Tips on starting a breeding project?

[ColtHandorf]

Here is a nice explanation of the process:

https://www.iowabluechickenclub.com/line-breeding-via-spiral-breeding-program.html

 

[Willowspirit]

If you like video there is a documentary film called “Chicken People” that covers these topics a bit.

 

[NatJ]

...buff brahmas for meat...start from hatchery stock and hopefully over time breed larger birds.

Lots of folks will tell you not to start with hatchery stock.
If it were my project, I WOULD start with hatchery stock, probably from 2-3 different hatcheries.

Hatcheries do not want sickly birds that need special care; they do want to produce lots of eggs to hatch so they can sell chicks. The more eggs they lay, the more chicks you can hatch, the faster you can make progress selecting for other traits you want.

Hatcheries will almost always raise a flock with multiple roosters and lots of hens, so they will have selected for roosters that do not kill each other.

Since you want to raise these chickens for meat, of course that means you're willing to eat them--easy way to deal with culls. The more you raise, the better the chances of finding chickens with a good combination of traits. Does the biggest chicken have a crossed beak or nasty temper? If you raise more total chickens, you have a better chance of finding a nice big one without that flaw.

I suggest estimating how many you want to eat in a year (20? 50? 200?) plus how many you want for breeding stock (12? 50?), and order that many plus a few more in case some die. Then, raising this giant amount of birds, I'd start butchering the worst ones first: runts, crossed beaks, missing toes, mean roosters. Then choose the best for breeding stock, and eat the rest.

If you get them from several hatcheries, maybe try to keep at least one rooster and a few hens from each hatchery (genetic diversity, plus each hatchery's stock probably has different good traits--maybe one grows larger, another is just healthier and easier to raise, another has sweeter temperaments or better feathering, etc.)

The spiral mating system mentioned above is a good way to help manage inbreeding.

Also, if you're not quite sure about which breed you want, you could start by getting some of several breeds to raise one year, before making a final decision. For example: buff brahmas, golden laced wyandottes, buff orpingtons, white plymouth rocks, and dark cornish. You might find major differences in growth rate or temperament--and might find that one is already close to what you want. (Yes, I named example breeds that should look different from each other--it would be frustrating to find the perfect chicken but not know which breed to order more of!)

Sounds like a fun project to me, no matter what way you end up deciding to do it!

 

[Chang1993]

This is my project for early 2020.

What will I get from all these? A Turken/Shamo, a black Ayam Cemani, and a white Turken/Polish pullets to bred with my reccessive white Ayam Cemani rooster. Some weird chicks and some fullblooded Ayam Cemani.

 

[Frog Bog]

This comes of as very condescending and a bit rude. I was only asking how others personally do breeding projects and this is part of my research preparing to jump into that world.

Quail Belgian bearded D'Anver Bantams. Quite a long name so I shortened it assuming that "Quail Belgian bearded" would cut it as it does when I talk about them elsewhere. They are a recognized breed by the ABA and are a true bantam without a full sized counterpart.

I know brahmas take quite a while to grow out but have heard they still make decent meat birds if they are restored back to their heritage standards through selective breeding. Hatchery birds of today may not be what the birds of the early 1900s were, that is understood. I'm not looking for a quick return to standard but it should be a fun and enjoyable long-term project. This is just for a self-sustainable homestead and the birds are likely just going to go to home-made chicken broth and chicken and dumplings so they don't need to be tender. If I can get good roasters, even better.

Here is a link talking about how they were once a leading meat breed and produced great roasters: https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/brahma

Well, I'm sorry that you see it that way. I was only trying to help. Good luck with your projects.

 

[Raptor-tooth]

@BigBlueHen53 Late reply but I'll send you a PM, I'd like to continue the conversation!

@ColtHandorf Thank you for showing me this! I have plans to start with this other method but can easily change things up to the spiral method with three families from just having two families.

@AMERAUCANAS4REAL Glad to see someone else who loves little d'Anvers! I would imagine one acre is a little tight for large fowl though yeah. We have goats on most of our property but we have an acre of it dedicated to chickens and two more with nothing on it yet. We are thinking of just keeping some of the brahmas in the goat pasture and barn to start. It should be safe enough. Thank you for the advice on the rest!

@MysteryChicken That sounds wonderful! We have some hatchery light brahma hens that are not part of this project and they didn't reach sizes like that, more like 5 pound birds, but they're healthy and hardy and 3 years old at this point! If you'd like to PM me how you manage your oprington project, I would love to hear!

@Willowspirit Thank you for the recommendation! I'll check it out!

@NatJ Thank you for the advice! I think we are going to start with two families for at least the first year and maybe get more birds and do the spiral method after a year or so of just the smaller scale families. We are still new to even breeding birds so it will be a learning experience and let us have time to set up everything we need for more birds. We've had trouble this year particularly with getting weak birds so that's exactly why I want to start from hatchery stock.

We had... I think 35 birds total in the spring and though we did end up culling 6 cockerels, we also had many birds die of various causes and have tried hard to lock down our bio security. Out of the 35, we now have 19 grown chickens and of those every single one of our hatchery birds is still standing while ones we got from local breeders are mostly gone aside from some seramas and three other cockerels we wanted to keep.

We got our originals from a feed store and later found out those came from Ideal Poultry and those are the ones still standing. We got our first three buff brahma pullets today from a different store but same hatchery with the hopes that they will be just as hardy as our others, but plan on purposefully grabbing a few from different hatcheries when they are more readily available again in the spring as well and just picking the healthiest and largest birds from the bunch to start breeding. I haven't completely discounted the "it's hard to start from hatchery stock" point that others have brought up and we plan on getting our first cockerels from local breeders who have a bit of a head start, but I really want to breed healthy birds.

@Chang1993 Sounds quite interesting!

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

This comes of as very condescending and a bit rude. I was only asking how others personally do breeding projects and this is part of my research preparing to jump into that world.

Quail Belgian bearded D'Anver Bantams. Quite a long name so I shortened it assuming that "Quail Belgian bearded" would cut it as it does when I talk about them elsewhere. They are a recognized breed by the ABA and are a true bantam without a full sized counterpart.

I know brahmas take quite a while to grow out but have heard they still make decent meat birds if they are restored back to their heritage standards through selective breeding. Hatchery birds of today may not be what the birds of the early 1900s were, that is understood. I'm not looking for a quick return to standard but it should be a fun and enjoyable long-term project. This is just for a self-sustainable homestead and the birds are likely just going to go to home-made chicken broth and chicken and dumplings so they don't need to be tender. If I can get good roasters, even better.

Here is a link talking about how they were once a leading meat breed and produced great roasters: https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/brahma

What I think they were trying to say is that if you do selective breeding and what not, it will still probably take you YEARS to get what you want.

Which is why it would be a better idea to start with quality birds, it would save you a lot of time and effort.