Linebreeding

[Kassidy_gray]

So I don’t know much about it but I have read that chickens can linebreed (or inbreed?) with their offspring. So what I’m wondering is if I have a roo, can he mate with his offspring or is that dangerous? I’ve seen where they say it’s okay if it’s “short-term” but I wasn’t sure if that meant like only breed them a few times or only breed them to one generation. Does anyone have experience with this?

 

[FloorCandy]

So I don’t know much about it but I have read that chickens can linebreed (or inbreed?) with their offspring. So what I’m wondering is if I have a roo, can he mate with his offspring or is that dangerous? I’ve seen where they say it’s okay if it’s “short-term” but I wasn’t sure if that meant like only breed them a few times or only breed them to one generation. Does anyone have experience with this?

Line breeding is very popular when breeding for certain traits, and it is better to breed a parent to chick than siblings, but this all depends on how closely all the hens and roosters are related. Basically you can line breed to a certain extent, but need to bring in new genes every so often, how soon will depend on if the original birds were siblings or from the same line at the same hatchery, or if they started as totally unrelated from different sources. Many breeders will do rotations, like breed a+b and create c, then breed a+c (ac) and b+c (bc) and then b+ac, a+bc, ac+bc etc, but eventually you still need new blood. With my quail, I try to bring in new blood from a totally different source each year, but the generations go faster in quail, so with chickens you can probably go far longer than a year without any issues.

 

[Kassidy_gray]

Yes. We were actually considering breeding like a+c like you said and then selling the silkies. I just wouldn’t feel right it selling them if that would mess up their lineage or whatever in anyway. So you think it would be okay if I just didn’t go any further down the line than a+c?

 

[FloorCandy]

Yes. We were actually considering breeding like a+c like you said and then selling the silkies. I just wouldn’t feel right it selling them if that would mess up their lineage or whatever in anyway. So you think it would be okay if I just didn’t go any further down the line than a+c?

That would be fine, as long as they weren’t already inbred before you started.

 

[sdm111]

Line or inbreeding is fine as long as you start with quality blood. After too much inbreeding (breeding too tight) the offspring tend to be smaller and lose vigor which then you would outbreed or infuse with fresh blood to regain size and vigor. Son mom grandpa grand daughter son of that to neice etc. Use legbands or toe punch