And breeding, genetics, and the SOP is what I'm most excited to learn! I focused most of my chicken keeping years on having a safe free ranging flock, and learning chicken behavior and egg laying (not that I had much choice, it's rare you'd stable on a good breeding opportunity or a more rare breed here) so I definitely want to focus on the other part now
SOP breeding is typically pretty cull heavy, which is gonna be the most frustrating part of the breeding process.
I'm no stranger to culling, unfortunately. Although I do believe culling can be done in several ways, so when I can I prefer to give my "disqualified" chickens to friends that keep them for egg laying only
Color leakage is happens when they aren't pure for a color(HeterozygousI think, still learning the terminology), & it shows through with a crossing. Like breeding Dominant White X Red, or Buff can result in white, red splotched birds, for example.
Sometimes I just keep my cull hens back as strictly layers, & not breed from them. Occasionally I'll butcher certain ones instead.
Yup. Exactly
Not everyone knows that, about the word cull.
Unfortunately. And it's a shame really, because new breeders might hear that you need to cull in order to be a good breeder, (which to a degree at least, is true) and get discouraged because they might think it mean killing their favourite animals
Yes, exactly.
