Genetics of Broodiness?

[hecatesmoon]

I am wanting to breed broodiness into my flock. I have adult non broodies that will be culled.I have bantam cochins, buff orpingtons, and easter eggers. All are chicks. I also have a few unknowns that were just given to me. Today, my brother-in-law brought me a rooster. I have no idea what kind. What I would like to know is whether or not the broody gene is dominant or recessive. My intention was to get a broody breed rooster to mate into the easter eggers, but I now have an unknown, and I am wondering if a broody breed rooster specifically is critical to my intentions or if I can proceed using the non broody and use his offspring with a broody breed hen to breed broodiness into the NEXT generation. Did I make any sense?

 

[Kevin565]

I understand what your saying but I think broody gene expression is going to be more complicated than just breeding in some broody blood.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Broodiness isn't as simple as dominant or recessive. There is some genetic factor, though, as some breeds are obviously more prone to it.

If you are interested, go to www.scholar.google.com, and you can search articles and scientific papers about the idea. That will at least give you a place to start.

 

[hecatesmoon]

Well, from what I was able to gather, broodiness involves multiple genes so no, it isn't so simple, and I am definitely no geneticist! Ha! I thought I would just "feel it out" as I went along and figured starting with broody blood was a place to start. Everything I read online talks about breeding broodiness out. To me, that seems like a scary thing- to remove the desire to continue ones own species from soooo many breeds and create a dependency on human involvement to continue it. I can always buy chicks, but I thought this might be an interesting project!

 

[hecatesmoon]

Thanks for the welcome! Hi, by the way.

 

[hecatesmoon]

Thank you, I will take a look!