Inbreeding?

[Lyn862]

I have 10 hens, several different breeds, and 1 rooster. I've been thinking about hatching chicks next spring. I realize that they will be mongrel chickens. Let's call them hybrid. I am fine with that. That got me thinking about the year after. After the first year, suddenly all my chickens will be related to each other. So if I only kept pullets and got rid of the male chicks, then I would have father-daughter matches with my second generation. This bugs me. I'm new to all this and not a farm girl, so maybe I don't understand how the world works. Is the easiest way out of this dilemma to order in fertilized eggs for a broody hen to hatch? Or replace your rooster? Or just relax a little about the inbreeding thing? What is your best advice to a city girl who lives in the country?

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

I would say relax. They should be fine.

You could order fertilized eggs for the broody hen to hatch. That way you will be getting new blood in your flock.

 

[hatchcrazzzy]

just but a new rooster or two and you will have new blood,take rhe older ones out

 

[kellim]

I have this one hen that I just hatched eggs from. She is a little black barnyard mix. The rooster that fertilized her eggs is her brother. And these are the prettiest babies I have ever seen! I haven't had a problem with the inbreeding, though I don't hatch out those eggs often, they were my test hatch before I put my Silver Sebright eggs in there.

Some people do frown upon it. Here is a link to a page about it:
http://www.the-coop.org/wwwboard/discus/messages/15/6117.html

 

[brandywine]

Go ahead and switch out your rooster. While a "mutt" inbred back to her sire won't produce as much deleterious homozygosity in the offspring as a purebred back to her purebred sire (because purebreds already are more genetically similar), you still run the risk of doubling up on undesirable genes, and there could be some slight inbreeding depression in the offspring, lower hatch rates, etc.

If you like your roo and want to keep him, you could just pen him up for a few weeks before you start to hatch out eggs, and during the time your hens are producing eggs for hatching with a new roo. Or you could pen him with all the hens who aren't his daughters, especially if you like what he produced the first time, and let the new guy take care of the daughters.

Select a new roo to bring something you don't have to your flock, not just because he's fertile. See what the daughters are like. If you need more laying, select a roo from a breed and line of great layers. If they are a poor foragers, etc. same deal. If you are happy with your flock's "performance," then select a roo that will produce some pretty color you like or other whimsy -- just be sure he doesn't bring in some weakness that you don't want.

 

[NYREDS]

Line breeding is a very normal and useful practice in breeding poultry and other livestock. With 10 unrelated hens and an unrelated cock you have enough genetic diversity to last for years.
I won't bother to give a long explanation of line breeding here but suffice it to say that father/daughter, mother/son matings are perfectly fine.
I have bred the same strain of Rhode Island Red Bantams for 18 years w/o adding any "new blood". This year I hatched 247 of them. I had 92% fertility with 87% hatchability. I lost only one chick during brooding. These birds do very well in shows I attend and people who have bought birds from me report good results in shows all over the country. A few years back the then President of the RI Red Club told me he thought I had the best strain of Red Bantams in the country. If I reach the point where fertility problems indicate I need to do an outcross it will be very limited and controlled.
So, tell me again where the "risk" is in purebred to purebred breeding?