Breeding back to parents

[Redhead Rae]

These wouldn't all be full siblings. I had my Black Cochin covering 6 different hens. 3 pure Dominique, 2 Dom/Buffs, and 1 Dom/RIR. All hens had the same sire (Dominique) though.

 

[Chooks man]

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

full Sibling mating is bad if is not done properly .
selective inbreeding is great for the chooks .it is a reason way we have so many great chooks lines .


chooks man

 

[Chooks man]

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.

inbreeding coefficient is identical in the first 3 generation if we compare matting the full sibling or matting back to the parents stock .
the difference start to show after the 4th generation .
with a full sibling we can go to 3 generation ( selective breeding NOT multiplying the chooks) without loosing any vigor .
the trick is how to make the F4 ?????????????
any body who know to make the proper F4 will end up with a pure and well inbred strain .from there will breed true each forward generation without adding any new blood to it .

I m working with a Birchen line ( start with a Birchen hen and mated her to a BC rooster) and I m the F4 . all big chooks ,healthy and productive .
now they are ready to be cross bred to other strain or varieties to fix the remaining fault .

doing the same thing with a Silver cuckoo marans .start with one rooster pure silver cuckoo and one wheaten hen . now I m in the Third generation F3 . did not loose nothing .they lay large dark eggs and they are healthy big chooks .

you can see the photos of my chooks = international Black copper marans thread .

chooks man

 

[Chooks man]

These wouldn't all be full siblings. I had my Black Cochin covering 6 different hens. 3 pure Dominique, 2 Dom/Buffs, and 1 Dom/RIR. All hens had the same sire (Dominique) though.

you have a healthy genetic variation for start . many hens ,that is good
you end up having half sibling if you mark the eggs of each hen ..
easier to work with .
PLUS you are out crossing 2 strain .expect hybrid vigor ( this hybrid vigor it self will keep you going for 3 generation )

mark each egg from each hen
tag the chicks as they hatch with different color tug or any thing else
mate the F1 half sibling between them selves to get the true F2 .you ll be amazed by the variation in this generation .
all sort of chooks .

chooks man

 

[Redhead Rae]

you have a healthy genetic variation for start . many hens ,that is good
you end up having half sibling if you mark the eggs of each hen ..
easier to work with .
PLUS you are out crossing 2 strain .expect hybrid vigor ( this hybrid vigor it self will keep you going for 3 generation )

mark each egg from each hen
tag the chicks as they hatch with different color tug or any thing else
mate the F1 half sibling between them selves to get the true F2 .you ll be amazed by the variation in this generation .
all sort of chooks .

chooks man

I don't know how to tell which of my hens laid which egg. And I let broodies hatch so I don't know which egg produced which chick. Is this still workable?

 

[Chooks man]

I don't know how to tell which of my hens laid which egg. And I let broodies hatch so I don't know which egg produced which chick. Is this still workable?

yeah will work .
we call this method PEN BREEDING .1 Rooster and few hens.
you have a good start because all your hens are sisters ,so they carry the same genes in different combination . they ll throw a vast array of chicks to select from
Select the best one from those F1 and breed them together to get the true F2 .
always select the healthy ,the pretty ,the big and productive chooks to breed from .

chooks man

 

[Redhead Rae]

What are the different methods of breeding? I thought I had to have a few hens for the rooster so the hens aren't over bred.

 

[Fairview01]

I just love to read all the doomsday prophecies concerning in/line breeding. This will be a fun project IF you have the time AND are willing to eat a lot of chicken during the process otherwise just purchase a couple hens and go from there.

Your first generation will be 50/50, the best daughters back to the father will give you a 75/25 and while possible to eventually get a full blooded Cochin long before you do the purebred rooster will probably die of old age and line/inbreeding depression will set in.

At best you will only get 2 generations of offspring every third year and one generation inbetween those years. Once you lose your purebred Cochin that's as far as you can go to getting a purebred Cochin since the new rooster is contaminated. Creating a purebred from two different breeds is similar to the half life of uranium. At a certain point there will be half left, and then half of that half, etc, etc. It never really goes away. It could take decades to create a pure genotype Cochin from your matings and only if you are willing to keep records of those matings.

I say go for it if you have the patience and time and appetite for the culls. Some of the best animals in the show ring are the result of careful brother/sister pairings.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I just love to read all the doomsday prophecies concerning in/line breeding. This will be a fun project IF you have the time AND are willing to eat a lot of chicken during the process otherwise just purchase a couple hens and go from there.

Your first generation will be 50/50, the best daughters back to the father will give you a 75/25 and while possible to eventually get a full blooded Cochin long before you do the purebred rooster will probably die of old age and line/inbreeding depression will set in.

At best you will only get 2 generations of offspring every third year and one generation inbetween those years. Once you lose your purebred Cochin that's as far as you can go to getting a purebred Cochin since the new rooster is contaminated. Creating a purebred from two different breeds is similar to the half life of uranium. At a certain point there will be half left, and then half of that half, etc, etc. It never really goes away. It could take decades to create a pure genotype Cochin from your matings and only if you are willing to keep records of those matings.

I say go for it if you have the patience and time and appetite for the culls. Some of the best animals in the show ring are the result of careful brother/sister pairings.

I raise chickens primarily for meat and eggs. I cull roosters all the time and, if I'm careful with my records and breeding methods, I can keep non-breeders around for eggs. I'm also planning on trying to get a market for eggs to offset the costs of my organic feed. I'm not really trying for show quality birds. This is, in part, an experiment in breeding. I think at some point I want to try to strengthen my meat bird lines (Delaware and New Hampshire for Indian River Broilers) with one or both of these Methods.

 

[Fairview01]

I'm don't have that much patience and at 60 don't figure I have a lot of time left.

There is another option. Heritage meat birds. I got my start in white Cornish from 2 individuals. Fat Daddy from the forum and a local individual. They take longer to mature than the 8 week meat hybrids but being purebred with a spiral breeding program you can go for decades before in/line breeding suppression sets in, if ever. The large whites are hard to find but imo well worth the effort. Here's a not so good pic of a rooster I picked up today at a show. He's a bit of a dirty bird being stained from taking dirt baths in red clay, but he's real nice.

There's a guy by the name of Frank Reese that created a niche market for heritage meat birds (do a search of his name) and part of his market includes the large white Cornish.