Selective breeding

[PrinceZokaree]

ok so i want to start breeding specific traits and i understand some of the basics but i have questions about which bird to mate the selected bird to. also do i choose the males or females to pass on the traits and if i decide on one or the other would it affect the way the other develops?

 

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC. Can you give a clearer picture of what you are trying to achieve?

 

[Chooks man]

ok so i want to start breeding specific traits and i understand some of the basics but i have questions about which bird to mate the selected bird to. also do i choose the males or females to pass on the traits and if i decide on one or the other would it affect the way the other develops?

the first you need to know if the trait you are trying to fix is dominant or recessive ?
if it is dominant . is it in 1 copy or 2 copies form ,{ 1 gene or 1 pair}

post photos and well help you to breed your chooks for the traits you are looking to fix

chooks man

 

[Mosey2003]

It can depend. What breed are you working with? Which traits are you seeing, and which are you trying to pass forward?

In a very basic sense, what you would want to shoot for is both male and female having the desired trait. When we get into colors and patterns, some of those can depend on male and female, in how you'd want to move forward.

 

[Chick-N-Daddy]

A lot of this is above my paygrade, but the biologists over in the AgriDomes have this as a suggested link on the local Ares-Net : Poultry Genetics for Small and Backyard Flocks

 

[ShannonR]

It can depend. What breed are you working with? Which traits are you seeing, and which are you trying to pass forward?

In a very basic sense, what you would want to shoot for is both male and female having the desired trait. When we get into colors and patterns, some of those can depend on male and female, in how you'd want to move forward.

Disclaimer: my knowledge of chicken genetics can use improvement!

In a way, I do think I understand what the OP is getting at, though. Let's take cows as an example... the 4-H club calf breeders breed for certain meaty traits, but they like to see it in their male offspring. When going forward with the breeding program, replacement heifers that are NOT as "clubby" built, but who retain more female looking characteristics, are retained for breeding. The excessively "clubby" type heifers get sold or fed up and eaten. If the females in a breeding program are too "clubby" you start to experience calving issues and a few other problems within the breeding herd.

To the OP: we need to know which traits you are selecting for. In some instances I could see it as beneficial to select that trait in one sex and not the other, but the road to overall flock improvement will be longer this way.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You make your breeding selection on both sexes. Yes, anything you choose to breed will effect both sexes. Albeit some traits will follow opposite sex then back like dwarfism.

When people ask what traits your breeding for it's because some traits are sex linked, some traits are recessive, some dominant and others need a close complimentary pairing to achieve desired outcome. So with that said- what traits are you trying to affect?

Let's say you want to increase points on comb. I've been told it's far easier to increase points on females than males. So you first set the males. To do this you'd choose pullets with 6 or even 7 points to breed in hopes you get a better number of cockerels with the desired 5 points. Then use a five point male, with other good traits, to put over females to get more points on the females. In this instance the desired trait is proper points on single comb. To do it you have to over point females to get those points on the male offspring.

If you want to lift or lower tail it's best to do it in stages. The thought here is your working with quality birds with many good attributes. You don't want to throw massive changes at it or your chasing your way back to those good attributes again. Baby steps, female or male with as close to standard you got and then one going in direction you want to move tail. You want this pairing to be close in tail set, just moving it in direction you wan the flock to go. YOu don't want to use a squirrel tail bird in attempt to raise the tail some.

And so on. Each attribute has real world means and advice to correct. Generic advice is to hatch, hatch and hatch some more then use only the best birds to breed forward. Kinda broad stroke statement.

 

[cgmccary]

Breed a male or female strong in whatever trait you are trying to improve to the other that may be weak in that trait, where traits offset each other. It is as simple as that. My mentor told me if I had an individual bird that had a trait I needed but was bad everywhere else, then use that bird in breeding once to get the trait. Cull for all the bad traits.