Ok so i received a PM the other day, so i deiced to post it
Will when you import you bring in a small cross-section of healthy genepool. Even though they have imported X number of times now we are still going to run into genetic depression issues. A great friend of mine, biologist and poultry breeder are going to chat over the phone about the best way i should handle everything. And we will only run into this genetic depression because people like to breed in small numbers of closely related birds to get traits that are highly sought for, mostly for the show ring.
By keeping a breeding flock in one area, for 5 or so years, it allows the genetics to change and manipulate themselves it also allows for natural culling, so genes from every parent have been mixed together to create this very genetically strong bird. The best way to save breeds ( and it's been more or less proven in Canada) and allow for traits to be pulled out when needed is by not selecting for any thing when you don't need to. The University of Alberta has a flock of Light Sussex, i like to call this a stasis flock, because for the longest time they kept a 3:1 ration, so 3 hens for 1 rooster.But here's the catch, they were all thrown in the same barn with no selection, so we ended up with these small sussex, that were flighty laid few eggs etc, etc. But just after a few years work we have the roosters up to 9 pounds, and hens up 6 pounds, we have friendly giants. And we were only able to form the breed to what it was like 100 years ago because they had not been touched or selected for anything.
Does that make sense? And when chickens first came to NA, they would have brought as many as they could fit, than they would have let the hens raise as many as they could. And than those farmers would have had large breeding flocks.
The whole idea, esp. with these imported breeds if you start with a small section of healthy genes that with selection, the genes available will only get smaller, so more chicks will need to be hatched out to get the birds you want to get.
The way most are breeding their chickens to day is setting them up for failure in 100 years. Many of the broilers were developed in Canada by Don Shaver (breeder of many commercial breeds) and he has even said that the broilers parents, and grandparent lines need to be shifted around or else they will collapse.
take this quote from my friend
" It is absolutely untrue that one can ‘safeguard the integrity of a breed’ by inbreeding within a closed gene pool."
[FONT=Open Sans, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]When we look back through the history of farming, pure bred's are the newest breed around. My grandfather who is 82 never had pure bred's on the farm. They were always mixing, and matching chickens, if it has white and black bars it's a barred rock to him
Back in the 1800's the sussex breed did not exist as we know it to day, it was a land fowl that came from the sussex region of England, and farmers in that region would go from village to village every year trading cocks and hens so they could improve their own fowl. So these approchs that every one talks about, like line breeding, and spiral breeding have not been around for long ( in terms of poultry breeding) and i consider them still new.[/FONT]
I look at a lot of the breeds in America to day, and think that people can only line breed, or spiral breed, today because in the past farmers did not care about breeds they wanted the hen that produced the most eggs, or the cock that grew the fastest and weighed the most. They were not concerned about looks or the APA, and than when the APA became popular and breeding chickens for looks became popular there were so many 'Rhode island reds' with unknowen background that it's possible to do that.
Ok so i am rambling on.
Will when you import you bring in a small cross-section of healthy genepool. Even though they have imported X number of times now we are still going to run into genetic depression issues. A great friend of mine, biologist and poultry breeder are going to chat over the phone about the best way i should handle everything. And we will only run into this genetic depression because people like to breed in small numbers of closely related birds to get traits that are highly sought for, mostly for the show ring.
By keeping a breeding flock in one area, for 5 or so years, it allows the genetics to change and manipulate themselves it also allows for natural culling, so genes from every parent have been mixed together to create this very genetically strong bird. The best way to save breeds ( and it's been more or less proven in Canada) and allow for traits to be pulled out when needed is by not selecting for any thing when you don't need to. The University of Alberta has a flock of Light Sussex, i like to call this a stasis flock, because for the longest time they kept a 3:1 ration, so 3 hens for 1 rooster.But here's the catch, they were all thrown in the same barn with no selection, so we ended up with these small sussex, that were flighty laid few eggs etc, etc. But just after a few years work we have the roosters up to 9 pounds, and hens up 6 pounds, we have friendly giants. And we were only able to form the breed to what it was like 100 years ago because they had not been touched or selected for anything.
Does that make sense? And when chickens first came to NA, they would have brought as many as they could fit, than they would have let the hens raise as many as they could. And than those farmers would have had large breeding flocks.
The whole idea, esp. with these imported breeds if you start with a small section of healthy genes that with selection, the genes available will only get smaller, so more chicks will need to be hatched out to get the birds you want to get.
The way most are breeding their chickens to day is setting them up for failure in 100 years. Many of the broilers were developed in Canada by Don Shaver (breeder of many commercial breeds) and he has even said that the broilers parents, and grandparent lines need to be shifted around or else they will collapse.
take this quote from my friend
" It is absolutely untrue that one can ‘safeguard the integrity of a breed’ by inbreeding within a closed gene pool."
[FONT=Open Sans, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]When we look back through the history of farming, pure bred's are the newest breed around. My grandfather who is 82 never had pure bred's on the farm. They were always mixing, and matching chickens, if it has white and black bars it's a barred rock to him
Back in the 1800's the sussex breed did not exist as we know it to day, it was a land fowl that came from the sussex region of England, and farmers in that region would go from village to village every year trading cocks and hens so they could improve their own fowl. So these approchs that every one talks about, like line breeding, and spiral breeding have not been around for long ( in terms of poultry breeding) and i consider them still new.[/FONT]I look at a lot of the breeds in America to day, and think that people can only line breed, or spiral breed, today because in the past farmers did not care about breeds they wanted the hen that produced the most eggs, or the cock that grew the fastest and weighed the most. They were not concerned about looks or the APA, and than when the APA became popular and breeding chickens for looks became popular there were so many 'Rhode island reds' with unknowen background that it's possible to do that.
Ok so i am rambling on.
