Breeding Production Lines

[silkie1472]

As we all know, hatcheries have their best egg layers that they do not recommend for reproduction because “they will not retain the same characteristics in future generations.” However, have any of y’all put this to test? I will be doing so soon, and I’d like to hear from y’all before breeding production lines.

 

[thechickenswamp]

I haven’t breed production layers to themselves but I did breed some crosses and even if you cross with a big rooster like a Brahma the offspring are very small. Probably because the use of leghorns

 

[EggSighted4Life]

If you mean production reds or that type... they will still breed with approximate qualities just not TRUE to their parent since they are crosses or they also won't be sex linked in future generations if you're talking sex linking. I understand genetics well enough to understand that. I don't consider sex link to be the best egg layers personally... though they do obviously put out a lot more eggs than some more dual purpose breeds. Biggest issues I see with production type birds is the excessive reproductive issues that set in after only a couple years reducing bird longevity and increasing heart break to keepers... who would even want to breed THAT forward?

If you're talking about breeding a high production bird like RIR, or Leghorn... those will breed just fine... regardless of which hatchery they came from.

Breeder birds aren't always easy to find... so I might use hatchery chicks... I just order a LOT of them and grow them all out, selecting only the best of the best and selling or eating the rest. With any hatching there is always extra cockerels... Are ya looking for MEAT production??

I've bred a lot of birds, I may not be grasping your question correctly but breeding for what YOU want... is always an adventure!

 

[Ridgerunner]

It took a few minutes but I think I understand what you are talking about. Some hatcheries sell commercial egg laying hybrids. These are typically four-way hybrids, just like the Cornish X meat birds. Different flocks produce the grandparents of the actual hybrid. This link shows how it works for the meat hybrids, It basically works the same way for the egg laying hybrids.

https://www.chicken.org.au/chicken-meat-production/

These can be red sex links or back sex links, but even the commercial leghorns are developed the same way. Not all red sex links, black sex links, or leghorns are the commercial hybrids, some are just regular chickens. So you have to be a bit careful when you buy the sex links to know what you are getting.

Hybrids do not breed true, whether it is a hybrid chicken or a hybrid tomato. It is not just one gene involved, there are many different gene pairs involved. So when you cross hybrids you aren't sure what you will get. Some genes may affect egg size, some egg shape, some frequency of lay, some feed conversion, some body size or conformation, the list goes on and on.

When you cross the "pure" birds that make the parents and then the actual laying birds themselves you know what you will get, just like that hybrid tomato. But when you cross hybrids all those different gene pairs line up randomly. You might get blind lucky and get a bird pretty close to a hybrid parent, or those genes may go together in a different random way. The good production genetics are still there, but they will be unlikely to line up in the most efficient way. It's highly probable that most of the birds you get will be much better at egg laying than a standard hatchery quality chicken but it is also possible you could get one that really doesn't measure up. Crossing hybrids works that way. When you cross "pure" parents to get the hybrid you get very consistent results. when you cross crosses the results are not consistent. That doesn't mean they are all bad, many may be very good. The way you handle that is to hatch a lot of chicks and keep the best for breeding.

You will never be able to reverse engineer the four grandparent lines. The chickens you produce will not be up to the standards of the hybrid layers. But if you hatch enough chicks and carefully select your breeding birds you can come up with a a pretty good laying bird in a few generations.

 

[silkie1472]

If you mean production reds or that type... they will still breed with approximate qualities just not TRUE to their parent since they are crosses or they also won't be sex linked in future generations if you're talking sex linking. I understand genetics well enough to understand that. I don't consider sex link to be the best egg layers personally... though they do obviously put out a lot more eggs than some more dual purpose breeds. Biggest issues I see with production type birds is the excessive reproductive issues that set in after only a couple years reducing bird longevity and increasing heart break to keepers... who would even want to breed THAT forward?

If you're talking about breeding a high production bird like RIR, or Leghorn... those will breed just fine... regardless of which hatchery they came from.

Breeder birds aren't always easy to find... so I might use hatchery chicks... I just order a LOT of them and grow them all out, selecting only the best of the best and selling or eating the rest. With any hatching there is always extra cockerels... Are ya looking for MEAT production??

I've bred a lot of birds, I may not be grasping your question correctly but breeding for what YOU want... is always an adventure!

You did grasp it right! Personally, I look closely at genetics. Something I’d like to share is that many (“most” might be more accurate) hatcheries did not sell pure-bred standard breeds such as white leghorns, RIR, barred Plymouth rocks, etc; rather, they are a hybrid of different strains — eventually producing offspring that have ideal characteristics.

I merely was just wondering how offspring turned out being that egg production strains such as McMurray’s “pearl white leghorn” hybrid or Ideal’s “white only white leghorn” do not breed true. I’m curious to find out just how much breeding the same genetic [though hybrid] stock can affect the offspring’s egg productivity. Hatcheries advise against reproduction because of the stated reason in the initial post, but I am going to find out what happens. I’ll keep you guys posted!