Rooster mated to his mother?

[95yj]

take away the knitting needles, this is edipus rex in chicken form... doing one or two generations of inbreeding won't kill them, but you'll want to get fresh blood after one or two generations. Line breeding is kinda tricky and can either result in really nice birds, or a pen full of immuno-defincient mutants. But with only one generation it's highly unlikely that you'll get either extreme.

 

[Ridgerunner]

With all your broodies, they are going to be mating their sisters too. If you go through the genetics, that's no worse than son to mother or father to daughter as far as matching possible bad or good genes. With a mother or father involved, you just concentrate the genes from that side of the family. I'm not sure if any of this makes a rooster his own uncle, but it may make the offspring not only siblings but cousins. I think if a mother or father is involved instead of siblings, they are first cousins once removed as well as siblings, but I haven't had enough coffee to work that out yet. Or are the offspring their own aunt or uncle instead of cousins?

What you are proposing is not at all unusual. When you inbreed like that, you may be enhancing good traits or bad traits, maybe both. I can't tell you how often you need to bring on new blood. I just don't know. I do it every couple of generations, but there is still a lot of inbreeding going on. Other than the physical deformities you might see, too much inbreeding can cause a loss of fertility, loss of vitality, or decreased egg laying, things like that. If you can select your hatching eggs from hens that lay a lot and that have a pretty good proportion of their eggs hatch, you can keep going longer without bringing in new stock. That can get pretty hard to do with the way I think you are set up.

I think your plan is pretty good. The way I understand it, yours have two different coops but do have some overlap in grazing range. When you do hatch them out, I think you may find there is more going on behind the wood shed than you think. I'm trying to think what a naked neck brahma would look like.

Go Impy!!!!

 

[gritsar]

Quote:

I am selecting the best of my brahma eggs, from my dark hens whenever possible. Next year I'll bring in some new blood. It's hard to argue with 12 - three year old brahma hens still laying an average of 6 eggs a day. They were my first flock and are still my favorites.

 

[gritsar]

P.S. Impy has trouble enough mating his own hens, watching him mate the brahma girls is a riot. He still won't touch the silkies though. The poor silkie girls have resorted to squatting for the dogs.

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:
And I'm going to poke my mind's eye out.

 

[BooBear]

Awe, you just need to get those poor Silkie girls their own stud...maybe teach them how to cougar one of the younger boys.

 

[gryeyes]

Quote:
And I'm going to poke my mind's eye out.

I'm already wearing a patch in there.....

 

[gumbii]

my friend makes fun of me for naming a rooster thor... now i know i'm not alone... LOL...

and people line breed all the time... just try to keep track of it all... after a couple of generations, get some new roo's... easiest way to bring in new blood...