Future Breed Creation Project

[Alex_Zurago]

Hi Alex,

You've brought up a great topic! I think it's great that you want to make a new breed. To answer your question on what is needed as far as numbers, only two. One rooster and one hen. The topic of inbreeding does not relate to chickens in the same way that it does to many other animals. The reason for this is their productivity. If you're breeding cattle and you only have one cow and one bull, you will only have one calf from which to make your selection. If that solitary calf turns out to be infertile you would be in trouble. Contrast that with chickens, if you have a decently productive hen, you can get 250+ chicks per year. Now of course if you're making a new breed you will likely be using more than two breeds as your foundation, so you would naturally be starting with more than two birds; but to make my point, even years down the road you could cull down to just one rooster and one hen and still carry your breed forward.

I write that just to illustrate that inbreeding in itself is not much of a concern. In practicality, you'll probably find that there's a sweet spot as to how many hens/roosters to retain for breeding each year. I would want to keep few enough in that I've culled them hard and there is a degree of uniformity, while still having enough hens to produce big numbers of chicks to select from. If you're going to be working with a lot of different genes, you will need to hatch significant numbers. Every additional gene that you're dealing with exponentially increases the number of chicks you will need to hatch in order to get one that has them all.

It's amazing that so few breeds have been created in the last one hundred years, but our society is much less agrarian than it used to be. The amount of people who have a deep understanding of chicken phenotype genetics is very small. The percentage of those people who also have the vision, time, space, and dedication is of course even smaller.

If you aren't aware of him already, check out Dr. Tom Whiting of Whiting Farms. The articles on his website as well as the videos of him on youtube contain some valuable information to anyone working on chicken breeding and genetics.

Ryan

yeah I was thinking of setting up the project by crossing Indio Gigante to a Cemani or fibro easter egger, and breeding that to a black Jersey Giant cross that was mixed with Silkie and breda. Ive had trouble finding a fibro easter egger thats large enough so I was thinking maybe breed the blue egg gene into the JG cross and fibro in from Cemani to the IG. Either way it will take a long time

 

[RememberTheWay]

seems like a waste of time. plenty of real breeds already out there that need dedicated breeders that will stick with a breed for decades. i picked the cubalaya as i love this breed. i also have pakistan asils and brazillian gamefowl. the good thing about chickens is you can always eat your culls and you will have plenty if you actually try this

Why is that so many people are totally against people doing breeding projects? Every known accepted breed we have was once a breeding project.... I do not understand this at all

 

[cubalaya]

Why is that so many people are totally against people doing breeding projects? Every known accepted breed we have was once a breeding project.... I do not understand this at all

Didn't say i was against it. I just dont see much success in it. Known breeds were created by dedicated breeders, huge numbers hatched, and many culls. I find it hilarious but sad in a way that so many feel like if they pair a few of their chickens up and hatch some chicks, that these offspring will be a super new breed when basically you created a backyard mix mutt.

 

[cubalaya]

Where to look? I have tried looking for cubalaya chicks for more than a year, but only a few hatcheries have them and usually out of stock. I can only find Cuban Game Fowl hatching eggs for sale on ebay, no cubalaya.

Try the poultry shows. Breeders usually set up to sell some of their birds. Instead of buying eggs or chicks try buying several hens and a rooster 8 weeks to adult

 

[Altairsky]

The topic of inbreeding does not relate to chickens

Wrong. We are trying to bring back officially extinct local breeds from extremely small groups of survivors. Inbreeding is an incredible serious problem. It turns large breeds into small specimens with horrible plumage. It's so hard to fix that our country breeds association changed the standards to smaller weight for some breeds (Polverara breed for example, went officially extinct in year 2000, but brought back they had to change the standard because of inbreeding defects).

 

[RememberTheWay]

Didn't say i was against it. I just dont see much success in it. Known breeds were created by dedicated breeders, huge numbers hatched, and many culls. I find it hilarious but sad in a way that so many feel like if they pair a few of their chickens up and hatch some chicks, that these offspring will be a super new breed when basically you created a backyard mix mutt.

I can agree with that. But I do think breeder should be more accepting and supportive of the newcomers. I am still a new comer. I only got serious about breeding in the last year and half but the air inside some of the chicken groups have been stifling and I don't think they are doing themselves any favors by being that way.
I don't think enough people know enough about the different breeding methods and tools and why you would use one over the other. But at the same time a lot of that information isn't freely available for people to easily find. I've also seen in a lot of Facebook groups that "adding new blood" is highly encouraged and I think people use it way too much and at inappropriate times.

