Creating a flock from two chickens

[beachmaster]

Hi! I am still very new to the forum, and I hope I am posting in the correct place. But I was wondering if anyone had any experiance creating a flock, from only a single hen and rooster. In a scenario where you don't need the eggs, would it be possible to have a large flock of chickens within a couple of years?
Would inbreeding be too severe? Would you be able to tailor genetic traits that you want by eating Chickens with undesireable traits?
I hope this topic isn't old news, and I understand it is a little odd. I hope to get a large flock off the bat. But if I ever just had to take my best two chickens, I was wondering if it would be possible, and how long it would take, to produce a flock of thirty or more chickens, from the original two chickens only.
Thanks for your time! I love the forum!

Also, I realise the breed would be very important to the time needed to accomplish this. I guess the two breeds I would look at would be jersey giants or leghorns.

 

[Mattsiewrt94]

Well a lot of chickens don't raise there chicks if that what your looking for your best bet would be to get 8 or so chickens off the top and see who starts having chicks

 

[beachmaster]

so if I already had a flock, and had to only take two chickens, I could simply take the "Broodiest" hen I have. Is that the correct terminology?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m not sure exactly where you are coming from, but one hen can easily lay 150 or more eggs a year. Some top 200. With one incubator used to incubate eggs and another used solely as a hatcher, you could incubate each of those eggs. You’d need a few brooders too because of the age differences.

If you limit yourself to a broody hen it gets a lot more problematic. Not every hen goes broody, and certainly not on demand. An incubator is a lot more predictable. But broodiness is an inherited trait. If you hatch eggs from a hen that goes broody, you can get hens that are more likely to go broody. But even then it is not a guarantee.

The in-breeding part is a little more complicated. Your results are going to depend on the genetics of the two parents you start with. There will be different traits in them. It’s possible you could get a flaw that just makes it a bad pair to start with. But every breed that has been developed has been developed by in-breeding. That might be siblings, father-daughter, mother-son, or cousins. There are different techniques such as spiral breeding to maintain some genetic diversity or line breeding to enhance certain traits. It can get pretty complicated. But in very simplistic terms, eat the chickens you don’t want to breed and you can tailor a flock to your wishes.

 

[beachmaster]

I guess I was thinking of a situation without technology. Something like trying to raise a flock while camping. I guess the question really has too many variables
Thanks for the info though!

 

[lazy gardener]

If you're describing a situation that is low technology, "off the grid" type", requiring minimum input of feed and resources, to produce a self sustaining flock that would provide you with meat and eggs, you might try game hens or dominiques, or a combination. You'd want a bird with good survival skills, good brooding skills, good foraging skills. I think the game hen would fit that bill the best. But, if I was going to try to start a self sustaining flock, I'd look for genetic diversity with more than one breed to start, and realize that I was giving up some traits on the front end regarding the birds being superb layers and hefty table fare.