In Breeding; It’s a Family Affair.

[Shadrach]

Hmmm I suppose I am doing a variation of this, except it's one coop split into 3 sections for 3 different groups. Everyone is out in the run together during the day.

Really! That's close enough.
Can I ask you an awful lot of questions?

 

[Rysktal]

Really! That's close enough.
Can I ask you an awful lot of questions?

It's a new thing for me so I won't be much help!

Here is what I am trying though...

Group 1- members of my "original" flock, in the fall after I process a few who are no longer laying, it will look something like a mature roo, 2 mature hens & a few of this year's pullets (some hopefully will be chicks they hatched themselves and a few I am going to toss in who were incubator hatches). Maybe 8 or so in this group.

Group 2-
Barred Plymouth rock pullets and a cockerel. Maybe 10 or so in total, haven't decided how many I am going to keep yet. (They are currently about 8 weeks old)

Group 3-
Mixed Breed pullets and possibly a cockerel. They are currently 2.5 weeks old, I'll be integrating them into the day time run around 4-5 weeks, not sure how many will be in this group, maybe 7 or 8.

No idea how this will all work out, especially over the winter as they could go weeks without going outside. Each bird will have at least 3 square feet though and their areas are seperate/secure from each other but they can still see each other.

My run is now 150 feet around, with tall grasses and some hidey spots. In the winter it will be a lot smaller of a run...again, no idea how it will all work out!

 

[centrarchid]

Yes, but you're about the closest to my system so far here.
I'm sure there are others, maybe not multi cooped, but free range with group structures.

In the past, yes, I was very close, but flocks were generally spread out a great deal more. Conflicts between males were more serious than you deal with. Current arrangement I have likely involves greater mobility of birds involved, particularly late juveniles.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

.... How many generations of inbreeding does it take before you risk getting genetic abnormalities?

That depends on the abnormality. There are many many traits that are in reality abnormalities that the BYC keeper may not recognize. Lets call these "abnormalities" what they really are, and that is "highly inheritable traits" Slip joint chicks, crooked toes, cross beaked chicks, abnormal eggshells, crooked keel bones, are a few of these "HIGHLY INHERITABLE TRAITS" High egg production, low egg production, wonky eggshells, low hatchability, high hatchability, etc. are a few other "HIGHLY INHERITABLE" traits. As a backyard chicken keeping rule a flock containing 100 hens and roosters (20 cocks & 80 hens) with care can be carried on forever without outside blood as long as they weren't too inbred when the flock was first established. The problem arises when you get people who fancy themselves as breeders who try to accentuate one trait over another trait like curley feathers or strange or sport colors. You can always bet that strange colors crop up when a flock is too interrelated and most so called "Chicken Breeders" are happy when that happens because they view it as an opportunity to set their very own strain or breed and name it after themselves, like the ChickenGeorgeto checkerboard rocks. It requires a very sharp hatchet and a very cold heart to make a successful breed or strain. I highly doubt that it can be accomplished by breeding just one or two individuals regardless of how many times those individual are bred, inbred, rebred, line bred & bred again.

We haven't even talked about degrees of inbreeding yet and there are many types of inbreeding. The most difficult type of inbreeding to carry on successful is father-daughter-grand-daughter (and so on) or mother-son inbreeding which if it is to be successful must be carried on and intensified through multiple generations with a lot of culling and selection in each generation. The most benign inbreeding is cock-aunt, cousin, grand dam, sire, dam or other more distantly related individuals. Hatcheries have abnormalities crop up from time to time but you can bet the farm that they don't endanger their bloodlines by keeping or harm their reputations by selling defective chickens, that is if they can help it.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm going to work with ChickenCanoe's reply, it's definite number and I'm well within it's limits.
Thanks for your thoughts on the subject Chickengeorgeto. I better not start on what I think of the majority of chicken breeders or I'll get banned.