Please help - I need Chicken Breeding 101!!

[elliemae0]

My husband and I are having so much fun with our chickens! We both work city jobs, but live in the outskirts of a metropolitan city, and so we have been raising female chickens for 2 years. (Give eggs to our family/friends, love on the chickens, etc. We haven't ever kept Roosters, (didn't want to offend the neighbors with noise), but when we purchased our new female chicks this year, you guessed it - one was a rooster. My question is this.......We have probably 7-9 different kinds of chickens. Barred Rocks, Crevecours, white leghorns, partridge cochins, RIR, 1 bantam and a couple of others. Our chickens are pets, we purchased for the variety. If we choose to keep this rooster, will he breed with all of them, and produce odd chicken breeds? We're new to this. Is it morally correct to breed only within the breed, or can/do you cross-breed? What happens when you cross - let's say, a white leghorn with a partridge chicken. What determines the breed? This may sound corny, but we're just learning, and this is the best site I've found to do that! Thanks for any advice!

 

[SpringChickens]

Yes, he will (probably) not have any preferences, although he may have trouble with the bantam!!

If you incubate the eggs you get.......


Designer chickens!!! (kind of like designer dogs, i.e. labradoodle)

No, the offspring will not be purebred but that doesn't mean they won't be nice chickens.

Good luck!!

 

[TexasVet]

I love that term... designer chickens!

All of my breeds cross and I have some of the most amazing variations. My polish tophat crossed with who knows whom, and the result is Mohawk.. a black hen with feathers just down the center of her head. And the white leghorn & RIR cross gave me... a red and white blotchy chicken we call Patches. And the bantams crossed with the bigger birds, so we have medium-sized broody hens.

It's all great fun, and you never know what you'll end up with.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.CountryChickens.com

 

[FrenchHen]

We got a mutt rooster from Craigslist and we have cute little mutt chickies running around now.
I have no idea how good they'll be as egg layers, but they're adorable.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Yes,and no, they wonlt be oddbreeds, they will be cross-breeds

We're new to this. Is it morally correct to breed only within the breed, or can/do you cross-breed?

Nothing moral or immoral about it, but if you want purebred birds,they won't be.

What happens when you cross - let's say, a white leghorn with a partridge chicken. What determines the breed?

There is a defined standard for each breed. Meeting the standard deternines the breed. Chicken genetics are pretty complicated.​