We all have to start somewhere though and even the old-timers were once newbies too.

 

[2 chiks n a roo]

Didn't say i was against it. I just dont see much success in it. Known breeds were created by dedicated breeders, huge numbers hatched, and many culls. I find it hilarious but sad in a way that so many feel like if they pair a few of their chickens up and hatch some chicks, that these offspring will be a super new breed when basically you created a backyard mix mutt.

I like that name for a breed..
BYMM... Or Mix Mutt Egg Hut..
Thanks for the idea hehe

Butt to clarify on the breeding from a Back yard chicken aspect.. it takes 5 generations to establish consistent similarities in any animal, but 10 years to solidify it.
Anyone can do it with their back yard mix muts, it's about consistency.. plus, how else do you think the Hy-line came about.. by mixing multiple breeds, so where's the difference??
Oh.. it's in the pair that's originally selected, are they pure or already mix..
Mine, dad What was supposed to be a RIR x shaver is in fact a new Hampshire red X shaver.. mumma a Hy-line.. that's my foundation pair.
Hy-lines have light Sussex, leghorns, white rock, shaver, RIR or NHR, and there's 4 different strains which make them what they are. So although I both agree and disagree with you..
Nothing wrong with new blood. My plan is chickens that lay years longer but still high numbers.. it's all about their health. Heck, I've got one of my neighbours chooks left, after 2 years no eggs, she's laying daily.. she's nearly 9 years old.. go figure

 

[phasianidae]

Wrong. We are trying to bring back officially extinct local breeds from extremely small groups of survivors. Inbreeding is an incredible serious problem. It turns large breeds into small specimens with horrible plumage. It's so hard to fix that our country breeds association changed the standards to smaller weight for some breeds (Polverara breed for example, went officially extinct in year 2000, but brought back they had to change the standard because of inbreeding defects).

You obviously took that statement out of context.

 

[cubalaya]

I like that name for a breed..
BYMM... Or Mix Mutt Egg Hut..
Thanks for the idea hehe

Butt to clarify on the breeding from a Back yard chicken aspect.. it takes 5 generations to establish consistent similarities in any animal, but 10 years to solidify it.
Anyone can do it with their back yard mix muts, it's about consistency.. plus, how else do you think the Hy-line came about.. by mixing multiple breeds, so where's the difference??
Oh.. it's in the pair that's originally selected, are they pure or already mix..
Mine, dad What was supposed to be a RIR x shaver is in fact a new Hampshire red X shaver.. mumma a Hy-line.. that's my foundation pair.
Hy-lines have light Sussex, leghorns, white rock, shaver, RIR or NHR, and there's 4 different strains which make them what they are. So although I both agree and disagree with you..
Nothing wrong with new blood. My plan is chickens that lay years longer but still high numbers.. it's all about their health. Heck, I've got one of my neighbours chooks left, after 2 years no eggs, she's laying daily.. she's nearly 9 years old.. go figure

Yes most breeds are composite, other breeds used to create a breed. An asil would not be. It is the purest breed of chicken on earth. While the Brazilian is a composite breed of shamo, asil, and spanish gamefowl. How many culls do you think there were to create that breed? How many thousand hatched? How many breeders involved?

 

[2 chiks n a roo]

Yes most breeds are composite, other breeds used to create a breed. An asil would not be. It is the purest breed of chicken on earth. While the Brazilian is a composite breed of shamo, asil, and spanish gamefowl. How many culls do you think there were to create that breed? How many thousand hatched? How many breeders involved?

Oh I agree, hundreds of thousands of culls, but you'd think instead of wasting the meat, they'd end up on tables not in the compost.
I've done a bit of research, to create a foundation it takes 5 breeders 5 years to get something established, it doesn't show numbers but I think if someone is absolutely serious about creating a solid line, instead of breeding hundreds or thousands of chicks to just select a few.. they'd use their brain and calculate a small quality number before wasting so many fluffballs in a short time.

I'm using 2 of my girls from my existing pair, out of those I'll select 2 of the best girls with good color (going for white with gold chest and feather edged hens and white/gold males) I'll be line breeding for 3 years to test consistency, none will be culled, they already have homes guaranteed.

The first male hatched from mine is gold and white with red flecks, he's stunning but his family don't want to use him, which is ok there will be another.
If I had land, I would have kept him but he had to be sold.
My girls are still under a year old so they're not breeding yet, although one I do want to use got under the fence an mated. But her eggs got cooked an fed back to them all. I'm not rushing into a line, I've got planning underway but that's all for now.