breeding?

[okay chicken rookie]

You are right. New to this, but I look Spitzhaubens, and would also like to see a different color of bird.

 

[gumbii]

you can line breed them and get what you want, but it's going to take years to see something nice again...

this is line breeding... it's used to almost clone the rooster or the hen, or to breed out the faults, or to bring out the traits that you want to keep...

in chickens, you can breed the offspring to eachother and back to the parents...


so say you start with a crested (feathers on head) rooster to a non crested red hen... you can keep the nicest colored hen of the bunch, and breed her back to the father, and so forth to keep the crest... if you want color, breed the nicest colored rooster (F1) to the nicest pullet (F1) and the F2 offspring should be crested and the colors body shape you want...


but... they might not come out exactly how you desire... also colors, patterns and other traits are hard to work with... basically, you're gonna have a bunch of mutts and wild looking birds... some with giant crest, some with minimal crest, some with just vaulted skulls i would imagine... but whatever... it could be fun to you, and you never know... you might hatch out the perfect (for you) chicken...


LOL...

 

[saladin]

I don't mean to sound offensive, but I would recommend an easier project to begin with; at least until you get your feet wet. You are much more likely to succeed that way.

These type of projects generally take 6 to 8 generation. Many who are new to breeding birds that start with such a long project fall by the wayside both with breeding and with birds because they took on too much too soon.