Definitely cull hard. Choose what traits you want, whether color, pattern, egg laying, size, behavior, broodiness, whatever, and hatch from the ones that best meet your standards. Remember that cull means to select. I eat my culls but all it really means is to select which ones you want to breed and don’t hatch from the others. How you do that is up to you.
Inbreeding is one way good breeders remove genes they don't want from their flock. Dominant genes aren't all that hard to get rid of because they show up, but some of those recessive genes can be hard to eliminate. Inbreeding is one of the techniques they use to find out which chickens have that recessive gene. Test breeding, mating them to a chicken they know has that recessive gene, is another way they use.
There are different techniques to maintain genetic diversity in your flock. One that is pretty common with commercial hatcheries is the pen breeding method. They may have 200 hens and 20 roosters all together in one pen. The random nature of mating in that flock keeps the genetic diversity up reasonably well. I don't worry about the chickens from a hatchery being too interrelated, especially among their popular breeds. Obviously the more hens and roosters they have the better the genetic diversity.
How important genetic diversity is to you depends on your goals. If you are breeding purely for show, especially when you start to refine the bird, it's not all that important. You want to eliminate a lot of genetic diversity so you can eliminate bad traits. If you are breeding for show and productivity it gets harder, but the really good people can do it.
With your backyard flock, it is similar yet different. When you start you don't know what traits your chickens have. Some inbreeding to start with helps you identify what is there. If you can get some good chickens that meet your standards doing that, great. You are doing well. If you can’t, you probably want to get rid of those and start over.
Inbreeding can cause problems. There is a big difference in what can happen and what will happen. And your ability to select your breeders is important. You should get better at that over time. Remember that every breed out there today was created through inbreeding so it is not necessarily a bad thing.
Some of the problems it can cause are a drop in egg laying, a loss of fertility, physical deformities, and many others. But if you carefully select your breeders (Remember the rooster contributes genes too. Do you know who his mother is and how she was?), you can increase egg laying, for example, not suffer a drop.
Many people in your situation don’t study their chickens that hard before selecting their breeders and still do fine. Dad never did. He kept a flock that kept us in eggs and meat with very little effort. He might tell me which young rooster to keep. Other than that, Mom would say she wanted a chicken for supper (often telling me age and sex she wanted) but I’d just go get one and give her a cleaned carcass. I was just a kid and had no idea on genetics or selecting breeders. But every five or six years, Dad would bring in some outside blood to up the genetic diversity.
Productive farm flocks have been kept that way for thousands of years. It worked well enough for most of the pioneers that settled this country, but it won’t work for people trying to win first place at a chicken show. What works for you depends on your goals. The more effort you put into selecting your breeders the better your flock will match your goals.
Inbreeding is one way good breeders remove genes they don't want from their flock. Dominant genes aren't all that hard to get rid of because they show up, but some of those recessive genes can be hard to eliminate. Inbreeding is one of the techniques they use to find out which chickens have that recessive gene. Test breeding, mating them to a chicken they know has that recessive gene, is another way they use.
There are different techniques to maintain genetic diversity in your flock. One that is pretty common with commercial hatcheries is the pen breeding method. They may have 200 hens and 20 roosters all together in one pen. The random nature of mating in that flock keeps the genetic diversity up reasonably well. I don't worry about the chickens from a hatchery being too interrelated, especially among their popular breeds. Obviously the more hens and roosters they have the better the genetic diversity.
How important genetic diversity is to you depends on your goals. If you are breeding purely for show, especially when you start to refine the bird, it's not all that important. You want to eliminate a lot of genetic diversity so you can eliminate bad traits. If you are breeding for show and productivity it gets harder, but the really good people can do it.
With your backyard flock, it is similar yet different. When you start you don't know what traits your chickens have. Some inbreeding to start with helps you identify what is there. If you can get some good chickens that meet your standards doing that, great. You are doing well. If you can’t, you probably want to get rid of those and start over.
Inbreeding can cause problems. There is a big difference in what can happen and what will happen. And your ability to select your breeders is important. You should get better at that over time. Remember that every breed out there today was created through inbreeding so it is not necessarily a bad thing.
Some of the problems it can cause are a drop in egg laying, a loss of fertility, physical deformities, and many others. But if you carefully select your breeders (Remember the rooster contributes genes too. Do you know who his mother is and how she was?), you can increase egg laying, for example, not suffer a drop.
Many people in your situation don’t study their chickens that hard before selecting their breeders and still do fine. Dad never did. He kept a flock that kept us in eggs and meat with very little effort. He might tell me which young rooster to keep. Other than that, Mom would say she wanted a chicken for supper (often telling me age and sex she wanted) but I’d just go get one and give her a cleaned carcass. I was just a kid and had no idea on genetics or selecting breeders. But every five or six years, Dad would bring in some outside blood to up the genetic diversity.
Productive farm flocks have been kept that way for thousands of years. It worked well enough for most of the pioneers that settled this country, but it won’t work for people trying to win first place at a chicken show. What works for you depends on your goals. The more effort you put into selecting your breeders the better your flock will match your goals.
