increasing flock size

[quackandclucks]

Hi,

New to the forum..last couple months..have 4 hens RR mixes and 1 pekin drake and 2 cayuga females, I would like to increase my females by using my own eggs....does this matter that the drake would be the ducklings "father" when it comes time for them to breed in the future. Any insight would be appreciated.....


quacksalot

 

[nivtup]

My understanding is that breeding father to daughter is ok. Brother to sister, not so good.

 

[Borncountry419]

Depends on if your birds are related or not. Say you have a brother and sister right now who give you chicks and ducklings. Then you get inbred babies from them, and then they're inbred again when the father mates with them (obviously your Pekin and cayugas aren't related). And like nivtuck said, father to daughter or vice versa is usually ok, since they only have 50% of each others genetics. But brother and sister would have the same genetics, so it wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[Borncountry419]

Oh, and

from MN!

 

[quackandclucks]

thanks for the information...
Nope they aren't related and I won't be keeping any males I just want to give the 2 girls some respite from him and I have heard that 1 male can handle up to 10 females. Figured I would use my own eggs and raise them like I did him...got the girls so he would leave my chickens alone...he had a brother but a wiley fox took him a few weeks ago so he is the lone male now...and he thinks he is the stud muffin around the place

 

[Borncountry419]

Haha. The stud muffin around the place... I love it. Lol. I'd say go for it, but if you plan on keeping 10 ducks (and want fertile eggs), you might want to get 1 or 2 more drakes. Roosters can handle a lot of hens, but drakes tend to handle less ducks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
Actually, if you go through it carefully, the most likely percentage of mixed genes with father to daughter, son to mother, or brother to sister is 25%. Of course, this will vary in each specific case, but it can vary the same amount in any of these mixes.

The diferences in a father to daughter to a brother to sister is that in the father to daughter, the 1/4 possible shared genes are all from the father. In the brother to sister, 1/8 of the possible share genes are from the father and 1/8 are from the mother. If you are breeding to enhance certain traits, it is easier to control that if you have a parent to child, but from a straight genetic diversity issue, it is a wash.

 

[Borncountry419]

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for correcting me!