breeding birds for my program

[Fairview01]

The quality of your birds are so far very, very nice. So much so that I'd like to get a contact from you for future reference.

With line breeding, it is advised to bring in new males from previous generations every 4 or 5 generations. Line breeding is the best way to lock in desired traits, but it is also the best to expose unwanted characteristics and hidden recessive diseases. For this reason, pedigrees need to be kept and close attention to who mates with who should be taken.

And bringing an outcross in so.frequently only serves to mask the undesirable traits in a heterozygous gene pairing. Line and in breeding should be seen as a double edged saber. It not only sets the positive traits but allows negative recessive traits to be combined in a homozygous state so they can be eliminated not masked.

There are only 3 reasons to perform an outcross. Lack of size, lack of vigor and lack of early spring fertility. And an outcross should always be performed with a hen from the desired line .

 

[aSoftsilkie]

And bringing an outcross in so.frequently only serves to mask the undesirable traits in a heterozygous gene pairing. Line and in breeding should be seen as a double edged saber. It not only sets the positive traits but allows negative recessive traits to be combined in a homozygous state so they can be eliminated not masked.

There are only 3 reasons to perform an outcross. Lack of size, lack of vigor and lack of early spring fertility. And an outcross should always be performed with a hen from the desired line .

thank you so much for your help! I so appreciate it! for me line breeding is extremely difficult just to keep track of things and to understand it. thank you for your suggestions and book, I will order that to learn the genetics and types of flaws and how to breed out of them. if there is by any chance anymore tips you could help with in line breeding, that would be awesome! an d a registered silkie means that they are vaccinated for influenza and means that they do not carry marek's disease. you can sell silkies for a higher price when registered, but over all it just means you don't have to receive a health check when arriving to shows. but if a bird possibly passes you must record the death and why, or a sell to a client or any sort. thanks again!

 

[aSoftsilkie]

The quality of your birds are so far very, very nice. So much so that I'd like to get a contact from you for future reference.

With line breeding, it is advised to bring in new males from previous generations every 4 or 5 generations. Line breeding is the best way to lock in desired traits, but it is also the best to expose unwanted characteristics and hidden recessive diseases. For this reason, pedigrees need to be kept and close attention to who mates with who should be taken.

thank you so much for the advice! if there is any way I could improve my line breeding, don't be afraid to call out my flaws in my program. if you ever need to reference me or contact me, you can do so!

 

[Fairview01]

thank you so much for your help! I so appreciate it! for me line breeding is extremely difficult just to keep track of things and to understand it. thank you for your suggestions and book, I will order that to learn the genetics and types of flaws and how to breed out of them. if there is by any chance anymore tips you could help with in line breeding, that would be awesome! an d a registered silkie means that they are vaccinated for influenza and means that they do not carry marek's disease. you can sell silkies for a higher price when registered, but over all it just means you don't have to receive a health check when arriving to shows. but if a bird possibly passes you must record the death and why, or a sell to a client or any sort. thanks again!

Why not just be NPIP certified at the AI level then. Much simpler imo and then health checks aren't needed. When i attend a show i submit a 9-3 with my entry form.

The book I recommended does not discuss any one breed in detail. It discusses breeding techniques, genetics and dispels the notion that it's necessary to take a second mortgage on your home to have show stock.

 

[NNYchick]

@Fairview01 Im wondering what you think about pen breeding? I’ve been researching as I’m trying to develop my breeding plan and I’d like to keep a closed flock. With my space I would divide my coop into 3- a pen on one variety keeping 3-5 hens and 1 rooster and same in second pen just a different variety and a third for grow outs. Keep the best pullets and replace with less hens each year. Keeping the same rooster till I grow out a cockerel that is superior to him.

 

[Fairview01]

@Fairview01 Im wondering what you think about pen breeding? I’ve been researching as I’m trying to develop my breeding plan and I’d like to keep a closed flock. With my space I would divide my coop into 3- a pen on one variety keeping 3-5 hens and 1 rooster and same in second pen just a different variety and a third for grow outs. Keep the best pullets and replace with less hens each year. Keeping the same rooster till I grow out a cockerel that is superior to him.

