Breeding Pen and Genetics Question?

Sachasmom

Songster
10 Years
Mar 1, 2009
567
1
141
Upstate NY
We're looking to try out a few breeds this year to try and settle on which one or two we want to work with. We have some odds and ends here that we're going to practice our hatching skills with first.

I have two breeding pens (Well, I will once I go back and make them escape proof!
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) and possibly a third.

What is a good number of hens to Roo for good fertility in the eggs? Three? Six? I guess I am wondering what the max # of hens I would want in with the Roo. Plus they would be free ranging (aka running amok) when not in the breeding pen, so I don't really want hoards of chickens here, seeing as how they roost and poop and lay anyplace but where they are supposed to!
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I was thinking I would need to rotate the birds out of the pens if I was playing with more than one breed, how long do the hens need to be in with the Roo before "he's the Daddy?"
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We're familiar with genetics and breeding of rabbits, but no so much in the chickens!
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Is there a good chicken color site that explains what color goes with what? If I get Cuckoo Marans and Copper Black Marans, can I breed the two colors together? What would I get?
 
People like to wait a while to be sure that the desired male is indeed the father of the chicks. And that's the safe way. However research has shown that eggs are fertilised by the sperm from the most recent mating. Thus theoretically the offspring ought to be from the desired male from when he first actually mates with the female.

If one decided to breed dark cuckoo marans with copper black marans it probably wouldn't be fair to sell the offspring as anything other than pets or project birds. If the male is copper black the offspring ought to be sex linked; the reciprocal cross ought to give all cuckoo offspring......but they wouldn't be pure.
 
Okay, so can someone explain to me why if you take two different colors of Maran (Or am I wrong, is cuckoo not a color? )the offspring are now mutts? Is this true with any color in any chicken breed? Like you can't crossed Speckled Sussex with Light Sussex?

If I cross a Red Rex with a Chin Rex, I will get weird colors, but they'll still be purebred Rex rabbits!

I'm just not getting the whole chicken genetics thing!
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So, does everyone think like a week in the breeding pen would be safe? I could just eat the eggs for the week or give them to the dogs, not like they'll go to waste!
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Mixing colours means they wouldn't breed true which causes problems for other people, if they are buying to breed, & it thus isn't fair. With chickens, when someone buys a bird intending to breed, it is reasonable for them to expect the bird to be what the vendor says it is. It is not reasonable for the bird to be carrying all manner of unwanted recessive genes causing all kinds of messes a generation or two down the line.
If one breeds a light Sussex with a speckled Sussex the offspring would be Sussex in type but colour wise the offspring would be a bit of a mess.
I don't know the Marans in question but dark cuckoo is the most common of the British type Marans, so there is a fair chance this bird might be British type or an intermediate, whereas copper black is the most common colour of the French type Marans (at least in France & probably the rest of EU). While the offspring of such a cross might not show that they had other genes hidden they would be there & would not breed true over time.
 
If it's a dark cuckoo male over the black copper female you will produce cuckoo and golden cuckoo. Golden cuckoo is a black copper with the barring gene. Essentially a barred brown red.
 
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They will no longer adhere to the accepted colors listed for their breed.... so while they are still purebred, they cannot be shown in any of the accepted color groups... plus the above mentioned reasons.

I'm not exactly sure how a breeding pen would work... but a hen can remain fertile from a mating for up to 3 weeks or so... so you would need to keep your breeders separated that long and then some to insure parentage... at least, I would think you would have to.
 
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If it's a dark cuckoo male over the black copper female you will produce cuckoo and golden cuckoo. Golden cuckoo is a black copper with the barring gene. Essentially a barred brown red.

Not from a first cross....
But using this as a first cross it can be a start to getting black, (dark cuckoo), golden cuckoo, silver cuckoo, (copper black) & silver black.​
 

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