Do chickens have inbreeding deformaties?

[darlings]

Will chickens born from Father/daughter or Son/mother combinations have birth defects, not hatch, or not be good eggs to eat?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

They will be fine unless they are carrying some genetic defect. Otherwise it takes a few generations of close inbreeding to cause troubles. One generation cross in most instances is fine.

 

[darlings]

Thanks. THAT is a load off my mind.

 

[donrae]

Not so much.

Humans see it as an ick factor, but the birds don't mind one bit. I've done close mating, parent/offspring, half siblings, etc and never had a two headed chick,

Start with healthy stock, and you'll be fine for a good 4 generations or so before you might want to bring in new blood.

If you start with unhealthy, unthrifty, not hardy stock, well, breeding those together is going to give you more unhealthy stock.