What Roo(s) to keep for best offspring options? (LONG, lots of questions)

[Shugercube]

Hi! I’m not 100% sure I’m posting in the right place, but I’m hoping this will do. Hoping to get input on selecting the best option of roo for possible breeding purposes.

I’m not planning on actually breeding for a loooong time yet, but I do plan on it eventually to keep my flock around the same production level once my girls grow too old to lay. They are all hatched this year, so certainly still a ways off! I might *possibly* consider breeding to sell, but only should I end up with purebreds that meet SOP and are worth breeding, and that would pretty much only be out of necessity of generating extra income.

So, I have read a ton about choosing a good roo. But, I’m hoping for information on how certain breeds of Roos might blend with the majority of my girls for the best outcome of their offspring. If that makes sense. In other words, all potential behavioral/environmental factors aside, what breed(s) of roo should I hope to hold on to for best results?

Here are what I have, several are still unknown sex. I have my guesses, but they’re only 2-3 weeks old so can’t confirm anything yet

Known pullets: 1 RIR, 1 CM, 1 BR, 1 buff silkie, 3 australorp (black), 1 ISA brown, 2 GLW, 2 amberlink, 2 OEGB

Known cockerels: 1 RIR, 1 golden Sebright, 1 buff silkie, 2 amberlink

Unsexed:
2 ayam cemani, 2 SFH, 2 coronation Sussex, 2 pavlovskaya, 4 BCM, 1 golden Sebright, 3 BR (based on “head dots” and feathering speed, I have 2 pullets and a cockerel, but I’m not sure how accurate that method is)

My goals, when I do breed, would be:
-generally productive layers
-dual purpose birds
-docile/friendly personalities
-purebred, OR easily visually sexed offspring

I know I have some breeds that are more ornamental in nature, I don’t plan on breeding them for any sort of egg production purpose I just think they’re beautiful lol. But, if I were to end up with a roo and pullet of, say, the Cemanis, I wouldn’t be opposed to breeding them to sell hatching eggs or something- but only if they the parents prove to be good quality for that purpose.

Are there any combos here that jump out as being able to meet these goals? Which of my known Roos would be best to keep based solely on the potential offspring they could produce, and what “mutts” might I end up with if I were to allow them to breed freely?

 

[Lady of McCamley]

One combo that leaps out at me is your RIR roo with the Cuckoo Marans or BR pullets. That combo will create sexlink layers...you will know at hatch who the boys and girls are. Black no head dot, female. Black with white head dot male. This will be only the first generation as the red roo (with no barring) and the CM or BR (cuckoo/barred female) will sexlink the offspring with only males receiving the barring. You could sell those as sexed black sexlink chicks, good layers.

Your Silkies and Games will not further your goals for dual purpose. They will drag those goals down due to their small body sizes. Neither is a good layer.

If you want good utility layers (but no sex linking), then the RIR bred to the Amberlinks, ISA Browns, will produce that. You should keep pretty good production...not really great dual as red sexlinks are great layers but not heavy bodied.

Your RIR bred to your GLW (unfortunately not SLW or you'd have sex linking again) will produce your most likely dual purpose. The RIR will increase the laying capacity of your GLW while the GLW will increase the body weight of the RIR (who should not be as light as your red sexlinks).

That's what leapt out at me.

LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Also the RIR bred to the Australorp (all black offspring) would also likely produce something of a dual purpose.

Let it be known that hatchery quality RIR (known as production reds) can be snotty. Do not keep that rooster if he has a foul temperament. However, if he is tolerable, the other breeds should cool down the production red temperament.

For selling breed standard...probably your Marans (for dark eggs) and Cemanis (rarer, interesting bird) would be the most likely to be your quality money makers....but it so depends on your area.

LofMc

 

[Shugercube]

Also the RIR bred to the Australorp (all black offspring) would also likely produce something of a dual purpose.

Let it be known that hatchery quality RIR (known as production reds) can be snotty. Do not keep that rooster if he has a foul temperament. However, if he is tolerable, the other breeds should cool down the production red temperament.

For selling breed standard...probably your Marans (for dark eggs) and Cemanis (rarer, interesting bird) would be the most likely to be your quality money makers....but it so depends on your area.

LofMc

Thank you so much!! My bantams are more just for me because I have some weird inability to just keep walking past the bantam bin at the feed store although my silkies are from a local breeder. I’m heavily debating keeping the pair. I don’t *need * the roo, but he’s just got the best little personality. At least so far, he’s still young yet so we’ll see.

I’ve been closely watching my RIR roo. He’s still young also, at just about 10 weeks now. Today when I threw down some mealworm treats, he sat and watched until the others were (mostly) done before joining in the feast. I’m hoping this is a good sign. He’s another from a local breeder, a young guy who started off “rescuing” chicks from feed stores, so we’ll see how that turns out lol. I’m not sure how far removed this little guy is from the original feed store chicks, just that he was hatched by the breeder. I didn’t know anything at all about how to select birds when I got him. I had only researched what breeds I wanted, and was going to the store to start getting supplies and getting things in order. The breeder happened to be in the parking lot packing up from a swap earlier that morning. I saw his chicks and went and thus I began my chicken journey a little faster than originally planned lol

 

[Lady of McCamley]

If you get to the point you'd like to broody hatch (makes life so much easier), you'll want those 2 silkie pullets. I built my breeder quality lines by buying fertile eggs (MUCH cheaper than shipped chicks) and setting under a good broody hen, a silkie (Oma-San, may she RIP). Oma-San taught me that good broody hens are far superior to incubating hatching and artificially brooding (ease of integration, no mess, no fuss for me).

I did create a separate brooding stable for my Silkies as they don't generally integrate well with the standards (being so slow and those crazy crests the others like to peck). I got up to 3 hens that pretty much went broody every 3 months...so somebody was brooding any given month with reliability.

You can see The Queen Mum with my first olive egger (Olive) in my avatar above.

Silkies are also another breeder quality bird that may produce sales...but they are finickier to raise. Many silkie roos are sweethearts. The negative about silkies is they are definitely not dual, mine were always amazingly okay with egg laying, but they are delicate. They also do not telecast male or female well. You often have to wait until 4 or 5 months until they lay or crow to know male from female, making sales harder.

LofMc

 

[NatJ]

To add to what was said above:
the Amberlink cockerels have the potential to produce chicks that will lay well, if bred to any hen that lays well. The chicks will mostly not be color-sexable.

From the barred and cuckoo hens, with the amberlink cockerels, you will probably get some white chicks and some colored chicks. Genetically, they will be sexlinks, with all the males having barring and all the females having no barring. But in practice, the head spot is not obvious on white or light colored chicks, and when they grow their feathers the white barring is not easy to see either. People sometimes can see white barring on white feathers, especially after the chicken grows up and if the light hits it just right, but it's not something I would count on for sexing young chicks.

Since Amberlinks are hybrids, breeding an Amberlink male to an Amberlink female will NOT produce more Amberlinks. Such chicks will probably lay well, and may all have the same body type as each other and their parents, but the chicks will be a variety of colors.

I agree with @Lady of McCamley that the Silkies and the Old English Game Bantams will not produce good dual-purpose chicks. The same goes for the Sebrights.

 

[Shugercube]

Y’all. I just noticed I forgot about my light Brahma pullet!! Idk how, she’s one of my favorites

I now think one of my coronations is a cockerel and the other a pullet. Which I guess is good if I wanted to try and sell hatching eggs. But man. It feels like all my sr chicks are growing up to be Roos.