Line Breeding Questions

[Allie❤️Chickens]

So I’ve been thinking about maybe line breeding some of my chickens, but not the usual kind of line breeding. I want to line breed two chickens of different breeds. Possibly a silkie and a mottled Cochin or silkie and a Mille fleur D’uccle, but I was wondering if it’s safe to line breed like that, and if it would really even be considered line breeding.
We’re not trying to do this for any particular purpose, we just want to get some fun looking chicks that would be well behaved like a silkie that we bred ourselves. I’m asking here before we do it, because I don’t want to put any of the future chicks in danger.
Also, has anybody else done a kind of line breeding project like this and what we’re the results of so? Thanks everyone in advance!

 

[Allie❤️Chickens]

 

[lilmillefleur]

I don't think it will be a problem. But I have not had the experience. Those mixes sound cute!

 

[Allie❤️Chickens]

I don't think it will be a problem. But I have not had the experience. Those mixes sound cute!

Thanks so much!

 

[chickens really]

Definitely breed them. I like crosses..

 

[lomine]

That's not line breeding; it's just mixing breeds (nothing wrong with that). Line breeding is when you selectively breed two related animals for certain traits. For example, you hatch some chicks from your flock with a feather pattern you like. If you take the females and breed to your rooster and take the males and breed to your hens in an effort to get more chicks with the pattern, that would be line breeding. Lots of current breeds and colors came from line breeding.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

What you are wanting to do is cross breed the chickens, not line breed. This is the line breeding chart I follow for my rabbits. It is the same concept for chickens.

 

[centrarchid]

What is proposed could result in line breeding. I assume the to birds are of opposite sex. The first mating with be a cross. The line breeding will commence with subsequent generations where you breed male offspring back to the original female parent and female offspring back to the male parent. With each successive generation, the young with look more like the parent they are being bred back to. You can still do a little selection by using only the best individuals to breed back to parent.

In my realm, the subsequent generations are referred to as grades. The percentages below for each cross represent the proportion of alleles coming from the parent being bred back to. They should agree with fractions in the line-breeding chart above.

F1 = 50%
F2 = 75%
F3 = 87.5%
F4 = 92.75%

I employ the approach when refreshing a line with alleles to replace those lost through inbreeding. That small percentage of alleles coming from the parent used only for the original cross can be extremely important in what you ultimately produce; in a good or bad way.