Related rooster and hens

[karint]

Just realized the rooster and two hens I just bought are half brother and sister. Is that going to be an issue. I do hatch and sell fertilized eggs but nothing for show just local for fun. Thoughts?

 

[Trish1974]

I don't think that will be much of a problem. From what I have read and been told, you can safely breed full siblings for 2-3 generations before problems arise. With yours being half siblings is even better.

 

[hysop]

@Trish1974 — didn’t know that! Thanks!

I’ll piggy back on that question. What about a rooster mating with his children? My goal is to hatch my own chicks (not to sell) and to keep them for a few years and then process them and continue that way. In this scenario a rooster would end up mating with his grandchildren, would that be okay or would I have to eventually get more females from a different strain or another rooster that is not from that family?

 

[Trish1974]

@Trish1974 — didn’t know that! Thanks!

I’ll piggy back on that question. What about a rooster mating with his children? My goal is to hatch my own chicks (not to sell) and to keep them for a few years and then process them and continue that way. In this scenario a rooster would end up mating with his grandchildren, would that be okay or would I have to eventually get more females from a different strain or another rooster that is not from that family?

Mating offspring back to their parents is called line breeding and is a very common practice. At some point you would want to add new blood, but I think you could several years with just line breeding. The breeder I got my flock from said "when they start shrinking you've gone too far".

ETA: In retrospect I think she was referring to sibling breeding when she said that.

 

[hysop]

@Trish1974

“ The breeder I got my flock from said "when they start shrinking you've gone too far" “

well then!! I’ll keep that in mind haha. Thank you so much for that information.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Fertility and viability are usually the first sign of inbreeding. With proper line breeding a closed flock you wouldn't see that for a decade or more.

Mating siblings of a closed line and mating siblings of a recent cross are two different things. The problem with closed line siblings is you are constricting the genetic diversity, your longevity of line breeding will suffer and undesirable recessive traits are more likely to bloom. The issue with siblings of a recent line cross, say F1 birds mated unto selfs, is the offspring will have a wide range of traits. The need to hatch more and cull hard is doubly inherent with this.