Breeding back to parents

[Redhead Rae]

I have a Black Cochin roo (only cochin I have, came as a free rare chick) who I absolutely love. I just bred him to my Dominiques and hatched out some babies. I heard of people "breeding back" to increase the percentage of a "prized bird" in their line. Can I breed his daughters/granddaughters back to him to get birds with more Cochin in them? Also, can I breed mothers to their sons/grandsons to get mutts that have more Dominique in them? I don't have a Dominique rooster or Cochin hens to breed from for pure birds. I know these birds won't ever really be "pure" versions of their parent breeds. But I wondering if it is advisable.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

I wouldnt they will be barnyard mutts even bred back to the parents

 

[Redhead Rae]

I wouldnt they will be barnyard mutts even bred back to the parents

Like I said. I realize these wouldn't ever be purebred birds, but I would like birds with a higher percentage of Cochin/Dominique without buying new birds

 

[WVduckchick]

You can try it, and keep using the ones with the best type, each generation, and several generations down the line they may look more pure bred. I *think* it may always be possible for the other breeds' traits to show up randomly. It may take a few generations to get really good leg feathering too.

I mean, that's how new breeds are made, and how new colors get mixed in from other breeds.

I had a couple of silkie/cochin crosses in with a beautiful bantam cochin cock. The hens looked very much cochin-y, but they did occasionally throw a darker skinned chick.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I think it would be cool to breed large, rose combed, birds with "cochin" feathering. I think I would have to trap nest to get rid of the recessive single comb since rose is dominant.

 

[centrarchid]

I have employed line-breeding multiple times. Generally, it is easier to breed back to a male as he can be used to cover multiple female offspring each generation. Best I would do breeding back to female was two male offspring per generation. Number of offspring you will find is important.

Best I did was breeding back to a cock for 5 generations which took 6 years. During same interval in parallel efforts with hens I got to only 3 or 4 generations. The hen's reproductive capacity drops off faster than the cocks and late season cockerels may not always be ready.

The effort is expensive.

 

[3riverschick]

Yup, go for it everything you state will work.
Karen

 

[Chooks man]

I have a Black Cochin roo (only cochin I have, came as a free rare chick) who I absolutely love. I just bred him to my Dominiques and hatched out some babies. I heard of people "breeding back" to increase the percentage of a "prized bird" in their line. Can I breed his daughters/granddaughters back to him to get birds with more Cochin in them? Also, can I breed mothers to their sons/grandsons to get mutts that have more Dominique in them? I don't have a Dominique rooster or Cochin hens to breed from for pure birds. I know these birds won't ever really be "pure" versions of their parent breeds. But I wondering if it is advisable.

crossing back the F1 progeny to there original parent stock will carries the recessive genes forward .will be a nightmare to get ready of them .
we call this method ( absorption crossing ) selecting one or both parent stock and cross back they progeny to them to keep a specific trait or type.
in your case you are going to back cross the F1 progeny come out of crossing the Black Cochin Rooster to a Dominique hen to they parents to make black Cochin / dominique like chooks .

the best way to do it without carrying forward any unwanted trait is to =
First cross the F1 progeny you have to them selves ( F1 X F1 ) to get an F2 .
this F2 will be very diverse ,a lot different phenotype and genotype .some will look more like B Cochin ,some more like dominique and other some how in between .
from this F2 select your future breeders and group them recording to they look and type ( Cochin like to a Cochin like ) . the Dominique to the dominique .the rest you don t need if you don t want to recreate a new breed .
Cross the F2 X F2 and get the F3 .
from this F3 progeny select your future breeders you want to cross back to the original parent stock you start with or some thing equivalent . Black Cochin and Dominique .
the F3 will have a better inbred chooks and they ll look like the original parent stock without any hidden recessive genes .
F3 Back cross to the original parents stock = BC1 ( first back cross) the foundation of your future line . from there just cross back to it .

P1 ( BC Roo) X P1 ( Dom Hen) = F1
F1 X F1 = F2 ( diverse progeny )
F2 ( BC type ) X F2 ( BC type ) = F3 most of this progeny will look more like a BC 75%
F2 ( Dom type) X F2 ( Dom type) = F3 Dom Type
F3 ( BC ) Back cross to BC original Rooster = BC1. better and well inbred chooks

all the best with your project .

chooks man

 

[Redhead Rae]

I thought crossing siblings was a bad idea because of inbreeding. Is that only true in pure breeds?

 

[centrarchid]

I thought crossing siblings was a bad idea because of inbreeding. Is that only true in pure breeds?

Generally it is not advantagous to mate full-siblings. An exception can be where you are trying to more predictably "fix" for a particular trait or make something homozygous for a particular allele, or remove an allele. It is not something I do to make for generally more robust offspring.