Wanting to get into breeding: Looking for answers, tips, and advice!!

[Dottie the Chicken]

Good afternoon!

I've got the idea in my head to get into chicken breeding. I would like to build a coop for the rooster, with a run attached, and put the ladies I want chicks from in with him. I have some Easter Eggers, and would like to take a go at making olive eggers. I sell eggs, so would be looking for a breed of rooster that throws good egg laying ladies if possible. If you have any breed suggestions, genetic info, breeding info, or any random tips on this topic to share, please do!

Thank you!!

P.S. I also have other breeds of hens that I may put with him as well. Do mutts lay well?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have 2 takes on breeding. One is to choose a breed that needs saving and focus on that and not try to create new breeds that take many years to accomplish.
Mutts should lay well if their parent line laid well.
The other is that olive eggers are easy to make. I made a bunch of olive eggers by crossing penedesenca roosters with ameraucanas. Any dark layer over a blue or green layer would work. That would be marans, welsummers, good lines of barnevelders and either penedesenca or empordanesa.

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

Also, I know with cows you don't want to breed daughters back to their fathers, but what about with chickens, do you avoid sibling breeding and all other family breeding?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It is much more acceptable in poultry. Some people create lines that go on for 7 generations taking their best cock and their best hen. Breed the sire to all of his daughters, grand daughters and great granddaughters. And the best hen to all of her sons, grandsons, great grandsons, et. al..
In nature, with several hens contributing eggs to a nest and possibly fertilized by multiple roosters, not one of them knows who their father, mother, son or daughter are. I believe that millennia of history is what makes that possible.
That said, it isn't a good idea to breed full siblings together because, since they are genetically nearly identical, that breeding will compound both good and bad traits. Bad traits can become lethal in short order.

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

Does the blue egg trait always carry to the chicks? Like a BCM or some other brown "egg laying" rooster with a blue egg laying Easter Egger? That should create olive eggers, correct?

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

Also, if I were to get an Easter Egger rooster, and breed it with my Easter Eggers, would I get the same breed, or is the easter egger not enough of a true breed?

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

Ok, I changed my mind.... I want to breed Speckled Sussex. I will most likely start cheap with hatchery stock, and hopefully get the "feel" of breeding. My question is, I have a couple of pullets right now, and would possibly get the rooster chick in the fall or early next year, maybe with a couple more pullets. So, would it be safe to assume that the stock is not related?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It is probably safe to assume they aren't related.
But to be a true breeder of poultry, it takes a lot more than a rooster and a few pullets. To make any progress at breeding, one has to hatch a lot and cull a lot. You can't select your best breeding stock from a single rooster. I have the fewest number of roosters I've ever had and I have 5. 2 aren't perfect and I will be culling them ASAP. You have to use the birds that most closely conform to the breed standard. If you aren't willing to cull a lot, you can't be a breeder because you won't be improving anything.

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

For right now, I think the simple experience of learning how breeding, genetics, and hatching eggs is good for me. I might do a little bit of "culling" once I get going. I have an egg selling business, so I'd probably just put unwanted breeding pullets/hens in with the egg layers. I will most likely sell/give away most if not all of my extra roosters when I first start.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It takes a minimum of 30 birds to make any improvement headway and that is iffy. 100 + is doable.