Breeding Advice Please.

[st_feathers]

Hi all,
Amazing forum, looks like a great source of information.
Looking for a little advice if possible folks.

I've kept poultry in the past but have come back to it after many years and I've never really been involved in breeding specific lines before.

I've recently sourced a batch of 12 Pekin eggs and have incubated them giving me a hatch of 10 eggs which I'm thrilled with. Really I'd like to run a cockerel (rooster) with these chicks when they are old enough. Obviously I am aware of line breeding but I'm also aware it's not ideal to breed 'brother/sister'. At the moment I have 2 options:

1. Assuming I get hens and cockerels from these eggs...allow them to breed together brother and sister (not really ideal?)
2. Source a second batch of eggs from the same source as this batch and then breed a cockerel from the second batch with the first batch of hens. The second batch of eggs will come from the same rooster as the first batch so will still be 'kind of' brother/sister.

From my understanding option one could have issues, but what about option 2?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[diamondsilkies]

Unlike people, chickens can usually go a few generations before running into any genetic problems due to inbreeding. Both options 1 and 2 should be fine. Your decision comes down to whether or not you want more variation (although I don't know if the difference will be that great, considering they are from the same source).

 

[RiverOtter]

A lot depends on your source. Are your Pekins all one type? Did the breeder only have one rooster per pen? You may be dealing with some fairly unrelated birds to start.

Also, don't worry too much about inbreeding. Humans have an inherent distaste for inbreeding because, as a species, we're not only already fairly inbred (any two random human being on Earth have an inbreeding coeffecient as high or higher than any two equally random Golden Retriever. Seriously, look it up) but also prone to damaging recessives.

While in other species, it's just not that big a deal. In mice, if you breed brother to sister for 20 generations, you get genetic clones - that's how they get laboratory strains.

In chickens, you can inbreeding for quite a while, and spiral breed even longer, without any trouble.

 

[st_feathers]

Thanks for the replies.

Re the Pekins: I basically have 10 chicks from one breeder and 1 other chick from a second source (this is a different colour/strain to the other 10), giving a flock of 11 in total. - I'm only really interested in possibly breeding from the first batch of 10 chicks though.

I had always thought with line breeding it was ok to breed father/daugher or mother/son, but not really brother/sister....from what you guys are saying that's obviously not the case. So that makes things a bit easier - not that easy in the current climate to source exactly what I want.

Thanks for the info and stay safe guys.

 

[diamondsilkies]

Thanks for the replies.

Re the Pekins: I basically have 10 chicks from one breeder and 1 other chick from a second source (this is a different colour/strain to the other 10), giving a flock of 11 in total. - I'm only really interested in possibly breeding from the first batch of 10 chicks though.

I had always thought with line breeding it was ok to breed father/daugher or mother/son, but not really brother/sister....from what you guys are saying that's obviously not the case. So that makes things a bit easier - not that easy in the current climate to source exactly what I want.

Thanks for the info and stay safe guys.

Yup, the normal line-breeding rules don't really apply here. You shouldn't have any problems breeding sibling chickens. Hope you stay safe and healthy as well.