Question on breeding chickens

[Slocala]

I'm about to show my ignorance and I hope you all can offer me some insight. I've spent a large part of my life around animal husbandry. Be it thoroughbred race horses or 30 years of showing and breeding boxer dogs. But, never a chicken.....
With horses, there were niches in pedigrees and gave proven results that stood the test of time.
With boxer dogs, When you would plan a breeding you could do a out cross to dilute your bloodline or to introduce something your pedigree lacked. You could choose to do a line breeding to help stabilize something in your gene pool or in some cases breeders would do in-breeding. Such as a daughter back to her father. I never used the third option for the fear of doubling up on good qualities and BAD ones that were recessive becoming dominate...
Is it common in chickens to breed hens to roo's from the same parents?
Here is the example I am faced with. I want to purchase 3- 5 month leghorn pullets. The lady has a roo the same age she wants to go with the hens. He's a nice enough roo. She does not know if they are from the same clutch of eggs. Is this a acceptable practice in the world of chickens?
Next question. 4 of my 7 girls are well past there prime. I knew the girls were older when I took them in. Will this young Roo make life a living hell for the the old girls?
Am I looking at having to build yet another coop to separate them out?
Thanks for any input you may have to offer!
Wells

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Chickens are more than able to be inbred. Heck, my pheonixesare getting the point where on a pedigree, there's only one male present on the female's side. No ill affects here. And siblings can be bred together. Of course if you get something bad pop up, you shouldn't repeat it, but other than that it's fine

 

[MysteryChicken]

I inbreed/line breed my project Orpingtons for traits I want. I'm getting really great body types, but some minor flaws to, that I need to breed out.
My flaws are to many points on comb, yellow skin, side springs, & Squirrel tail.

My Project Orpingtons.

 

[aart]

I want to purchase 3- 5 month leghorn pullets. The lady has a roo the same age she wants to go with the hens. He's a nice enough roo. She does not know if they are from the same clutch of eggs. Is this a acceptable practice in the world of chickens?

3-5 months is pretty young to tell if he's 'nice' or not...and remember 'buyer beware'.

Chickens are more than able to be inbred. Heck, my pheonixesare getting the point where on a pedigree, there's only one male present on the female's side. No ill affects here. And siblings can be bred together. Of course if you get something bad pop up, you shouldn't repeat it, but other than that it's fine

This^^^

Next question. 4 of my 7 girls are well past there prime. I knew the girls were older when I took them in. Will this young Roo make life a living hell for the the old girls?
Am I looking at having to build yet another coop to separate them out?

How old are they?
Any integration can be problematic.
Young cockerel may harass the old hens, or the old hens might beat the crap put of him.
Can depend on demeanor of individual birds and/or the space they have to work out their societal hierarchy.

Here's some tips about....
Integration Basics:
It's all about territory and resources(space/food/water).
Existing birds will almost always attack new ones to defend their resources.
Understanding chicken behaviors is essential to integrating new birds into your flock.

Confine new birds within sight but physically segregated from older/existing birds for several weeks, so they can see and get used to each other but not physically interact.

In adjacent runs, spread scratch grains along the dividing mesh, best if mesh is just big enough for birds to stick their head thru, so they get used to eating together.

The more space, the better. Birds will peck to establish dominance, the pecked bird needs space to get away. As long as there's no copious blood drawn and/or new bird is not trapped/pinned down and beaten unmercilessly, let them work it out. Every time you interfere or remove new birds, they'll have to start the pecking order thing all over again.

Multiple feed/water stations. Dominance issues are most often carried out over sustenance, more stations lessens the frequency of that issue.

Places for the new birds to hide 'out of line of sight'(but not a dead end trap) and/or up and away from any bully birds. Roosts, pallets or boards leaned up against walls or up on concrete blocks, old chairs tables, branches, logs, stumps out in the run can really help. Lots of diversion and places to 'hide' instead of bare wide open run.
Good ideas for hiding places:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-cluttered-run.1323792/

 

[Slocala]

Thanks for the awesome advice. It's funny, my list of chickens I don't want to add to my flock is out growing the list of chickens I am interested in..
I've been on the fence and gone back and forth over adding a Rooster to the mix. I'm thinking better to enjoy my 7 girls that get along well.
Thank you!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is it common in chickens to breed hens to roo's from the same parents?

