Interbreeding

[Darcy holding]

I have a cockerel and hen from the same parent chickens, the parents are unrelated........can I breed the brother and sister or will I get bad strain chickens?

 

[R2elk]

I have a cockerel and hen from the same parent chickens, the parents are unrelated........can I breed the brother and sister or will I get bad strain chickens?

Inbreeding and Linebreeding

 

[Egghead_Jr]

If they share bad traits then you'd compound them. If they have good qualities then you are compounding them. There is nothing wrong with close relation breeding as long as you are selecting for quality.

 

[Floof]

I'm no expert but I've read that it is acceptable to back cross to a parent and frowned upon to breed siblings. My understanding is that there is still more genetic diversity offered by a parent rather than siblings.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

There's potential of more diversity of genes in a sibling than a parent. We backcross to parents to strengthen the good qualities of that parent. Intentionally limiting the gene pool.

With project birds the F1 generation mating onto selves is very common. What's not liked about it is that diversity of F1 is expressed in F2 generation making for all sizes, shapes and colors of birds. It requires hatching a lot then culling, limiting gene pool, to what is desired and breeding that either back to F1 or onto themselves depending on what the project goal is.

What the OP has is an F1 generation, birds from same parents who are unrelated. The vastness of that gene pool will take a lot of close mating and culling of birds from gene pool to produce consistent results in future generations. They could push the sibling mating to 5 generations, F5 birds. The practice is usually limited to that amount of pressure limiting the gene pool. Usually you'll find what is needed and have enough aunts and uncles with those qualities too to start up a line breeding or spiral breeding program before then.