Why do people cross breed there chickens?

[Up-the-Creek]

Quote:
Nothing personal, but

All chickens are the same species, and you really won't get very far mating a chicken to an incubator

okay, now that I got that out of my system, other than eggs, do you have a goal in mind?

OMG! That IS funny!!!!

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:
Nothing personal, but

All chickens are the same species, and you really won't get very far mating a chicken to an incubator

okay, now that I got that out of my system, other than eggs, do you have a goal in mind?

OMG! That IS funny!!!!

Styrofoam eggs, sell them to the craft stores.

 

[yort]

Just building my coop but want to fill it with a chicken that is a layer and a fryer. Do these exist and if so what breed would you recommend? My plan is to buy a rooster and selectively breed from my hen stock. I do not plan on keeping my layers for a extended period but would like to rotate them out keeping my fridge full and my egg basket to boot!
I have looked at the white leghorn and she looks tasty enough to fit the bill.
What are your thoughts?
Sincerely,
Yort

 

[draye]

Just building my coop but want to fill it with a chicken that is a layer and a fryer. Do these exist and if so what breed would you recommend? My plan is to buy a rooster and selectively breed from my hen stock. I do not plan on keeping my layers for a extended period but would like to rotate them out keeping my fridge full and my egg basket to boot!
I have looked at the white leghorn and she looks tasty enough to fit the bill.
What are your thoughts?
Sincerely,
Yort

Great layers, not much to eat on there though.
Most of your Plymouth Rocks and such make fairly good meat chickens and are good layers.
Maybe a cross of the two breeds would yeild a fair amount of meat on them bones.

 

[ElbrusFarms]

Hey guys...

I have a question about crossing 2 different breeds of chickens... I have Polish golden laced rooster and silver laced wyandotte hens... I have been thinking about hatching few eggs and see what will come out of it... Will all chicks be hybrids or is it possible to get say 30% of Polish laced and 70% of silver wyandottes?

Thanks!

 

[draye]

Hey guys...

I have a question about crossing 2 different breeds of chickens... I have Polish golden laced rooster and silver laced wyandotte hens... I have been thinking about hatching few eggs and see what will come out of it... Will all chicks be hybrids or is it possible to get say 30% of Polish laced and 70% of silver wyandottes?

Thanks!

They'll be hybrids. That crosss though will produce sexlinked chickes. The hens will be black when (hatched) with red highlights when (matured), the males will be silver and when mature can show a little red (or gold) in the wings and shoulder areas.

 

[ElbrusFarms]

You were so right! I got black and silver chicks )

 

[draye]

You were so right! I got black and silver chicks

)

Must have pictures!

 

[JMarch]

We've crossed before, too and the results were fantastic. We had some production reds and a few ex battery white leghorns. The only roos in the pen were the production reds, so we hatched out some of the leghorn eggs- resulted in beautiful white birds with random black feathers here and there- they looked SO STRONG and healthy. Unfortunately the foxes and raccoons killed our whole flock- I was so disappointed.

After refortifying the pen, we started back this year with some production reds, red sex-links, and black Australorps. Going to cull the production red roos so that the only roos in the pen will be the Australorps and hatch out the eggs from the production red and red sex-link hens. Hopefully we'll be able to tell the difference between their eggs and the Australorp hens (supposedly the Aussies lay a little smaller and lighter yellow tinged egg than the reds do). Even if we end up with more pure Aussies, it's not a bad thing.

 

[Michael OShay]

This may sound like a really silly chicken but if people separate their chickens before breeding them, why do some people cross breed their chickens? Are these chickens then recognized as a new breed?

Purposeful cross breeding is done to produce offspring that are in someway superior to the parent breeds. The two best brown egg layers in existence, Black and Red Sex Links, are the result of cross breeding. Black Sex Links are produced by crossing Rhode Island Red roosters with Barred Rock hens, and Red Sex Links are produced by crossing either Rhode Island Red roosters , New Hampshire Red roosters, or Production Red roosters (which are themselves RIR x NH reds) with white/silver hens such as Rhode Island Whites, White Rocks, or Delawares. Not only can the resulting offspring of these chickens be sexed by color at hatching (male BSLs are black with a white spot on top of their heads and females are solid black, male RSLs are whitish, females are reddish), but the resulting offspring are in both cases better layers than the parent breeds. However, BSLs and RSLs are not new breeds because they will not breed true.