Keeping breeds seperate? Or just no roos?

[WestCoastCoop]

Hi all,

I am brand spanking new to the forum, but have been thoroughly enjoying all of the awesome info! I have a question - I am brand new to having chickens, well chickens of my own, we frequently had RIR's growing up. Anyhow, now I have ordered 3 dozen fertile eggs of some of the heritage breeds I'm most interested in. I have been focussing more on the hatching aspect, but now I am thinking that if I want to keep my breeds seperate, I'm going to have to do in ALL of my roos. In the back of my mind I imagined keep one roo per breed variation with however many hens hatch, but when I actually started thinking about it, I don't want siblings breeding so that isn't going to work. I may play around with the odd cross next year, but realistically if I'm breeding I'm going to need roosters from a different line to cover my hens, so there isn't any point in keeping any of mine anyway is there? Hmm. I have been trying to figure out how to set up my runs to seperate my breed, but I think the most logical plan is to sell the roos (or put them in the freezer) and keep my hens altogether. Then when I decide I want more chicks, I can get a new rooster per breed from a different line and go from there. This is mainly just thinking out loud, but just want to make sure I am on the right track! Any input would be appreiciated!
Cheers!

 

[patandchickens]

Well, first, the roos and hens you get out of your hatching eggs will mostly be, at worst, HALF-sibs, not full sibs; and if the seller keeps more than one pen of the breed then some will not even be half-sibs. That degree of inbreeding is generally not a problem in chickens, assuming the line has been intelligently maintained. So there is no solid reason NOT to use the roos you hatch on the hens you hatch. If you do buy outside roos, then if you are trying to select for particular traits (e.g. SOP or production traits) you are probably best off getting a RELATED roo anyhow, rather than an utterly unrelated one which will just end up introducing a bunch of traits you don't want.

As for breeding them on, from there: you really ought to be keeping more than one pen (or at least more than one roo, and rotate) of each breed, ideally like 3-5 roos of a breed. So make sure you have factored this into your calculations of how many chickens/breeds you can be keeping and propagating.

If you want to keep multiple breeds without separate pens, it is possible (tho not optimal) to just run all your hens together and keep the roos separate; then put Breed A roo(s) in for a month or two, collect and hatch eggs from A hens (this means you have to either trapnest or have breeds that can be told apart on teh basis of egg appearance), the take that roo out and put Breed B roo(s) in for a month or two and go through an episode of collecting and hatching B hens' eggs, and so forth.

Although if you are serious about it, it's usually better to just keep them separate.

Perhaps you might think of your initial order of multiple breeds as an "audition" process, give yourself a year to see which one you like best, then if you want to do real breeding, just concentrate on THAT one. It is hard enough to breed ONE breed well, let alone multiples!

Good luck, have fun,

Pat