Prevent inbreeding by changing Roo every x generations??

[NYREDS]

Immune system - if you treat birds with weak immune systems and line breed, this could become the dominate trait in your flock, which could end up in a disaster sometime down the road (keep in mind we are looking at years here not months).

[


Good point & that's exactly why I advise against treating sick birds if yoi plan to breed. If you breed from birds that get sick you produce more birds that get sick. If you breed from birds that remain healthy you produce more birds that remain healthy.​

 

[patandchickens]

QuailHollowP&P :

he went on to tell me - that his uncle told him - the key to success was; every 5 years or so (This is a direct quote) "you had to throw some junk in the line to fix things". He said his uncle would get a couple of hatchery hens to toss in with his stock, and keep right on going. Like I said, about every 5 years or so he did this.

You can do it, and it will fix the fertility problems, but if you are seriously trying to select for particular traits it is probably a BAD idea unless you have no alternative.

Reason being, you have spent 5 generations trying to get rid of the traits you don't want and intensify the ones you do, and whammo you throw all the bad ones right back into the gene pool to mix with and dilute out the desired traits. Five baby steps forward, one giant step back

A better plan, that would achieve exactly the same thing, would be to find a cockerel that is *somewhat* related to your, but not too closely.

If you keep several pens, this is the main *purpose* of it

, so you can be rotating males periodically.

If you only have one breeding pen, or have a couple of very small pens and get to where you are experiencing problems in all them despite rotating males, you would be best off finding a cockerel from the same original source as you got your own birds from. Coming from the same original line, it will have similar genetic background to yours, and if it's from someone who's taken good care of that line they should have been weeding out obvious problems. So its genetics will be more compatible with your existing flock than a "junk" bird, and it is also less likely to have lurking recessive flaws that could mess up your flock. Thus, fertility restored through heterozygosity *without* excessively messing up your selection program.

Pat​

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Throwing a hatchery bird in there is a sure-fire way to increase productivity, but can and will ruin your line of show birds.