There are 16 combinations of toe punches. This would allow you to double mate 2 different lines for 4 years without duplicating. Pretty easy in the beginning because you should have better birds each year so you don’t typically keep birds around for very long. After your line starts to get established you may keep breeding the same bird over and over for 4 or more years. Of course by then you will recognize that bird and probably will have him banded.Another question racertomtom, if you have a few different lines of the same breed, how do you know who is from what line if they are not banded from the beginning? Would simply toe punching them work for that? For the first generation at least? This year, it is looking like I will have two lines of the BR's I will be working with. Maybe another next year. ( Lord willing ) I need to keep meticulous records, so need a sure system for tracking the lines. I may take this in two separate directions. Breed my GSBR's to this years new line, and GSBR's to next years new line, an entirely separate line from this years new line. This I have not done before. I have used one line to introduce new blood, but not two completely separate lines. Does that make sense? I am trying to figure out how to track them and record what I choose to breed out of them. Next year, at first it will be easy, as there will be a size difference, but once they are grown out????? See what I am saying? Or did that just come out a jumbled mess because it's late and I should be in bedinstead of running breeding plans through my head.
What about a HUGE genetic line, on paper, on the wall? Would that even work? Like people tracking their heritage? With all the branches ect? I am a visual person, numbers get so jumbled, but if I can SEE it, it makes complete sense.. Is that too far out of the box? But back to the birds, I still need a way to keep track of multiple lines on the actual birds. I guess toe punching then banding would be the only way to do that, wouldn't it?
I might point out that there is only three types of birds worth keeping. Breeders, show birds and layers. The breeders and show birds should be banded by now and you won’t be relying on punches anyway.
Some breeders say to lock in the type you want by breeding brother and sister. I prefer to breed the best cock to his daughters (f1), then f2, f3 etc. until he is dead or not usable. This is the first reason I won’t use plastic bands of any type. They will get brittle and won’t last that long. The second reason is I free range and my birds have no boundaries beyond the Great Pyrenees guardian dog’s patients. They have pasture, woods and thickets so I use aluminum bands and they rarely get lost.
As far as records go, anything you can keep track of should work for you. I’m not sure there’s a need to keep many records beyond the birds in your possession. I was just now looking at my records from 2003 and have no idea what PM+F1=F2A ¾ cock red78 means.
