Ok.. so I'm not buying the whole.... Updated with pics...breeding hens

[Brunty_Farms]

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which, I guess, surprises me somewhat (partly that such stock was available for purchase in the first instance! - here in Australia, the broiler companies would be over zealously guarding them to allow this to happen). It would be quite interesting if the growth rate of such stock were compared to that of the final terminal cross.

I had always been under the impression that, due to the much stronger focus on selection for reproductive traits in the female lines, that the growth potential would be significantly lower in these lines (since there is a negative correlation between growth rate and reproductive capacity) - yes, I agree that it would still likely be far superior to the vast majority of DP stock generally available, but still quite inferior to the end product.

However, in reading this through more carefully- it has struck me that the line that is being talked about (in this observarion) is the sire line of the female parental strains. In which case, this would be more heavily selected for growth rate than the dam line of the female parental strain , as the resultant progeny - (ie. the dam to the terminal broiler ) would be expected to have heterosis for egg production. In which case it is really the dam line of the femaler parental strain that is likely to be the rate limiting step with the poorest growth performance (for which I have, to date, been unable to find any growth rate data).

So I would perhaps question as to how similar the four parental strains really are - and the more genetically dissimilar they are, the greater the difficulty in recovering something resembling the final terminal broiler in subsequent generations.

Cheers,
Htul

The females in the pictures I posted are just run of the mill cornish x rock chicks. Nothing special, I used to buy the male by-products for the female line..... not any more. I have to buy 10,000 to be considered legit I guess. At the time I would buy 4,000 at a time... keep what I needed and would sell the rest as day old chicks. However I do not do it anymore. But the thing is, the males from the female line grew like normal broilers... I couldn't even tell they were breeder by-products if I wasn't told... I wouldn't have even known.

There was a few females that did happen to manage to make it in the male bins. Which grew just like their brothers but only smaller. Typical for any cornish cross.

My point is I guess, they lay only about 180-220 eggs per year / hen. This is only possible through a strict feeding program and from what I read, it's only once a day that they are fed. This maintains body weight without them getting too fat or under fed. If they are raised like any other broiler... they will be too big.

I don't think it's as complicated as many make it out to be, there is 6 different lines that go into making one end product. Seems like a lot of waste if your only using one sex from each line. The others (by-products) are contracted with growers for terminal production. A lot of the male lines are used for roasters at 8-9 weeks and the females are used for small fryers 3-3.5 lbs in 6 weeks.

You have the GGP stock, the GP stock, and the Parent stock. The big time companies hold onto and basically lock up their GGP stock. The GP stock and Parent Stock are readily available. GP stock usually runs around $7.00 / chick... and Parent stock around $2.50 / chick. I could buy GP stock if I wanted to get into the business... but it's expensive... money talks in this business. However the GGP stock is what is untouchable.... producers like Tyson own genetic companies that improve these lines all the time. By using 6 different lines, it really keeps it much harder to get back to the pure breed stock.

But the thing with genetics is, it doesn't change... just because they are crosses doesn't mean they are not going to have good meat genetics if bred again to something else. These companies have done the hard work already... no need to get crazy and develop a bunch of new lines from standard pure breeds (unless of course you want to) but a lot of wasted time can be saved with using the standard crosses that are already available. It's very easy to breed for color, and body structure... but meat structure is hard..... it take a lot of time and some luck. But if you use some of these broad breasted cornish rocks... you can save a lot of money and time.

I wouldn't get too carried away with which line they came from or try to figure out how the big guys do it... you will run yourself into a wall, which is why the system is designed the way it is. It's made to be untraceable... which is why 6 lines are used. All six lines have both great meat qualities and average laying abilities. I think the crosses are more to develop the hybrid vigor over 3 generations of breeding.... to make it difficult to track... and to make more money. If you sell just parent stock you can only make so much money... but if you own the Great Grand Parent stock... then sell GP stock and P stock... then your really making good money. There is a lot in there than just genetics... these guys are in it for the money. And if they can produce a better product by using 3 lines they are going to do it.... especially if they can make billions in the process. Companies sell the by-product male or female lines to growers that want them for meat... even if you happened to get one of the chicks you couldn't do much with it... you have 1 our of 6 pieces to the puzzle... so it's not too unrealistic to believe that these companies come off of the parent by-product stock so easily as they have the upper hand.

But overall, egg laying abilities is far more easier to develop than the meat and bone structure. If you start with a few good hens or roosters from cornish x crosses... if you breed them right... and take the time to understand the genetics, you can have a pretty darn good bird in the end. If I can get a bird ready in 9 weeks by breeding my own... than I have solved my problem of buying chicks every year. I don't think it will be that hard, but it will take time.

 

[Htul]

Thanks for the detailed info Jeff - it has been very interesting.

