Newbie question on chicken mutts

[plantguy90]

Hi, I've never bred, and raising for the first time. My starter layer flock of 4 was diverse in color and breed. Now if later on, I get a rooster, and let the chickens do what they do, I will end up with various mutts, right? I noticed everyone generally keeps different breeds, so how come the "mutt" chicken isn't more common?

 

[happyhensny]

There are many trains of thought on the breed "thing" As long as you are enjoying your animals, than MPO is have "mutts" they lay eggs, are edible as any other breed, etc. Others opinions are that "full breed" chickens cost just as much to care for and can be shown as sold as such. We have both "mutts" and specific breed chickens. Mutts lay great eggs and are friendly, the straight breeds I can separate, breed, and sell as such. Therefore, make more money per bird. Many things to consider.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mutt chickens are extremely common. We all have different goals and reasons for keeping chickens. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I personally chose diferent breeds that should give me decent dual purpose chickens when they interbreed and, after a couple of generations, I will never know what the chick will look like as long as I don't overselect for one color or pattern.

I've seen it suggested that if you keep interbreeding mutts, they will eventually lose fertility, egg production, growth, or some other positive trait. That's why you keep purebred chickens. I think if you keep interbreeding from the same purebred flock, you will run into the same problems. Eventually you will need to bring in some outside blood, whether that is from another purebreed strain or just another mutt flock in my case.

I'd guess one reason you see a lot of purebred chickens on here is that a lot of people are showing you their first generation of chickens. Also, many do not raise their own replacements but buy them from a hatchery. In either case, hatcheries normally sell either purebred chickens or special crosses like the sex links.

 

[Illia]

Mutts are extremely common - Look at "Ameraucanas" from hatcheries and feedstores.v

They aren't Ameraucanas. They're mutts.

Then, there are Sex Links. . . Mutts. Same with Comets and so forth.

And there are also project birds - Techincally mutts, then bred down to be recognized by the APA.

And of course, there are loads of people with mutt chickens they make. I have Olive Eggers (Marans x Easter Egger) in the makings.

But yes, there are a lot of purebreds around because people like something that has a standard.

 

[gabbyscritters]

For years that is what we had. We started with a order from a hatchery of different breeds and over the years the chickens did their thing. You can get some very fancy looking birds. My girls hatched out eggs each summer and sold the chicks for usually $2.00 each, adds up to some pretty good money for a kid when you hatch out 30 to 60 chicks a summer. Two years ago our youngest sold all "her" chickens off to start over with pure breed "quality" chicks so she can show her birds. My be just bad luck but we have had more problems the past year with various problems with these "better birds". Have fun and don't worry about mutts, they are fun!

 

[plantguy90]

Well one question I have is even if you get a chick that says RIR, how do you know its not just a sex-link? Unless you trace the local trader's hachery and then research reputation, how do you know anyhows?

I am kind of fascinated by the thought of keeping an ongoing flock, and making mutts sound oddly interesting. I do understand about interbreeding issues over time, but that's easily controlled by adding new birds...