Breeding for PERSONALITY. AKA Hello SWEET ROO!

[CrazyTalk]

It may be that Science only recently proved and was able to isolate the genes for certain traits, but humans have been actively breeding traits into animals for 1,000's of years. We can't underestimate what out ancestors understood. Look at the wolf and the modern dog. Only by carefully choosing which to breed and which not to breed were we able to have the diversity that we have today.

Clearly, but this is very very different than what we do today. What we do today is much more directed - dogs were domesticated basically by hunters/etc killing dogs that threatened the tribe, or were overly aggressive - over hundreds of generations the animals drifted towards being more docile/obedient/etc. Hunters weren't backcrossing animals, and line breeding, and doing all that trying to isolate specific traits until after Gregor Mendel.

We've made more breeding progress in the last hundred years than we made in the 5000 before that. In the last 100 years we've gone from production hens laying 30 eggs a year to 300. We've developed meat breeds that grow 3 or 4 times faster, get bigger, etc. We've seen cows (as George mentioned) go from 6 lbs of milk a day to well over 100. This is all because we know how this stuff works now, and thus our breeding efforts are much more effective.

Picking the most docile animals is very different than just killing the ones that are overly aggressive - it's much more selective.

 

[Free Feather]

None of the traits mentioned above are good for anyone other than the people trying to make money or gain. That is horrible for the ones being bred, the people taking care of their more natural animals, and the environment.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

We both expect the same thing, but I prefer to cull as few man (or woman) fighting roosters as possible. If you are breeding to a standard you will find that there are already enough reasons to
cull a rooster without adding behavior to the list.

I prefer not to butcher anymore roosters than is absolutely necessary. However I also absolutely loath having to enter a coop or brood pen and keeping the feed bucket between me and the rooster just to give him a moving target to shoot at instead of sniping at my shins. There is an old saw that says, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I therefor would rather prevent problems that act to solve them after the fact.

Some claim that the mother hen has a greater influence on the DNA inherited by a cockerel than the rooster imparts to his sons. Likewise the brood rooster influences his daughters genetics more than the hen does. At any rate I doubt that there is going to be any appreciative improvement in the personality of a rooster unless the male and the female line both are relentlessly culled to the same degree. So in a mixed flock of chickens, how much improvement can you attribute to selectively culling the male line and how much improvement is pure blind luck and therefor will not be repeated or passed on to the next generation?

This is not written to criticize or to argue but to urge people to think about their every action as their actions relate to their chickens.

Well, the thread is breeding for personality, not culling for personality. So yes, we're considering the hen's contribution also. And as others have pointed out, we don't need to cull the hens in in order for this to work.

According to Dr Judy Neilson of Purdue University, a hen can store sperm for up to 30 days http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/nielsen/www245/lecnotes/avianrepro.html
Thus, we can be sure that the hen and cock we are breeding together by isolating the hen (or group of hens) for 30 days before introducing the cock. Or collect eggs for 30 days before collecting the eggs we intend to set.

Maybe some of us will be trying to attain a breed standard. I probably will, since I've got Maria Hall JGs. But many of us here might be simply trying to get a line of birds who tend to have gentler roosters, without adhering to a show breed standard.

 

[Free Feather]

30 days is not always the case with some breeds.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

At the beginning of the 20th Century the average milk yield of an American dairy cow was somewhere on the order of 6 pounds per day. Today the average yield per milk cow is a 100 pounds per day or better.

I know that dairy cow husbandry has improved greatly in the last 114 years, but this staggering increase in milk wasn't achieved with the use of Bovine rDNA but by selective breeding.
I can assure you that the Universities where the selective breeding experiments occurred didn't milk their bulls to get this kind of increase but they selected from both the male and female lines and then they bred, in-bred, in-bred some more and then they tested and they culled, Culled, CUlled, CULled, CULLed, CULLEd, and then CULLED some more to get to where the dairy business is today production wise.

Conversely, at the end of the 19th Century many farmers still allowed their milk cows to free range like some chicken keepers think that their chickens do to day. Any bull could and did mate with these cows. However I am sure that dairy farmers for the last 8,000 years have been saving replacement heifers out of their best producing cows but milk production in 1899 was still stuck where it was ci. 6,000BCE.

Again, I am not trying to argue but to point out to the new chicken keeper what should be obvious if we will all only think about it.

If you look at the history of Jersey Giants, you will see that at least a few chicken breeders in New Jersey understood how to breed for a desired set of characteristics. And gentleness was very likely in that set, since JGs are well known for being laid back birds.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

30 days is not always the case with some breeds.

30 days is too short? Or too long?
Have you got better information to share? Because this is something we are going to have to be sure of.

 

[LindaB220]

30 days is too short? Or too long?
Have you got better information to share? Because this is something we are going to have to be sure of.

Yes, I've heard that sometimes it does take weeks longer. Just what I read on one of the threads.

 

[Free Feather]

I mean that some breeds, and even depending on the age of the rooster, hold it for no where near that long. Like only two weeks at most. I am sorry, I am not sure where I read it, but I have seen it more than a few times. I tried hatching australorp eggs just a couple weeks after what I think was her last successful mating, and they were not fertile. That could have been for a different reason, I guess, and it would not hurt to be extra sure to wait a month, but it is not always necessary.

 

[LindaB220]

Well, the thread is breeding for personality, not culling for personality. So yes, we're considering the hen's contribution also. And as others have pointed out, we don't need to cull the hens in in order for this to work.

According to Dr Judy Neilson of Purdue University, a hen can store sperm for up to 30 days http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/nielsen/www245/lecnotes/avianrepro.html
Thus, we can be sure that the hen and cock we are breeding together by isolating the hen (or group of hens) for 30 days before introducing the cock. Or collect eggs for 30 days before collecting the eggs we intend to set.

Maybe some of us will be trying to attain a breed standard. I probably will, since I've got Maria Hall JGs. But many of us here might be simply trying to get a line of birds who tend to have gentler roosters, without adhering to a show breed standard.

Looking over this information it looks like they are maybe talking about sex links. Start laying at 4-5 mon up to 270 a year. That sounds like a hybrid. So I'm assuming that the ones that take longer than 30 days would be the LF heritage. It would be nice to find out for sure.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I mean that some breeds, and even depending on the age of the rooster, hold it for no where near that long. Like only two weeks at most. I am sorry, I am not sure where I read it, but I have seen it more than a few times. I tried hatching australorp eggs just a couple weeks after what I think was her last successful mating, and they were not fertile. That could have been for a different reason, I guess, and it would not hurt to be extra sure to wait a month, but it is not always necessary.

Turkey hens are able to lay a whole clutch of fertile eggs after only one mating. Chicken hens on the other hand can only lay fertile eggs for about 5 or 6 days (if that) after her last date of service. If you wish to be absolutely sure that the chicks are out of one particular rooster then you will need to let that hen lay out and start setting before she is mated to a new rooster, that is if you absolutely positively must have chicks out of him.