Have you ever heard this..

[wintrrwolf]

My neighbor told me that an old timer told her that a roo can breed their daughters, but you can't hatch the eggs. He told her they won't hatch because they will be mutated, you can still eat them though. Has anyone ever heard that?

[Wisconsin Ann]

In a word...ridiculous.

..................................
Thought I'd better elaborate. The thinking in this comes from the "in breeding causes sterility and BAD THINGS" from the human aspect. Line breeding (breeding daughters to sires, and sons to mothers) in practiced in almost every type of animal breeding around...with great results. You cull heavily when an undesirable trait pops up (like dwarf in a big breed, or bad conformation). Eventually, you have nothing but the traits you are breeding for.

It's what is done in nature with flocks, btw. ONE roo/tom/cock and multiple hens/females. The females of the offspring are accepted into the flock, the male offspring are kicked out (or theychallenge the dominant male). SOOOoooo...you have daughters being bred to fathers. And granddaughters. And great granddaughters.

[Dazlin]

Also if both parents have bad genes, and they get passed along to the chicks, they won't make it.

[WstTxLady]

Inbreeding with chickens won't turn like other creatures. The old guy is mistaken.

And it happens with ANY chickens, not related ones that if the genetics are bad, the chicks to be hatched with have it, not just cause they are bred to a related bird.

[Freeholder]

If you go too far with in-breeding, though, you can end up with 'in-breeding depression,' where the livability of the flock is poor -- poor viability to hatch, and poor energy to live. How far is too far, you'd have to find out by experimenting with your particular birds.

Kathleen

[KSALguy]

Inbreeding Depression happens when proper care was not taken to cull for that, you can cull for any trait, some lines end up bottle necked when they were founded with more fault than good and a wide enough original gean pool was not available to counter ballance that,
if you CULL CULL CULL and have enough good playing cards in your deck to make it work there is no reason responcible inbreeding can not go on indeffinatly,

now realize that the term INbreeding is the heading, Line breeding is a form of inbreeding, Inbreeding is simply the term used if the breeding pair is related in any way,

the little cute saying about if it doesnt work its Inbreeding and if it does its Line breeding is just a silly nonsence saying to make people feel good,

breeding related animals/birds does not CREATE problems, there is NO WAY for something to randomly HAPPEN in ANY genetic combination, there has to be Genetic code ALREADY in the given line for any problem or benifit to come out in resulting offspring, that is why you CULL, the problems are always going to be there regardless of if you breed to related stock or not, only way to get rid of them is to find the good and the bad thru test breeding and Cull out the bad, keep the good and keep going,

[pancho]

If it wasn't for inbreeding there wouldn't be any breeds, chickens and other domestic animals included.

[Wisconsin Ann]

Originally Posted by pancho

If it wasn't for inbreeding there wouldn't be any breeds, chickens and other domestic animals included.

And as my partner likes to say, "if it wasn't for mutants we'd all still be amoebas!"

[wintrrwolf]

Originally Posted by Wisconsin Ann

And as my partner likes to say, "if it wasn't for mutants we'd all still be amoebas!"

I like that
I don't think I need to worry. I have 4 roo's all with good traits, and they work very hard to spread the love around. But only one of my roo's visits my neighbors hens (which she don't mind) so her breeding is more restrictive then mine.

[Otter]

LOL, not only have I heard that, but I've also heard
If you live in the North, you need to watch your dairy cow carefully, because if a moose breeds her, she won't be able to have the baby because the antlers will be too big.

Oooh, Oooh, and did you hear Old man Taylor tell why he had to retire from farming?
Apparently, vandals kept getting into his fields and lighting fires (sigh, kids these days) and popping all his popcorn and toasting all his marshmallows. No one will buy a pre-toasted marshmallow and it put him right out of business.
But all the crows around got too fat to fly so his son caught them and sold them as chickens.
Which is why a black chicken won't crow.

Sometimes I think some of these old-timers like to pull people's legs.

[PrincessFerf]

Ok, I have a question about breeding. Note: I have never done it, but I can see myself incubating eggs, creating a breeding flock, etc. in the future.

My questions are these... do you keep your breeding flock separate from the rest? I raise chickens for eggs and meat. Those birds are kept separate due to feeding requirements. If I were to have some that were being bred, would I want to keep those in a separate coop? If nothing else, to know that my layers weren't laying fertilized eggs... and the breeders would potentially always be fertilized?

[Otter]

PrincessFerf, there are a bunch of ways to do it and it depends on how many breeds and roosters you keep.

OK, I have birds for eggs and meat too, my egg birds are Sex links & Barred rocks (brown) California whites (white) and EEs. If only had one rooster and wanted to breed him to the Calis or EEs, then I'd just collect the right color eggs and incubate those. But if I wanted purebred Barred Rocks, I'd have to separate those hens out with a BR rooster because how do I know who's brown eggs are whose?

And if you have more then one roo, you can put the others with your meat birds for a little while

[GrannyCarol]

There is no reason to worry about eating fertilized eggs - as long as they are fresh or promptly refrigerated you won't really be able to tell the difference without really knowing what to look for and they taste the same. Breeders can eat what the layers do, though you do want to be sure they are healthy and in good condition for strong eggs (good fertility and strong shells).

For purebreds, you will want to separate them from anything you don't want to incubate eggs from and put their mates in, of course. They will need to be separated for 3 weeks or so before you start collecting eggs, if there was another rooster in with them. They will store sperm for a couple of weeks!

For my ducks, I set up breeding pens about a month in advance of when I want to collect the eggs and start watching for fertility (I do egg breakouts - I crack the eggs and look for signs of fertility and just eat them until I am ready to incubate.) Here are a couple of good sites to help you evaluate egg breakouts:

http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/pfs32.htm

http://www.poultryconnection.com/qua...fertility.html

Sorry about the sound on the second one, you can turn it off easily though.

[KSALguy]

all you need to hatch your own chicks is a rooster and hens, you can keep a rooster with your laying hens all the time, its not going to hurt anything at all, and when you want to hatch out some chicks just collect how ever many you want and put them in the incubatore,

fertil eggs are perfectly fine to eat, some even go so far as to say they are healthyer but i cant remimber if there is any scientific evidence of that, but its a good idea and its one i am comfortable with keeping,