Cross breeding and development of unique flock

[Hawks93]

I hatched some crosses last year. Silkie father, and mothers were wyandotte and polish. Got some beautiful offspring!!

Wow I always wondered about What would happen with a silkie and Polish cross. Do you have any photos ?

 

[Jtodd99]

Wow That was very smart of you to have leghorn in their gene pool, that will definitely help with forging.

I’m trying to create a hardy ,docile, colored egg laying breed that will be able to reproduce itself on my farm for generations . I Think I’m going to breed 2 different lines of barred rock roosters to Easter egger hens and then cross those hybrids. This should display a much more expressed version of the genes I want present

Thank you and I love that idea, I say go for it! I will say it helped me to have clear goals of what I wanted, and what I would absolutely not tolerate. I try to go over these in my journal often. I actually hatched out some barred Easter eggers too, Dominique rooster over Easter egger hens. I ended up selling them, but I like the barred look on the hens.

I’d recommend breeding your F1 generation, then either breed them back to parents or out cross with a good egg producing breed. Since you’re going for docile maybe keep away from flighty breeds for now, I’ve noticed that trait will kinda keep popping up once you breed it into your program

 

[Jtodd99]

I figured your chickens might be a bit flighty considering that they have a lot of leghorn DNA in their bloodline.In my experience leghorns the most flighty yet well egg producing breeds I have ever owned.

Things should get really interesting if I get my dream breeds of buff Polish and buff Orphingtons in the mix.

Wow That was very smart of you to have leghorn in their gene pool, that will definitely help with forging.

I’m trying to create a hardy ,docile, colored egg laying breed that will be able to reproduce itself on my farm for generations . I Think I’m going to breed 2 different lines of barred rock roosters to Easter egger hens and then cross those hybrids. This should display a much more expressed version of the genes I want present

I haven't considered the polish, but I currently have some two week old buff Orpington, and buff Orpington cross chicks from a buddy of mine. I got eight to hatch, and sold four of them, so now I have two purebred Orpington chicks, and two Orpington crosses. The guy only has the Orpington’s as roosters, and a mixed flock of hens.


I only really want one to be a cockerel, I plan on putting him over all the hens in the flock, and hatching out a cross with him. They’re very good about going broody, and decent egg production, with a bit of size I want to try to put in.

 

[MomJones]

They are about 4 months old here.
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I could only keep the pullet, but the other two cockerels were so gorgeous and sweet natured.

Sooo beautiful

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I’m currently doing the same thing. I posted about it on my account if you wanna take a read. My first batch of F1 chicks are almost sixteen weeks old. Once they start reproducing, they’ll be the parents of my F2 generation. Have a few different goals in mind for the flock. But so far so good. The buff colored pullet is half buff Rock, roughly 25% Egyptian Fayomi, and 25% Leghorn. My goal is to create a better homestead chicken, and my main focus was foraging abilities. She’s excellent at it. Hardly see her during the day, other than throwing out feed. I want very active, productive, chickens.

I will set some eggs from her, after she’s bred back to her sire. Those chicks will be a good mix of Fayomi, and leghorn since I’m doubling back up on her fathers genes. I’ll also back cross her to a purebred rooster, not sure on the breed yet though. Those are two of her half siblings, and or cousins. Easter egger cockerel, and the black one is Half golden laced Wyandotte, 25% Fayomi, and 25%Leghorn as well.

So far, all F1 chicks display better forage motivation and drive than their mothers. Their father comes from a line of hen hatched chicks, raised completely free ranged, so he’s definitely passing on those genes to the offspring it seems. I’m adding in some speckled Sussex this fall to help with egg production, and plumage.

Beautiful chickens!

 

[Jtodd99]

This is my F1 hen. She is a cross between a Egyptian Fayomi cross, and an Easter egger. She lays moderately, medium, light green, eggs.

She has been crossed to a Rhode Island Red, producing these F1 crosses. I plan to start a spirial breeding program with this line.

She Caries a lot of the traits that I’m looking for, including her mothering ability, and predator Davy nature. She’s been free ranging most of her life, about a year and a half old now.