If by pen breeding you are referring to a spiral breeding program i think it has 4 inherent weakness.

First it's painfully slow to create a stable breeding family. My goal is to create a family that has stable genetics so i dont have to hatch 400 eggs a year to be able to find 14 birds of exceptional quality. A spiral program will get the breeder there but it will take many years for the negative recessive genes to start show up and be eliminated and replaced with desirable positive genetics. By being blind to the parentage and breeding the best to the best i am starting to see those negative revessives genetics in the 3rd generation and eliminating them without an outcross. I welcome and want those negative recessives to show up as soon as possible. The sooner they show up the sooner they can be eliminated and sooner i will have a stable family line of genetics.

Second a spiral breeding pen requires a lot of room. I have 2 breeding pens occupied by 2 pullets and one hen, 4 very small bachelor pens and one grow out pen.

Third if a 3 pen spiral pen program is being used i think breeders have a tendency to feel a self impossed pressure to fill the 3rd pen to quickly compromising the quality of the breeding stock to fill that pen. Filling that 3rd pen for the sake of filling it results in breeding down.

Lastly it's complicated (too me) and there are too many rules.

First let me preface my opinions with there are as many perfect breeding plans as there are breeders. This is the bible of breeding plans according to me.

To keep a closed flock or family for an extended period of time - 10 or more years there must be some degree of genetic variability within the family. This variability is derived from at least 3 different cockerels from the family. I only have two breeding pens. After grow put I rarely can get more than 4 superior pullets that I'm satisfied with and i only save the 2 best hens from the previous years. This gives me 2 pullets and one hen for each pen. I have 4 small pens for 3 breeding cockerels and the best cock bird from the previous year. Sometimes i dont have 3 breeding cockerels. When breeding season starts i rotate my cockerels and cock bird into each pen for a one month period. This gives me my genetic variability.

Everything hatched during the week gets thrown into the same brooder. They get wing tagged with hatch dates and parentage. I start culling the day they hatch and every seven days for six weeks.

When it comes time for final grow out cull i don't care who they came from. Only the best survive the final cull and only the best breed. If i have a hen or cock bird older than 18 months I've got a problem with quality.

 

[Fairview01]

@Fairview01 Im wondering what you think about pen breeding? I’ve been researching as I’m trying to develop my breeding plan and I’d like to keep a closed flock. With my space I would divide my coop into 3- a pen on one variety keeping 3-5 hens and 1 rooster and same in second pen just a different variety and a third for grow outs. Keep the best pullets and replace with less hens each year. Keeping the same rooster till I grow out a cockerel that is superior to him.

In all fairness the keystone of my entire breeding program is centered on 2 - 5 pen GQF brooder batteries and 3 - 4 pen GQF extended height grow out batteries and 12 poultry exhibition cages. Since i cull on a weekly basis the population is declining and i can keep my chicks in these pens for 8 weeks up to 12. For the final cull before moving to the grow put pen i place 3 birds in 3 pens each. The best bird from each of those cages are placed in a fourth cage. The best one from that cage is the one that makes it to the grow out pen. Sometimes i only have 1 bird make it to grow out and rarely more than 3.

 

[NNYchick]

Yes I guess what I explained is a scaled down version of spiral breeding. Keeping just one pen head rooster stays indefinitely and each year you add his best daughter. I see the downfall is that when the head cock eventually will need to be replaced either with out crossing (and all the issues that come with this) or with a son of his Which will result in sibling breeding to my understanding this is ok for a few generations but I would still end up needing to out cross at some point.
I like your idea of multiple cock birds and rotating. I need to convince my husband he has to build me a bachelor pad so I can keep more roosters.
I don’t plan on hatching 100’s a year, maybe a few dozen. I know this will be slow and I may end up with no keepers. I just don’t have the room to keep the amount of silkie hens it would take to hatch that many.