On the whole, I would agree with many of those observations - however, a particular point that I'm not too sure about is:

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While the complex line structure in part is for commercial product protection, I think the heterosis benefits as well as the inherent negative

correlation between the traits of growth rate and reproduction play a greater role. Additionally, this pyramid type structure allows the broiler

breeder companies to operate on the scale that they do (in essence, the GP and P stock are really only acting as multipliers - and there would

simply be no way to produce the number of terminal broilers needed from the GGP alone. So it is easiest to focus selection on an elite nucleus

flock and then multiply this out through the GP and P flocks.

I had actually been under the impression that there were only 3 or 4 pure lines involved: 2 dam lines and perhaps 1 or 2 sire lines with the selection pressures (broadly speaking) on the elite pure lines as follows:

Sire line(s) - focus entirely on growth traits with no selection pressure on reproductive traits (other than sufficient to propagate this line) eg. focus on growth rate, carcase conformation, meat yield, bone structure. Such a line would only be expected to produce the same number of eggs as say pure Cornish or game birds - say several dozen per year.

Sire line of Dam line - focus heavily on many of the same traits as for Sire line but with some emphasis on reproductive traits. Egg production in this line may be a little better than the true sire line, say perhaps 100 or so per year.

Dam line of Dam line - focus moderately on growth and meat traits and also focus on the reproductive traits - selection for egg yield is necessary in this line (necessitating the same techniques used in selection for the layer industry eg. trap-nesting to accurately record egg production). This line would have improved egg production over the other lines (say 180-220 as you indicated previously) but would have the worst meat yield, growth rate, bone structure etc. However just how bad this "worst" is I don't know - which is why I would consider the growth traits in this line to be the 'rate limiting step' in trying to recover growth genetics out of the terminal broiler.

This system would work for the broiler companies because, by breeding the (sire) dam line to the (dam) dam line, the resultant offspring (ie. the female side of the P generation) would be expected to still show heterosis for growth rate and egg production - so they would be good egg producers like their female parents with some quite good meat traits.

Then, when this female line is crossed with the highly superior (in terms of growth traits) sire line, this (in combination with the already good growth traits inherited from the (sire) dam line) result in what we see today for the terminal broiler (for which reproductive capacity is a moot point - though they would be expected to be better than the male P parent and worse than the female P parent.

I guess, at the end of the day what I am trying to say is that I would think that how easy or otherwise it is to recover a half-decent pure broiler line will be dependant on how similar those 3 (or 4 or 6) elite pure lines are: if they all have great meat qualities and average laying abilities, then I would agree that it shouldn't be too hard. However, if some lines are great for meat, but hopeless for reproduction and others are just OK for meat and good for reproduction - then trying to recover the right combination great for meat and good for reproduction may be a bit more of a challenge.


Cheers,
Htul

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I see what your saying, I agree to all of it. I think really the only way to figure this out is to just do it and see what happens. I have my incubators ready for when the gals start to lay. I guess I'm going to start there and work into the male lines as well. Do you have any projects your wanting to do?

 

[Htul]

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I definitely agree with that.

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The kind of project that you've outlined and also that uhuh555 does appeal to me - and I plan on dabbling in this kind of thing myself.

Over here the only meat chicks that we can (relatively) easily get a hold of are the Cobbs - we don't really have many large-scale hatcheries like you guys have. However, I think I will try to make a Cobb X Cobb F1 next breeding season - then try and select the faster growers to make an F2. A challenge that I can see with this is trying to balance selecting the fastest growers, with putting them on a restricted diet early enough so that they can still be useful as breeders later down the track.

Cheers,
Htul

 

[FordFamilyFarm]

I had some X Rock hens and I crossed them with a Dark Cornish cock. My cock X Rock got too big and could not mount the hens So I tried the Dark Cornish male. I got a whole bunch of different combos from these birds. The one cock and three hens produced birds of all kinds of shapes and colors. Some even were bearded instead of wattles. The percentage of good meat birds were lower than I expected. About 30 percent were good breasted meat birds. Others were about equal in size to a regular Barred Rock. They also grew at a normal rate. Alot slower than the X Rocks

 

[Kim_NC]

oh boy, I'm getting way too many ideas here

 

[dancingbear]

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Yeah, me too. I think my DH is starting to worry whenever he sees me head for the computer.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I'm expecting mixed results with the Buckeye Roo over these hens. My main over all goal with these crosses is to get some wider breast in some of my buckeyes. I'm just playing with the idea so we will see what happens I guess.

I did not save a male, I didn't want the extra mouth to feed over the winter. However I'm going to save one from my March batch of chicks and hold one back... at about 4 weeks I will know which one to pick as you can definitely see a growth rate difference early in the better males.

I think that after you get the first generation out of the way and weed out the slower growing ones, you should get better results the second and third year.