Expanding the flock questions

[Rob_red]

First a little back ground. Our Rhode Island Red rooster whom we liked very much because he was friendly to humans and a good flock leader has unfortunately died from a fungal infection. We now are left with 3 golden comet hens

We would like to rebuild the flock. One Roo to 3 hens was hard on the hens, so we would like to hatch their eggs (fertilized by our beloved roo) to ultimately end up with 4 more birds one hopefully being a rooster who hopefully inherited some good traits from his father. We are incubating 9 eggs in an effort to achieve this.

if we hatch too many birds we will end up using some of them for meat.

now for my question: being that the flock with any luck will eventually consist of our three existing hens, and four new comers hatched from their eggs..... is it normal to have a roo eventually breading with its mother? I am new to this and it just sounds wrong but I am probably just naive.

Also any advice is apreciated as we are students of chicken keeping.

 

[TropicalBabies]

So sorry for your loss
I heard it was the brother and sisters to worry about. i have hatched mother to son w/o problems but have never tried siblings. I get new blood, usually the roo but now i am VERY attached to our VERY good roo so just will not hatch any potential troubles.

 

[Mrs. K]

Inbreeding will eventually become a problem, but only if you never introduce new blood say in 24 years. Generally what happens with inbreeding is that you get slightly more less desirable traits - so instead of getting 230 eggs, you get a bird that gives you 225, which might lead to a daughter giving 220... and so on. Or you might get crooked toes, or maybe a few more cross beaks as time goes on... but you are talking a LOT OF TIME, and multiple generations.

In this situation, I would not worry about it too much, first, because more than likely, the current flock, is flock mates, not true sisters and brothers. At best in a hatchery, there is very little chance you would get chicks with matching parents.

So even if you only have a single breed of chicks, you have quite a diversity of genetic background, which would even take longer, to start to show up as problems in future generations.

I would not worry about it. If it makes you uncomfortable, get a different rooster. But if you choose to hatch, I do not anticipate any problems.

Mrs K