Inbred chicks ???

[abbiejane7]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this question, but here goes.

I have a flock of bantams that I got 3 yrs. ago this month. I haven't brought in ANY new chicks since that time. I am not trying to maintain any certain breed or anything but is it bad to not introduce " new " blood to my brood ? Or does it not make any difference ??

 

[wohneli]

I think that new genes in the pool are a good thing if you are just looking for healthy birds and not trying to work on a specific breed.

 

[cmom]

Here is a thread that may be of interest to you.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1655337#p1655337

 

[patandchickens]

Do a search on this site on "inbreeding" and you will find many threads discussing this subject.

Basically, if you want to select for more-extreme or more-pure "desirable" traits, and also find out which birds are carrying the genes for undesirable traits so you can eliminate them from your breeding flock, then inbreeding is fine (if you're doing this, you may find at some point you need to introduce slightly-unrelated blood, e.g. from same original stock but held by another breeder, but you're unlikely to ever want to introduce really unrelated stock)

OTOH if you just want to produce more of whatever you've got, and would rather prevent undesirable recessives from coming to light, your best bet is indeed to introduce outside blood every generation or two. This will make it hard to select for the traits you want to intensify but it will reduce your chances of problems (not just deformity type problems, but inftertility/unthriftiness problems too).

So, depends what you want.

Also depends what genes your chickens are carrying. Which you probably won't know unless you breed them on for a while, or look at what they were bred *from*.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat