Crossing native chicken with leghorns

[bahamabanty]

I've read that when you crossed native chickens (philipines, caribbean, hawaian, egyptian) with US layer chickens you will get hardy layers adapted to the climate like the local chickens.

In your opinion what would work better:

native hen x leghorn rooster?
leghorn hen x native rooster?

Or is it the same? I have leghorn hens and I could get a native rooster easily. How long before I get fertilized eggs, once I introduce the native rooster?

One more question:
If I feed native chickens layer feed will they lay better and bigger eggs?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It really doesn’t matter that much which is the hen and which is the rooster. They both contribute genetics. The rooster contributes a copy of each gene pair to all his offspring. A hen contributes a copy of each gene pair to her sons but withholds the sex linked genes from her daughters. What that means is that the hen determines the sex of the chick. So if you want to split hairs, the rooster will contribute just a tad more than the hen. But for practical purposes I would not worry about it.

It takes about 25 hours for an egg to make its way through the hen’s internal egg making factory. It can only be fertilized for a few minutes at the very start f that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Thursday, Thursday’s egg will not be fertile. Friday’s egg might or might not be, depending on what time of day the mating took place and the egg started its journey. Saturday’s egg will almost certainly be fertile.

The only significant difference in Layer feed and other feed is that the Layer has more calcium, which a hen needs for her eggshell. You can look on the label at the analysis and see that.

There is one other significant difference in various feeds, Layer included. The different types of feed, Starter, Grower, Developer, Finisher, Layer, or Flock Raiser have different levels of protein. The exact names for these and the exact percentage proteins will vary some by brand. Grower and Layer often have the same percent protein, but not always.

There is nothing magical about Layer that causes them to lay better. Layer does have the extra calcium for the egg shells, but if you wished, you could feed them oyster shell on the side along with another type of feed. Many of us do that, feed Grower or maybe Flock Raiser withy oyster shell on the side all the time. Those chickens lay just as well as the ones on Layer.