New Flock Breeding Plan Help Needed

[ihalo]

I have twelve 4 mo old chickens from 4 different breeds (Lavender Orpington, Black Copper Marans, Ameraucana, and Barnvelder.)

Of those 12 chickens I ended up with one hen and two roosters(A & B) in each breed. I have no idea if they are siblings. I got them from a local breeder a state away and I didn't think to ask at the time.

I've been reading about inbreeding/line breeding. My question is: Is it better to breed the hen with rooster A. Then breed their offspring with rooster B? Or breed the hen with rooster A, then the daughter to the father?

I want to use them to build my flock but I'm not exactly sure how to start.

 

[chirpingcricket]

I have twelve 4 mo old chickens from 4 different breeds (Lavender Orpington, Black Copper Marans, Ameraucana, and Barnvelder.)

Of those 12 chickens I ended up with one hen and two roosters(A & B) in each breed. I have no idea if they are siblings. I got them from a local breeder a state away and I didn't think to ask at the time.

I've been reading about inbreeding/line breeding. My question is: Is it better to breed the hen with rooster A. Then breed their offspring with rooster B? Or breed the hen with rooster A, then the daughter to the father?

I want to use them to build my flock but I'm not exactly sure how to start.

Hello, noticed your post, wanted to bump it forward...I'm thinking it's father/daughter, but hope someone else will pick up on this and "share" the specifics with both of us. This is an area alot of folks would like to know the "how to's" in producing/maintaining breed lines, mixes, etc. Talk to you soon, stay in touch!!

 

[fluttervale]

I haven't bred chickens but have been involved in dogs and have studied breeding programs extensively.

Assuming that all three members of each breed were of a quality I'd want to go forward with, I would breed Hen to RooA. Then the offspring (HxA) to B. I'd take the offspring of that back to either one of the originals (H or A) or if not available, back to a member of the HxA breeding. Primarily to get enough genetic diversity that you don't bottleneck yourself. If you only breed HxA and then offspring to parent or offspring to offspring, and either H or A has something that they're passing that you seriously don't want, it'll be very hard to breed it back out without outcrossing later on.

It's kind of like a braid, if you think about it. You go from one side to another and then back to the first.