Line Breeding

[BamaChicken]

I found this a interesting experience from a breeder in the UK. They are not breeding Orps but wonder if this will be true in most breeds.

(My husband and I have always used line breeding. We breed the original stock together then breed sons back to mothers and daughters back to fathers this does reduce the size of offspring but only slightly. Then after 5 generations of this outcross. If breeding brother sister offspring will get larger each time and its best to outcross after 2 generations. Some alternate between these methods e.g. year one parent to offspring mating and year 2 brother sister and so forth. We have never ever bred a deformed chick or suffered with any health problems or poor fertility as a result. Though saying this I know of a breeder who has used the parent to offspring line breeding method for 40 years and still has vigorous, healthy show winning stock, I think it's all about selecting the right birds to breed back, if you pick weak ones you hatch weak chicks. Sion Alun's line of Black Barbu d'Anvers have had no unrelated blood introduced right from the very start, this is at least 10 years ago when he imported stock from the continent and his birds are still looking awesome and still win many many shows. So its all about what you put back in my opinion. be ruthless and cull anything with any form of fault or weakness as this prevents you from changing your mind and breeding from it and puting faults into your line. )

 

[jimnjay]

Julie, there was an interesting article on line breeding and other approaches last year in Backyard Poultry. The Game Cock breeders have used strict line breeding for many years and in some case have never brought in new blood to their flock much as you describe. I know that article did say that Father, Grandfathere and so on back to daughters and grandaughers. At least when you get what you want, you don't have to worry about new traits popping up like we have had with the Silkies. I have a Black Girl that is consistantly producing the nicest chicks. I will not be messing with that line from here on out. The blacks here are a closed flock unless something awful happens as we all know can happen.

Good topic for discussion, thanks for you input.

 

[Krys109uk]

Sion Alun's line of Black Barbu d'Anvers have had no unrelated blood introduced right from the very start, this is at least 10 years ago when he imported stock from the continent and his birds are still looking awesome and still win many many shows.

Who was this Julie? Sion is a good friend of mine. We were all part of the same "Welsh crowd". BTW He the Welsh equivalent of a pastor too.

 

[tate]

breeding son to mother father to daughters is inbreeding line breeding is uncle to niece aunt to nephew or breeding birds from the same line together we did this all the time with coonhounds with good results the one problem with line breeding is if there is a fault you can intensify the fault

 

[Krys109uk]

the one problem with line breeding is if there is a fault you can intensify the fault

Rigorous culling ought to reduce this.​

 

[tate]

Quote:
Rigorous culling ought to reduce this.

will reduce it but wont get rid of it if it is there

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Warning:
I bred a Light Brahma that was normal. Bred him back to his mother as she was the only Brahma hen I had left. After that, I bred the female chicks back to the son of the original hen. Apparently somewhere along the way I got a bird with diabetes. Go figure.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
I have heard so many definitions of the differences between line breeding and inbreeding and this is a new one. Most of the consensus seems to be that line breeding is indeed breeding back to a parent or grandparent, versus in-breeding as being between brother and sister. The difference being that in linebreeding only one set of genes is being intensified in the offspring versus with inbreeding whereas both parents carry the same set of genes.

 

[Pathfinders]

And a great way to keep a closed flock is to spiral breed. I wrote a short article about this for you guys (based on some information I've gotten from other breeders):

http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/Spiral.html