Looking to start "breeding" my ladies...

[Alliebammer]

Hi everyone!

I am relatively new to raising chickens, we've had our ladies for about 6 months now and we are really reaping the rewards of having organic, farm fresh eggs. We would like to start "breeding" them in order to use some for meat and to replace the ones that didn't make it. My question is this: We have (what I believe to be) Rhode Island Whites, so do we have to stick with that kind of rooster as well? I was hoping to add some color to my flock, but I'm not sure what that will do to the eggs and chicks that will come from a different rooster breed from the hens. Also, I know once I get going that I need to beware of inbreeding so what are some good tips on how to keep track? Thank you all so much in advance for your advice!!

 

[bburks7]

from my knowledge, it wont hurt anything to have a diff rooster

 

[bobbi-j]

You do not need to have the same breed of rooster as your hens. Depending on what breed you get, you may get different colored eggs from future generations of hens. Somewhere on the forum there is a thread on genetics and what color eggs you'll get from different crosses. Way too complicated for me...

I'm not sure how many generations you can breed down before worrying about complications from inbreeding.

 

[TnClayboy]

If you stick a Rhode Island Red rooster you should get a sexlink chicken the males should be white and females a buff or reddish color . Just what I read I'm no expert

 

[ILikeBirds]

All breeds of chickens are the same species, so they all have the ability to reproduce with one another. Some breeds have harder times reproducing with others, like bantams and large fowl birds, because of the size difference, but that they can still reproduce. That being said, I read somewhere ( I think on another forum) that you won't start seeing complications of inbreeding until about five generations.

When you choose a rooster, make sure it shares the qualities you like, for example a bird that produces eggs frequently or produces large eggs, etc. There's a great page on here all about breeds and their traits, it's one of the tabs up above.

Hope this helped!

 

[Alliebammer]

Thank you all so much for all of your helpful information! I really appreciate it! I will definitely take a look at that forum.

 

[JMarch]

Yes- if you breed them with either a Rhode Island Red, Production Red, or a New Hampshire, you'll get sex-linked chickens and SUPER layers!

We have some sex-link red pullets, production red pullets, and some black australorps (pullets and cockerels). Next spring we'll be crossing the australorps with the red sex-links for a hearty, robust layer stock.