choosing/optimizing mixed flock for egg laying

[CanadaEh]

We have had 7 BR hens (and one roo) we bought as chicks in spring 2018 and by end of winter-spring 2019 they sucked at egg laying - going broody repeatedly with 2 week interval, pecking feathers (despite protein supplement), and just being big frame fat chickens upon butchering.

Their replacement was 8 leghorn + 2 BR + 1 EE hens +1 leghorn roo from purchase hatching eggs and 2 eggs from own flock. This worked pretty well for less than a year in terms of laying, not getting broody and not pecking each other's butts, but then all but one got killed by bobcat one day about 1.5 months ago.

The emergency hatch of whatever eggs we have had stored (from 8 leghorns, 2 BR, 1 EE hens under 1 leghorn roo) resulted in 38 total 2 week old chicks as of today - 9 mostly black, one 50/50, and the rest are white.

I am planning to leave all hens and one pure-looking leghorn roo.

The primary goal is egg laying and feed conversion of leghorns.

The secondary goal (may be 20% importance) is egg colors and different looks of the hens which are nice to have.

We can't afford multiple pens/lines for proper breeding.

Will we get in trouble that they will become eventually a "barnyard mix"/mutt and will have to be replaced with something inline with our primary goal - which is efficient egg layer? Note: our purchased leghorns eggs was not so pure either - some of them have had black speckled feathers as well.

Does anyone manage an effective mixed laying flock that would be close to leghorn egg laying performance and how do you do it?

Sorry for making a convoluted/newbie question, I hope for someone experienced could read through what our concerns are.

 

[Mrs. K]

Well kind of, after a while of breeding in house, you tend to get more variance and less ideal performance. But just add in a good rooster from a good egg laying breed. I would and (did years ago) get a top notch rooster according to the sop. If you can.

If not, just adding a new rooster, will add new genetic material and vigor to his chicks.

But we are talking years and years of mixing in house, before you would notice a real problem. As I am sure you are aware of, even now, in your current flock, there are birds that lay what seems to be every day, and under the same circumstances, there are birds where 2-3 times a week is more like it.

To do careful breeding, you have to keep records. And egg count should be considered. On the other hand, no matter what you do, some parts of the year you are going to have less eggs, and other times more eggs.

If you want egg color, you are going to have to order that breed. Some people that only have one coop/run, only will hatch from the rooster and matching hens that year. Next year or two, new rooster, then hatch the eggs that match him. This will let you have pure bred in your flock.

Personally, I just keep them, add to them once in a while, sometimes my own, sometimes chicks from hatcheries.

Mrs k

 

[Ridgerunner]

our purchased leghorns eggs was not so pure either - some of them have had black speckled feathers as well.

Why as this bad if "The primary goal is egg laying and feed conversion of leghorns. The secondary goal (may be 20% importance) is egg colors and different looks of the hens which are nice to have"? How did those black speckled feathers affect egg laying or feed conversion? True, all eggs would be white but did those black feathers help you tell them apart? What is your real concern here with those black feathers?

My understanding is that you want to breed your own flock to be good egg layers with good feed conversion and that do not go broody. Feather color does not have anything to do with those goals.

As Mrs K said, if you want to breed a good egg laying flock breed your good egg layers. That doesn't have anything to do with breed, some individual leghorn hens or hens of any other breed are better egg layers than others. It does require you to know which are your good egg layers. If you want different egg colors you will need to hatch eggs that are other than white. This may require trade-offs with good egg laying.

A rooster contributes just as much genetics to egg laying as a hen. That's a little more of a crap shoot since he doesn't lay eggs. But if he hatched from a good egg layer he probably has good genetics for egg laying to pass on to his offspring. Unlike you I like broody hens. After I saved a cockerel that hatched from an egg laid by a hen that went broody a lot his daughters all tended to go broody. That shows that a rooster contributes genetically to the hen plus to eat your broody hens instead of hatching their eggs.

2 week old chicks as of today - 9 mostly black, one 50/50, and the rest are white.

I don't know what your EE hen looks like. She might explain that 50-50 chick. From the rest it sounds like your white Leghorn rooster was probably based on Recessive White. (I say probably because there is a scenario where he is split for Dominant White, there are always exceptions, but this one is a stretch.) There is no telling what other colors or patterns are hiding under that Recessive White. Often it is black but it literally could be any color or pattern. So the black chicks are from the Barred Rock and the white ones from the white Leghorn hens.

If barring is not hiding under that white, any black chicks with barring will be boys and any solid black chicks will be girls. If some of the girls are barred, he caused that, not their mother.

