Grey Jungle Fowl

[JimArcher]

If our kept a pair of Grey Jungle Fowl for 5 years, why did you not breed them? I would not like to supply people with chickens just to keep as pets, but no breeding. It is a waste of good stock and does not multiply the breed in captivity.

 

[JimArcher]

To philter4
I think a big problem is small population size. if you let the population of hybrids expand naturally, with no selection, you would soon have a large and variable gene pool. Some of these birds could mate and produce fertile, vigorous offspring and they could in turn produce vigorous offspring. Others would be part of the declining group. Nature has a way of surmounting these things. I cannot prove this, of course, only work from limited experience with ReevesxRingneck hybrids. I flock-mated at all stages and found that the percent of fertile eggs and hatchability actually increased in flock mating. How well this would have stood up over 4 or 5 generations, I don't know, but if you have enough birds then you will get a variety of genetic recombinations and some will be very compatible.
Crossing to another unrelated hybrid is not a good idea as it just perpetuates the poorly viable genetic combinations.