Less-than-ideal offspring from 'heritage/standard-bred' chickens?

[saladin]

Now that I got that off my chest.........


Believe it or not, in breeding to the Standard, to some degree we are actually breeding for the culls! Our desire is to inbreed in such a way that the hidden recessive traits rise to the top and can be discarded. We are not at all dismayed by those faults that occur in our lines. We want to know what's their so that it can be taken out.

Sometimes we do have to bring in an outside bird to help set something in our line. The goal is to develop a line/strain/family where that is no longer necessary to do. With a large enough hatch you can continue to inbreed for many many generations with no detrimental effect.

 

[jmc]

Quote:
I'm glad you said that, Sal. And that is interesting about the wheat and barley.

BTW, I hope sustainable agriculture overcomes the mess recent decades have created and becomes the global form for all.

 

[jmc]

I should have mentioned more clearly that, all along, I am envisioning the following hypothetical case:

Starting with high quality birds of whatever breed, then letting them breed RANDOMLY, with little selection except for obvious matters, such as deformities, possessed Roosters...... And then continuing in this fashion.

The NEW blood brought in from time to time, may or MAY NOT be from Standard bred/Heritage birds.

In other words, I am imaging a population that is breeding randomly generation after generation, with not a whole lot of human intervention, CERTAINLY not selecting for conformation, perfect coloring, markings or size...............

This is what i am envisaging here (no i do not plan to do this): We start with great birds, and just let 'nature' take its course, with only minimum intervention/NOT BREEDING TO STANDARD at all.

In this situation, the original, high quality group will have shown itself to be 'unsustainable'. Why, because it was bred randomly, with minimal culling. I think you would all agree here, right

I have a question later about the succeeding generations of offspring from these birds, but I want to let the 'panel' look at this post first.

I am still 'going somewhere' even if you may be rolling your eyes!

Peace

 

[capayvalleychick]

Quote:
I'm not a pro. I've only had purebred chickens for 6 years. However, I made the mistake of doing exactly what you describe in your hypothetical case. The original qualities of my flock have deteriorated. So, in my very limited experience, I would say that my original flock of SQ birds were unsustainable without culling.

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but 11 years ago, I had a flock of previously feral chickens. These chickens were taken from flocks that live in a wild state in my region, roaming the farm fields and sleeping in trees for decades. There certainly was superiority in those chickens, as far as health, vigor, fertility, broody qualities, intelligence, foraging and egg laying ability. Most were smaller than large fowl, though, so they had no value as meat birds. I just wish that I could have those good traits in my heritage chickens!

Kim

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
As your subject line says, "Less-than-ideal offspring from 'heritage/standard-bred' chickens"..... that is probably exactly what you will get.

Just my inexperienced opinion.

I am still 'going somewhere' even if you may be rolling your eyes!

Good luck with whatever you do, or where ever you are going.​

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
Thanks for saying that, it was at the heart of my objections, too.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Also, upon rereading the last day's posts, I feel it's necessary to point out that even if one lets ones animals "breed at random" there's selection going on: not to decide is to decide. I've had the opportunity to watch that work out over time, in the form of my mother's free-ranging and breeding flock of bantams. As far as anyone can remember, they began as a trio of either RIRBs or BBR (unknown breed); several other chickens were added at random, mostly by showing up in the yard in the moring picking through the compost pile: these were everything from other banties to a Barred Rock hen to occassional large fowl game type birds.

Even though there was no active culling, there were selective powers at work. The first to go were the slow, since the dogs and cats took them out. Extremely small and gentle roosters were out compete or flat out killed by larger and more aggressive ones. Poor free-rangers didn't survive, since the closest these birds got to chicken feed was the spilled cattle feed. Hens which made and hatched cooperative nests raised more chicks. Brighter colored birds attracted avian predators. In the end, the flock closely resembled Red Jungle Fowl. It's called "regression to type" as mentioned above, and what it amounts to is removing the conscious selective pressure of domestication and replacing it with the automatic selective pressure of nature. But selection is still going on. It's just that that kind of selection makes the birds less fit for human use. They're probably the best kind of weed and insect control, but the traits which make the hens hatch the most chicks are the ones which also remove eggs from the human food chain, and the young cockerels are so heavily selected against by their aggressive seniors that even their meager carcases are unobtainable for meat.

"Not to decide is to decide" as the saying goes, and as soon as you get a rooster and start hatching your own chicks you enter the realm of selection. I'm going to come down firmly on making mindful decisions, since I've lived with the consequences of just letting nature take its course, and they're not peaceful.

 

[jmc]

It seems to me that post no. 53 is not too far from what hatchery-breeders must practice.

Of course, I don't know for sure. But, since almost none breed SQ birds, their 'management' must be less stringent than the Standard/Heritage Breeder.

I am guessing this must be how RIRs from hatchery breeders came to look the way they do. At some point--remember some of these hatcheries have been around many, many decades--they must have had some pretty fine birds to begin with.

THEN CAME years of non-standard breeding practices and now there are the slightly 'different' RIR, BPR, WPR, Dom., NH, WYAN. breeds. Still the same breed, just NOT standard bred.

This my take on the history.......................

Whaddya think.






ALSO, KIM, STUMP..........very interesting stories of those chicken flocks. Must've been neat to watch.............