 

[Fairview01]

Yes I guess what I explained is a scaled down version of spiral breeding. Keeping just one pen head rooster stays indefinitely and each year you add his best daughter. I see the downfall is that when the head cock eventually will need to be replaced either with out crossing (and all the issues that come with this) or with a son of his Which will result in sibling breeding to my understanding this is ok for a few generations but I would still end up needing to out cross at some point.
I like your idea of multiple cock birds and rotating. I need to convince my husband he has to build me a bachelor pad so I can keep more roosters.
I don’t plan on hatching 100’s a year, maybe a few dozen. I know this will be slow and I may end up with no keepers. I just don’t have the room to keep the amount of silkie hens it would take to hatch that many.

I hatched 400 last year with a combination 8 pullets and hens. It's a whole other story but i use preincubation techniques to store eggs and set every 7 days. Heritage cornish aren't known to be great egg layers. I can count on just 4 eggs per week per hen, more or less. It really doesnt take many females to get a lot of eggs.

I hatched 400 eggs this year but 350 were culled before they left the brooder. I don't know anything about silkies but my techniques can apply to all breeds.

Each breed has an SOP. I'll have to use my cornish as an example. Heritage cornish should be THE example of the supreme meat bird. So they need to be large double breasted wide backed birds. When i pull the Leahy drawer out on hatch day the smallest 10% at a minimum are culled before they even make it to the brooder. Small marbles will never grow into supreme meat birds. At the end of one week there are always several chicks that just aren't growing as aggressively as their hatch mates. They are immediately culled. Too carry all that meat they need to have large bone. At the end of 2 weeks there will be chicks with noticeably larger shanks than the others. All the thin, small round shaped shank birds are culled. I could go on and on with examples and beat a dead horse in the ground.

It is impossible to look at a 2 or 3 week old chick and see characteristics that support the SOP. it is possible though to see those chicks that have glaring deficiencies that wont develop the characteristics that suppory the SOP however. The SOP for my cornish calls for large bone that is visible in the shanks. In the chick stage i don't select for that large shank, i select those that dont have the large shanks and cull those. When the Standard call for 'X' in the adult bird i look for the chicks that are exhibiting the 'Y' . As a chick grows their shanks will increase in size however a thin shanked cornish chick will NEVER have shanks as thick as an adult cornish that had noticeably thicker shanks as a chick.

No matter the quanity or quality of feed provided or how long its allowed to grow out a bad chick will NEVER develop good characteristics and a good chick will only get better. Why invest feed dollars, our time and valuable space on growing birds out that we know wont grow into good birds when we can see that during the chick stage.

It's not how much space you have to grow out birds that counts, it's how many you can hatch and cull before they go to the grow out pen. Knowing and being able to identify what characteristics support the SOP is crucial in the grow out pen. I consider knowing and being able to identify those characteristics that dont support the SOP and culling those individuals during the chick stage to be more important than the former. The later creates an overall higher quality population of juevenilles to select from when considering the SOP.

It is no small act of faith that first season to start aggressively culling while the chicks are still in the brooder and ending up with a handful of chicks out of the original tray of 40 and infrequently none.

The one significant weakness i think you have created iin your program is your cock bird. If he hasn't been replaced by a superior son by the third year your quality is not improving or is deteriorating. Nothing in my beeding program remains in active use after the second season of breeding. Most have served their purpose after the first season.

One of my young cockerels matched up wonderfully genetically with nearly all the females. Each of his cockerel sons were better than he was by light years. I had 3 options.

1. Keep him and his harem together as a unit and hope they would throw something better than this year.

2. Allow him to breed to pullets hoping for the same result as the previous year.

3. Send him to camp Kenmore, keep the 2 best hens and 4 pullets and use his cockerel sons.

Option 3 is the only viable option imo. Option 1 is posdible but very improbable i would get something significantly better by repeating last year's breeding group. By breeding him to any of his pullet daughters in option 2 i would be breeding down since i would be reinforcing his weaknesses as well.as his strengths.

Quality improvent is all about exerting extreme selective pressure in the breeding program.

 

[NNYchick]

I have spent the last year studying the SOP and reading the breeder forums on the American Silkies Bantam Club website and asking those who show and breed silkies questions and learning what right looks like and explication of faults. I have my cull list started and I’m sure I’ll be tweaking it as I hatch and see what hatches.
Right now I’m still growing out and come spring I will have to decide whether I can set up 2 pen of separate varieties (color) or only work on one color.