Landrace/adaptive breeding discussion

[NatJ]

The first secret is don't bother looking for a genetic explanation or wading through pages of studies.
Seriously, we don't know much about chickens despite centuries of of chicken keeping. The whole genetics completely determines behaviour is just plain wrong. It's not that genes don't play their role but there is a balance in there somewhere between environment and genes.

But there are many people who have a flock with several breeds, all kept together in one pen and with one kind of feed and one style of management, and their Silkies go broody while their Leghorns do not. Or maybe it's the Cochins going broody while the ISA Browns don't. But across many different such flocks, certain breeds are much more likely to be the ones that go broody, and certain other breeds almost never do.

So I am firmly convinced that genetics have SOME effect, even though they do not seem to account for all of it.

On the other hand, environment is obviously important too (I am including feeding, housing, care, climate, and many other things under "environment.") I've encountered stories of a hen that goes broody frequently while living in one person's flock, and not at all in a different person's flock, which seem to clearly show that changing environment can change whether a particular hen goes broody, since the hen certainly did not change her own genes when she moved to a new home! (I've encountered such stories in either direction, starting with a frequently-broody hen or with a not-broody hen, and switching to the other condition after being rehomed.) @Shadrach your own stories are part of why I am sure that environment is part of the answer. I notice that some of your hens didn't even have to move, just have different care in the same location, which shows that something about the care/feeding/housing you provide is able to make a difference in how many hens go broody.

 

[NatJ]

I cannot remember where now, but somewhere I read that the modern production breed was essentially created when the switch that tells the hen to stop laying and start incubating got turned off, so they don't get a 'clutch complete' message and just keep laying.

If you find the source at some point in the future, I'd like to read it too.

But again, it seems to be a graduated scale rather than an absolute, because some will go broody on four fake eggs while others amass 20 or more before they stop laying. This suggests that even in this tiny piece of the brooding process multiple genes and multiple triggers are involved.

No, that is not what @Perris and I are saying.

We are talking about how many eggs the hen lays, not how many are physically in the nest.

It is possible to collect every egg that is laid, and always leave one fake egg in the nest, and one hen will go broody after laying 13 eggs (I've seen that: her eggs were quite easy to recognize) while a different hen goes broody after laying 50 eggs (I haven't exactly counted that number of eggs, but I've had some hens where it was about that many.) If you select for a hen that doesn't go broody until she lays 100 eggs or 200 eggs or more, you can get a hen that has never laid "enough" eggs to go broody.

Because hens like to share nests, and chicken-keepers often collect the eggs to eat or to store carefully for hatching, the number of eggs in the nest is usually not the same as the number of eggs the hen laid since her last break.

How many eggs are in the nest may be another trigger, but I haven't personally seen evidence of it. I've seen hens that went broody on a single fake egg, or were broody on an empty nest. I've seen hens that did not go broody even when the nest had large numbers of eggs in it (hidden nest, everyone was laying, no-one was sitting). I've heard of hens that will go broody only when the nest has a full clutch of eggs, no matter how many of those eggs were laid by the hen in question, but I have not personally seen that happen.

 

[fluffycrow]

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take? the swings you don't make? similar quote by Bruce Lee for marital arts, etc...

A lot of great discussion on here, I'm enjoying it.


If you try you might succeed. If you don't try you will not for sure

I plan on giving it a go sometime either way, even though I'm not sure how it would work out. Cruella is about the same size as the foot of either one of my Tsouloufati males.



I too, am thoroughly enjoying this conversation. As my signature suggests (I think it's the signature), I'm up for any kind of broody talk

 

[NatJ]

I too, am thoroughly enjoying this conversation. As my signature suggests (I think it's the signature), I'm up for any kind of broody talk

I don't see it in the signature at the bottom of your post, but I do see it right under your profile picture. I'm not quite sure what that line is called.

 

[fluffycrow]

The first secret is don't bother looking for a genetic explanation or wading through pages of studies.
Seriously, we don't know much about chickens despite centuries of of chicken keeping. The whole genetics completely determines behaviour is just plain wrong. It's not that genes don't play their role but there is a balance in there somewhere between environment and genes.

I definitely agree, but right now, it seems like free ranging vs not free ranging isn't the determining factor. The group that has never free ranged is the one that has ever gone broody. That is to say, that while I'm totally with you on broodiness being encouraged by environmental factors, but we don't have much of an idea as to what those can be. What NatJ and Perris are saying about production breeds and mixes being bred with no "off switch" makes sense



I guess it's time to share a little bit of "folk wisdom". Something that gets thrown around these parts quite often is that a hen that protects the nest like she's broody while trying to lay her egg will make a good broody and an even better mother. I'm notnone to believe these old sayings, although there is sometimes wisdom to be found in them. So far, my experience hasn't confirmed the above, in fact, my experience says the exact opposite.



Just though I should share one more bit of information, if you could call it that, which goes to show how complicated this discussion can get, the more people you ask



We're ready for tip number 2

 

[fluffycrow]

I don't see it in the signature at the bottom of your post, but I do see it right under your profile picture. I'm not quite sure what that line is called.

Yeah, that's the spot I meant. Nor sure what it's called either

 

[NatJ]

I definitely agree, but right now, it seems like free ranging vs not free ranging isn't the determining factor. The group that has never free ranged is the one that has ever gone broody. That is to say, that while I'm totally with you on broodiness being encouraged by environmental factors, but we don't have much of an idea as to what those can be.

More of my broodies have been in confined flocks, and less in flocks that had any ability to free range. Then again, I've had more total chickens in confined flocks, and I've had different breeds in different situations, so the whole situation is complicated.

But it is definitely not as simple as "confined chickens never go broody" or "free ranging chickens never go broody," just like there is no simple feed that will 100% cause or prevent broodiness, or any breed that will always go broody or never go broody.

 

[LaurenRitz]

The first secret is don't bother looking for a genetic explanation or wading through pages of studies.
Seriously, we don't know much about chickens despite centuries of of chicken keeping. The whole genetics completely determines behaviour is just plain wrong. It's not that genes don't play their role but there is a balance in there somewhere between environment and genes.

What?! Nature vs nurture is complicated???

 

[U_Stormcrow]

It is possible to collect every egg that is laid, and always leave one fake egg in the nest, and one hen will go broody after laying 13 eggs (I've seen that: her eggs were quite easy to recognize) while a different hen goes broody after laying 50 eggs (I haven't exactly counted that number of eggs, but I've had some hens where it was about that many.) If you select for a hen that doesn't go broody until she lays 100 eggs or 200 eggs or more, you can get a hen that has never laid "enough" eggs to go broody.

Because hens like to share nests, and chicken-keepers often collect the eggs to eat or to store carefully for hatching, the number of eggs in the nest is usually not the same as the number of eggs the hen laid since her last break.

Two winters back, two of my ducks were trying to brood on top of a 2 string hay bale (not sure how they even got up there) with one of my larger "rainbow" hens from HH. Eventually, they all abandoned the nest.

I stopped counting at 88! mixed eggs, duck and chicken both, in that nest. Likely over 110 in total.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't know if you know it but that is the central message of Ball's How Life Works: a user's guide to the new biology 2023. It's heavy going, and I'm only up to chapter 5, but the idea of the genome as a blueprint is clearly defunct in current biological research.

I'll look out for it.