When do you replace your breeding rooster(s)?

[Cyprus]

Hello friends
I was wondering how often you breeders out here replace your breeding roosters to maintain good genetics. Every 2 years? 3? 6?
I would like to know because I am just getting started with breeding. I have 1 cockerel and 2 females. I want to have an idea of when I should bring in a new cockerel to bring in fresh blood when I'm line breeding.

Regards,
Cyprus

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are you talking about breeding show chickens, breeding your own line of meat chickens, developing a new color/pattern of a breed, developing your own breed, basically what is your project? That could make a difference in even being able to find a suitable new rooster to bring in. Are you talking about how often to replace a rooster with one of his offspring or bringing in a totally outside genetics rooster?

When breeding your goal is to reduce the genetic diversity in the traits you want but maintain as much genetic diversity as you need in the traits that keep the flock vibrant. You are talking about gene pairs. Genetic diversity means you have different genes on each side of that gene pair. For example, if you are breeding for a certain eye color you want to eliminate all the genes that give you a different eye color. You lose that genetic diversity. But you want the genetic diversity that maintains a flock that remains fertile. It's kind of a tricky slope.

There are different techniques to maintain genetic diversity once you get your line established. You generally establish your line by breeding the birds that you think will give you the best offspring, whatever your goals. That will involve inbreeding. As far as pure genetic diversity there is no difference in breeding a father-daughter or mother-son than breeding two full siblings. The reason people generally breed father-daughter or mother-son instead of siblings is that if you have a superior bird in the parent you enhance the traits that make that bird superior by breeding it to its offspring. A sibling match is going to be more random. If your superior birds are siblings you can breed them, there are no taboos about this. You just have less control over which traits get enhanced.

Most hatcheries use the pen breeding method to maintain genetic diversity. This is here you have several roosters in a pen with several hens and you randomly save your breeding birds from their offspring. How long you can maintain genetic diversity with this method will depend on how many roosters and hens you have, but some hatcheries established their flocks in the 1970's and are still going strong. You will not consistently produce show birds with that method, mating is too random, but that is not their goal. They are into mass producing chickens suitable for backyard flocks. Besides you would have huge flocks to do that for that long. But with a few roosters and several hens you can go quite a while with this method.

A fairly standard method for maintaining genetic diversity is the spiral breeding method. You can look up the details but you basically set up three or more specific breeding flocks and rotate the males from one flock to another in a specific pattern. You carefully select which males go with which females in those flocks. Championship breeders can keep their line going pretty much indefinitely with this method, but they know which breeders to select.

I met a lady that is part of a consortium trying to develop a new color/pattern for Ameraucana. The different members of that consortium exchange roosters to help keep them on the same page and maintain that diversity. I don't know what their exchange schedule is. She was in her 17th year of that breeding program when i chatted with her.

There are other methods. I don't know your budget or what your goals are. The quality of your starting stock and the diversity in your starting stock will have an influence. If you see serious flaws when you start inbreeding it may mean you need to get rid of that stock and start over with birds from a different source. I can't tell you how long you can go with pure line breeding before you need to switch to a genetic diversity maintenance program. You'll have to evaluate the offspring and make that decision yourself.

 

[Spartan22]

I’m following, I got a year old Black Copper Marans rooster and 2.5 month olds cockerels, wether I need to save one of them for replacement or rehome all the newbies until later.