Landrace/adaptive breeding discussion

[U_Stormcrow]

I made the mistake of tightly controlling breeding on the front end by culling roosters that didn’t meet physical (and often superficial) criteria before they could breed. I also wouldn’t let roosters fight for dominance, instead culling out young stags before they could challenge the brood cock.

The damage was done when I promoted two roosters that were physically and behaviorally what I wanted, but hadn’t been tested against disease. They created 2 generations prone to various ailments found on free range on my farm, Marek’s being chief. Had I let vigor be selected for through keeping my hands off the roosters, I would have likely had several hundred healthy adult birds to choose from by now.

I may be over the hump now, as so far Marek’s hasn’t reared its head this season. But it set my projects back by causing me to go somewhat return to square one. I have several birds on my yard that don’t meet my criteria for superficial traits, but are healthy and apparently disease resistant and I’m having to breed from those. If I could do it over again 5 years ago, I would have let the flock breed naturally from then until now and only start culling from birds that are at least 2 years old so that my breeding stock would have a proven track record of producing vigorous offspring.

I'd love to claim I m culling Roos either very early or after a season of breeding, but a number of mine seem to have gotten a full year of breeding done. A couple left to cull, leaving best three to figure things out. Right now I'm bottle-necking on hens, afraid I'm going to reinforce the SLW traits too much - there's a lot about them I don't like (small size, small eggs, late lay, infrequent lay...)

My head count overall is way down, need to hatch more. Last batch has some physically promising specimens. We'll see how they do as they age up - but two of the eight are destined for camp.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I do cull, primarily for rooster behavior at this point. I really can't have a rooster that attacks me. I made the mistake of keeping the son of my old roo. He's an ambush stalker. I don't have health insurance and can't afford a hospital visit because of a bird.

I won't keep any of his sons. His behavior is the same as his Dad's, so there's a genetic component.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I do cull, primarily for rooster behavior at this point. I really can't have a rooster that attacks me. I made the mistake of keeping the son of my old roo. He's an ambush stalker. I don't have health insurance and can't afford a hospital visit because of a bird.

I won't keep any of his sons. His behavior is the same as his Dad's, so there's a genetic component.

Were any of the aggressive roosters hen-raised, or artificially incubated?

 

[LaurenRitz]

The current roo was broody raised, by a friend's hen. His father was a hatchery chick, and the others I culled were a related cross, his half-nephews. Their father was my original roo's brother. They were incubated and raised by a friend of mine, but were kept in a bachelor pad their whole lives. No real flock interaction except with their brothers.

Now that I think about it, all my roos to this point have been closely related, and all had similar problems.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

The current roo was broody raised. His father was a hatchery chick, and the others I culled were a related cross, his half-nephews. Their father was my original roo's brother. They were incubated and raised by a friend of mine, but were kept in a bachelor pad their whole lives. No real flock interaction except with their brothers.

Now that I think about it, all my roos to this point have been closely related, and all had similar problems.

I’ve bred many human-aggressive roosters from other farms and of all the roosters I’ve produced from the human-aggressive fathers, none have been human aggressive except 1 (one out of likely several hundred). I tend to believe that human aggression is often due to imprinting instead of genetics. People being too present during hatching in an incubator and coddling the chicks with too much human interaction for the first several weeks. They can’t tell the difference between a human and a rival rooster.

I think (vaguely recollect) the one human aggressive rooster I produced was hen raised, but then I penned him and kept him eye level with me during late adolescence. I think the constant interaction with my head in his face turned him aggressive.

 

[LaurenRitz]

And yet, both of my friend's roos (father and son) have been perfectly behaved, and both were raised by me, one hatchery and his son incubated. They never knew each other, but the behavior is identical. 0 human aggression, not interested in young pullets, 0 hen aggression, both accepted immediately by adult hens, the son at only 18 weeks.

I have 3 more in that line, in the hope that the behavior passes on.

We'll see what happens with the current roo's boys, since they're being raised by a broody.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

And yet, both of my friend's roos have been perfectly behaved, and both were raised by me, one hatchery and his son incubated. They never knew each other, but the behavior is identical. 0 human aggression, not interested in young pullets, 0 hen aggression, both accepted immediately by adult hens, the son at only 18 weeks.

I have 3 more in that line, in the hope that the behavior passes on.

We'll see what happens with the current roo's boys, since they're being raised by a broody.

I think it depends on how the human interacts with them after hatching. I incubate mine in a dark barn. I only interact with the chicks behind a flash light. When I move them outside a day or two after hatching, they only ever see me when I bring food and change their water. I think that’s the key to minimizing the chances of imprinting. They fear me until they’re half-grown.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I think it depends on how the human interacts with them after hatching. I incubate mine in a dark barn. I only interact with the chicks behind a flash light. When I move them outside a day or two after hatching, they only ever see me when I bring food and change their water. I think that’s the key to minimizing the chances of imprinting. They fear me until they’re half-grown.

As I said I think there's a genetic component as well. My friend's first roo, hatchery JG, got frostbite at 4 weeks and was in the house interacting with me over a period of 6 weeks as he healed. Did he imprint on me? If so I never saw the effects.

Yes, he had a teenage jerk period, which his son somehow skipped (?!) but no sign of human aggression. Maybe he was smart enough to throw off the effects of imprinting? No idea.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

As I said I think there's a genetic component as well. My friend's first roo, hatchery JG, got frostbite at 4 weeks and was in the house interacting with me over a period of 6 weeks as he healed. Did he imprint on me? If so I never saw the effects.

Yes, he had a teenage jerk period, which his son somehow skipped (?!) but no sign of human aggression. Maybe he was smart enough to throw off the effects of imprinting? No idea.

I don’t think they’re all capable of the same levels of imprinting, with imprinting behavior having been greatly modified by human selection over recent decades/centuries. I am aware of a study that showed a significant difference in how imprinting worked between red junglefowl and factory white leghorn, so there is some basis for the idea. If true, that would be an indirect way that genetics could control human-oriented aggression. I suspect that imprinting varies not only between chicken breeds but also between individuals within a breed.

The reason I suspect imprinting is that I’ve raised several broods of domestic turkeys and they very definitely imprint on humans when artificially incubated. Its hard to get them not too. The result is that imprinted toms are hyper aggressive to humans in the spring, while hen-raised toms have not been in my experience.

Turkeys don’t have near as long or as strong of human selection over their genetics as chickens have. Thus human-imprinting is a lot easier and common with turkeys. I theorize that its the same process with chickens, but dialed back and more randomized based on their method of raising and the genetics of the individuals.

 

[fluffycrow]

I think it depends on how the human interacts with them after hatching. I incubate mine in a dark barn. I only interact with the chicks behind a flash light. When I move them outside a day or two after hatching, they only ever see me when I bring food and change their water. I think that’s the key to minimizing the chances of imprinting. They fear me until they’re half-grown.

Imprinting has definitely been overlooked as a factor for human aggression, but I don't think it's the only one. That's just me speculating, however. So far, all of the broody raised males I've had (not many, and some didn't stay for long) were not human aggressive

I have a much more hands on approach to brooding than you. Still, my birds also fear me from day one. The broody raised birds are even wilder. I've never been able to touch them