[nuzuki]

Im sure ive read somewhere that an unrelated cockerel is better. Is this correct? I guess it would make the bloodline more resiliant to disease.

I basically have to cockerals and would like to keep one for breeding. One looks great (light sussex) but is a pain to the others and the other is a big softy maran but is related to the 2 maran hens (from the same hatch).

I have some more light sussex eggs hatching this weekend so am wondering if I should keep the light sussex for those hens and get rid of the maran or vice versa.

Any insight about this would be greatly appreciated, thanks

[snowdrops]

Surely you will be inbreeding which will cause defects within the chicks. Same reasons people are not allowed to marry blood relations.

[GrannieAnnie]

I feel the same as snowdrops, but some breeders will inbreed if they want to develop or keep certain characteristics of a bird.

But as we are not showing, I always feel the fresh blood is better.

Only thing is, if the LS is a pain, he may pass on his bad genes to his offspring!

[joyfull]

you can breed father or grandfather to daughter and granddaughter but not brother to sister as their genes are too close. Breeding from the same family group is as has been stated to keep the best characteristics.

[nuzuki]

Thanks for the advice This makes it difficult for me as I wanted to keep the big softy maran and get rid of the light sussex but now its looking more favourable the other way round if I was to start breeding. Anyhow its just ideas at the moment.

[GrannieAnnie]

Do you want to breed a particular breed Nuzuki, or just one of your cockerels with all of your hens?

If you wanted to breed the Marans say, or the Light Sussex, perhaps you can find someone else with the same breed cockerel and do a swap?  Then you've got the breed you want with an unrelated cockerel.

[nuzuki]

Yes I would do a particular breed, cuckoo marans, light sussex or rhode island reds (which are yet to hatch). I shall have a look round for cockerals in my area and go from there but really at the moment its just pie in the sky ideas. The reality is that both cockerals will be heading for the table as soon as they make a peep.

[GrannieAnnie]

They are all lovely breeds.  If you were to cross a Rhode Island Red cockerel with light sussex hens, you'd get auto sexing birds.  The girls would be similar to the brown warrens, as they take their colouring from 'Dad' and the boys would be white/creamy coloured.  You wouldn't have to keep the cockerels and feed them then if you didn't want to!

[nuzuki]

Thanks, it all sounds very scientific but useful to know. I shall have a read up on auto sexing, sounds like it could be useful for a lonely saturday night 
Would people be more interested in pure breds? would there be more money in them anyhows? I have heard hybrid birds are better layers though and less suseptible to disease. Its starting to remind me of that documentary, is it better to be mixed race. They proved in that doc that the first offspring of mixed race would be better but after that it isnt. Heterozygous is the word if I remember correctly.

Interestingly how do you make a breed established, I mean at some point someone had to cross something to get a rhode island red for example so why is it we regard that as a set breed. It seems like its all set in stone from years ago and cant be changed which seems a bit silly to me.

[GrannieAnnie]

First of all, I don't know as much about breeding as for example Casey76 and some others.  They know far more than me, but if you cross breed 2 chickens yourself, they are cross breeds.  Hybrids are not a straight cross between 2 different breeds, but one of other of the breeds will have genes from different breeds bred into them.

It is very interesting.  I could spend hours on the internet learning about different things.

For instance the only true blue egg layer is the Aruacana.  But now you get Cream legbars and hybrids like the Skylines who can lay a bluey or greeney egg.  The legbars were a hybrid, but they are now recognised as a pure breed.

I don't know how people get these breeds recognised, you'd have to ask something like the Poultry Club of Great Britain.

My partner, Brian and myself very much like the Black Rock hybrids.  This particular breed is only bred in one place in Scotland and the name is copyrighted.  Peter Sissons started the breed about 50 years ago, but a couple of years ago the true black rocks wer very hard to come by.

There are a lot of black hybrids on the market and unscrupulous people sell them as black rocks when they aren't.  Basically the black rock is a cross between a Rhode Island Red cockerel and a Barred Plymouth rock hen.  They produce a black chick which is sex linked.  All the young chicks are black, but the cockerels have a white patch on their head, so easy to tell apart usually.

So early last year, Brian and myself bought a small breeding flock off one of the men who breeds them.  This lot are called Shaver blacks.  They are the same cross as the black rocks, look the same, are wonderful layers, but they don't have the copyright to say they are black rocks.

You will never find a black rock cockerel on the market as the man who took over breeding the black rocks a couple of years ago when Peter retired, only sells day old female chicks. He never sells hatching eggs.  So if you see anyone trying to sell black rock cockerels, they are lying!

We also agreed when we bought the Shaver breeders that we would not keep any of the cockerels either.  So I had to cull them.  This helps keep the strains pure.

If this sort of thing interests you, Hendrix Genetics in Holland now own the breeding stocks of most of the hybrids there are.  Their websites are very interesting. 

Look under  http://www.isapoultry.com/ and the breeds come under the Products tab!

Sorry if I've bored you!   

[GrannieAnnie]

Sorry, as to pure breeds.  We did start to breed a few a couple of years ago.  But around here, people preferred the cheaper hybrids generally.  Okay they don't live as long as the pure breeds, but they lay better through the first couple of winters.

[joyfull]

if you do decide to go down the route of breeding pure breed birds it is best to stick to just one or two breeds, join the relative clubs and associations for those breeds and learn as much as you can about the breed standards and the various strains. It can take you many years to get up to show quality.
To get a hybrid recognised as a pure breed like the cream legbar again takes many years as the birds have to be proven to breed true and to a recognised standard - e.g. height, leg colour, beak colour, eye colour, feather patterning and colouring etc... The same goes for any show animals such as dogs which is why some colours of Staffordshire Bull Terriers are not yet recognised (the blue especially)).

[snowdrops]

you can breed father or grandfather to daughter and granddaughter but not brother to sister as their genes are too close. Breeding from the same family group is as has been stated to keep the best characteristics.

That's dreadful nothing more than incest