Breeding question.

[Froll]

Chicks from the same hen and rooster, do they breed together when they get big or does this cause problems with interbreeding or not?

 

[HuffleClaw]

Yes they will breed each other. They can’t tell if they’re related or not. And no, it won’t cause issues for several more generations.

 

[sourland]

Poultry generally handle inbreeding well. Excessive inbreeding - many generations - can cause problems, and judicious introduction of new blood is a good idea.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Chicks from the same hen and rooster, do they breed together when they get big or does this cause problems with interbreeding or not?

First question, yes they will breed together. When establishing their line many breeders mate parents to offspring to better enhance certain traits. The genetic diversity or inbreeding is the same whether it is sibling to sibling or parent to offspring, but you have better control over certain traits when it is parent to offspring.

Second question, does it cause problems? Typically not, but it can. It depends if they have some bad recessive genes. What you consider bad genes can depend some on your goals. If you are breeding for show, a certain ear lobe color could be a bad gene. For others it is no big deal. I think we'd all agree that if they have a defect that causes crooked toes that would be bad.

Another issue is how inbred the parents were to start with. After a certain amount of inbreeding they can lose fertility, productivity, or have health issues. How long this takes depends a lot on the genetics of the flock itself. A typical pattern on small farms for thousands of years is to keep the offspring of the flock fro several generations, but eventually bring in new blood. That is usually a rooster since it is easier to change out one rooster than all your hens. A factor that affects how often you have to bring in new blood is how big your flock is. If you only have one rooster and a few hens it will be more often than if you have 20 roosters and 200 hens to exaggerate a bit to make the point. With 20 and 200 you would probably never have to.

One key to this is to not allow defective offspring to breed. Only breed your best birds, whatever "best" means to you. Be a bit ruthless about this and you can usually do really well.

It is usually not a problem, but with living animals you don't get guarantees. Practically anything can happen. I don't know what your goals are, but for my goals I would not hesitate.

 

[Froll]

Thank you all for the awnsers. Helps a lot. I have only 1 breeding pair. they are doing very good. They have given me 12 chicks in the last 7 months. I want a second pair to breed with. My aim is to have about 12 hens to lay eggs and the 2 breeding pairs to keep the hens for laying. The excess chicks I will sell.