe have access to are not the breeding stock but the product of their breeding programs.

 

[averytds]

We have a Dark Brahma/EE X that we did a small hatch with our Brahma roo. We're keeping 2 of the pullets to breed back in with him and will keep a couple of their pullets, process or sell the hens and so on. Adding a handful of eggs to each project hatch until I feel we've a suitable roo from the offspring to replace him with. That's the plan anyways.

Since we haven't decided on the female side breedwise yet they'll be replaced in a couple years, but I don't see why something similar wouldn't work with them. It would be different if we were going for meeting the SOP, but since we're not, I don't see a problem.

Instead of large groups at once, there is a steady stream of smaller groups in different age ranges. They all free range at the same time, but keep to their respective age groups generally. Once a month to every other month I'll have 10 or less to process or sell rather than much larger numbers twice a year.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

While the cornish x does have it's problems it brings a whole new genetic gene pool to the table. I don't care what DP birds you cross there will never be any comparison to CX x whatever cross. There is so much to be gained from crossing these genetics into any program that your working on. Here are some pics of just ONE cross..... with using about 7-8 hens and a very good buckeye rooster. Haven't weighed any of these birds yet to see what their current weight is but they are thick and my guess would be 10+ pounds for the rooster and I would say 8+ for the hens. Most importantly is the structure of the breast meat, it's more in portion with the leg meat. Most DP's have massive thighs and little but long breast. With this cross I kept the thighs but added to the breast as you can see in the first two photos. I think of the cornish x more as a classier shopping center than WallyWorld.

See in this picture you can see the breast width of a male buckeye and in the picture below you can see his sons. A by-product of hybrid vigor and the cornish x's genes.

These are two hens side by side.... daughter and mother look again at how wide the backs are which makes for a better table bird and a more efficient skeletal structure

Same hen standing up the next two pics are of the rooster and another hen, this is one of four with these markings. I only have the one all white hen and the rest have the red lacing. Which is neat and something that would be cool to keep but I'm not good with feather/technical genetics.

Last pic is of the backs of the f1 rooster and his father. Again... huge difference.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Wow this is an amazing thread, thank you everyone for putting in such detail!

And Brunty- WOW!

Those pics are just amazing! Thank you for sharing, that makes me want to cross in some cornish with my flock even more! What is the egg laying rate on the offspring? Have you had any health problems with them?



Thank you!