Yes, line breeding too but with qualifications that I think you will understand. The way all chicken breeds were developed was by inbreeding. Mother-son, father-daughter, siblings, and cousins. When you are breeding for a goal you are trying to eliminate all genetic diversity from that specific trait. If you want a red bird, don't breed any birds that have any other colors. If you want fairly large eggs only hatch fairly large eggs. If you want a hen that goes broody, only hatch eggs laid by hens that go broody. The other side of that is that you want enough genetic diversity in other traits to keep the animal productive and healthy. To truly breed dogs you need to know what you are doing. Otherwise you are just making puppies. It's pretty much the same with breeding chickens.

Each breeder does their own thing but it's not unusual when someone starts out to develop a new breed, a strain with their personal preferences, or a grand champion show chicken to use line breeding a lot. There is no numerical difference in genetic diversity in breeding parent to offspring versus breeding full siblings. With line breeding you have more control over which traits get enhanced. For example, if you breed a hen that is an outstanding layer to her son you will enhance the traits that make her a good layer more than you would if you bred her son to her daughter. In this stage you typically hatch a lot of chicks which give you at least a few better quality chicks to select from.

After a few generations though they switch to a different method to keep the traits they want but to maintain some genetic diversity. A common technique for that is spiral breeding but there can be others. In spiral breeding you divide your flock into three families, A, B, and C. The daughters always stay with their mother's family but the boys are rotated each generation A to B, B to C, C to A. A good breeder can keep their line going for a long time.

Hatcheries often use the pen breeding method. They may have 20 rooster in with 200 hens. The randomness of the mating can keep genetic diversity in a good place for decades but this is not how you develop grand champion chickens. It's a way to mas produce chickens that are reasonably close at a price we can afford.

A standard model that has been used for thousands of years is that a small farmer keeps a flock with one rooster and several hens. They save replacement hens and roosters from what they hatch. At some point they need to refresh genetic diversity so they bring in a new rooster. How long they can go will depend on how many hens and roosters they have but even a small flock can usually go 4 to 5 generations. One of the keys in all this is that you carefully select which you keep as breeders. Don't keep any with flaws.

I want to purchase 3- 5 month leghorn pullets. The lady has a roo the same age she wants to go with the hens. ... Is this a acceptable practice in the world of chickens?

Yes it would be quite acceptable.

4 of my 7 girls are well past there prime. I knew the girls were older when I took them in. Will this young Roo make life a living hell for the the old girls?

Maybe, maybe they will make his life miserable. Or it might work out great. He's not a rooster at that age, he is an immature cockerel. Many mature hens want a potential mate to be a worthy sire for their babies. If he tries to bother them they may beat the crap out of him. Or they may run away and he chases, forcing them to mate by brute force. Or, at some point, he may ease into the job as flock master with very little drama. You never know how it will go. You can have similar issues with the pullets and a cockerel, though they are much more likely to try running away than fighting.

Once he becomes a mature rooster this behavior should change and you have a very peaceful flock. As someone on here said, watching cockerels (and pullets) go through puberty is not for the faint of heart.

Am I looking at having to build yet another coop to separate them out?

Any time you integrate I think it is a great idea to have a Plan B. What will you do if you need to separate them this instant? Sometimes you don't have any warning. Once they mature they will become one flock but it may take a while to get there.

I've been on the fence and gone back and forth over adding a Rooster to the mix. I'm thinking better to enjoy my 7 girls that get along well.

What are your goals for that boy? The only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs. Anything else is personal preference. Nothing wrong with that, I have a few preferences myself. But that is a want, not a need. I generally suggest that you keep as few roosters as you can and meet your goals. That's not because you are guaranteed problems with more roosters but because problems are more likely. Depending on your goals the right answer may be zero.

Integrating an immature cockerel can cause a lot of stress. Usually one of the easiest integrations is introducing a single mature rooster to a flock of all mature hens. He come sin full of swagger and self-confidence, mates a couple, and it is his flock. With living animals you don't get guarantees as far as behaviors go, but if you really want a rooster you might wait until those pullets grow up and then add a rooster that is a full year old.

Good luck, however you decide.