If you keep and breed that white cockerel to white pullets or hens you should get white chicks. If you breed him to his black sisters you will probably get about 50% white chicks, 25% black chicks, and who knows for the other 25%. There is a reasonable chance that 25% will also be black, but that is where your surprises may come in.

Black and white are hard colors to work with because both are pretty dominant. Different things can be hiding under them but tend to get covered by the black or white..

If you really want a more diversely colored flock and keep the leghorn goals I suggest you bring in a brown leghorn rooster. It will take a couple of generations but his grandchildren will show different colors and patterns. Another option would be to bring in a rooster from a commercial egg laying hybrid, preferably a red one and not black. These have the traits you are looking for, good egg laying, good feed conversion, and they tend to not go broody. They can be a little hard to identify because not all red sex links sold by hatcheries are from the commercial hybrids.

If you want I can get into the seasonal cyclical pattern of egg laying, that can be another long post. If you have any other specific questions, please ask. I'll try to answer them.

 

[Mrs. K]

Actually, as I recently had a do over, I just ordered chicken from hoover hatcheries, and they are predicting 290 eggs from their blue egg laying hybrid, and green egg laying hybrid. They come from a leghorn x ammercauna.

That is what the advertisement said, they made my list, and I will be able to say more in a year or so. But I wanted egg layers, and a bit of color in the eggs, so am hopeful. I too, added some brown leg horns. And some basic production reds, all known for laying eggs, which is my goal. The birds will be will be all colors which is another thing I like. I can hardly wait!


Mrs K

 

[Ridgerunner]

Will we get in trouble that they will become eventually a "barnyard mix"/mutt and will have to be replaced with something inline with our primary goal - which is efficient egg layer?

Since you are not going to be using multiple breeding pens and probably only keeping one rooster you do have some concerns with inbreeding. This doesn't matter if they are purebreds or mixed. You lose genetic diversity as you inbreed. Over the generations they can lose fertility, productivity, and other "good" traits. Hatcheries and breeders have different strategies to handle that.

Many hatcheries use the pen breeding method. If you keep say 20 roosters in a pen with 200 hens, the randomness of the breeding and thus of which breeding birds you select from them can keep a flock going for decades. This method does not lend itself to enhancing certain traits, that's why you hear so many complaints about them not being true breeds and not meeting the SOP, but it enables them to mass produce chicks for the backyard market at a fairly cheap price.

Many breeders start off with line breeding. It's how breeds or grand champion show chickens are developed. They carefully select which male breeds with which female to try to get the best chicks. Often they breed parents to offspring to try to enhance specific traits. Once they get the chicken they want they usually switch to a different system, often spiral breeding. This stops parent/offspring breeding and switches to a distant cousin type of breeding. You are not going that way so I'll stop there, but they can also go for a very long time without issues.

A model that has been used for thousands of years is to keep replacements from your flock for several chicken-generations, but eventually bring in a new rooster to restore genetic diversity. How often you have to do that will depend on how often you replace a father with his son, how many roosters you have breeding, and how many different hens you are saving replacement pullets and cockerels from. That kind of ties into the pen breeding method. Because of the variations in our flocks and how we manage them there is no set time you can go before it's beneficial to bring in a new rooster. This is pretty much how Dad, his father, other relatives and neighbors handled their flocks. One thing they generally did not do was carefully manage their flocks to select only the best breeders. They'd keep the best cockerels but did not pay much attention to which hens they kept. They went for quantity, not quality. Also, they were in a climate where the chickens pretty much fed themselves year around, the only time the chickens got supplemental feed was winter and that was pretty much minimal. They free ranged and were considered livestock. In Canada you will probably be buying a lot of what they eat or at least growing it.

Since I think your goal is mainly a self-bred flock that lays well and you raise your replacements, I'd suggest you determine which hens are your best layers and hatch their eggs. Keep your replacements from those, male and female. If you ever notice a drop-off in fertility, productivity, or something else that might indicate a genetic diversity problem, bring in a new rooster. Or set up a rotation where you do that after a certain number of years. Most people can easily go well past five years without those issues but go by what you see in your flock, not what most people can do. Trust your eyes and judgment.

I don't know if Hoover ships to Canada, those hybrids Mrs. K mentioned look very interesting. It will be interesting to see her reports on them. I very much doubt those are crosses between standard Leghorns and standard Ameraucanas but instead the parent flocks have been bred for enhanced egg laying. I don't know what will be available to you in Canada when you are ready to replace yours. Just do the best you can in finding a good replacement. It's hard to do better than the best you can.