Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
20
So, You Want to Be a Breeder?
SOME DO-IT-YOURSELFERS ARE SATISFIED with simply raising a few birds for eggs, meat,
or the beauty the birds contribute to their lives. Others want to maintain specific breeds
or varieties, or they may have that little scientist inside them that wants to create a new
variety of bird or improve on birds already available. Whatever the reason, a number of
poultry raisers are eager to move up to that final level of poultry raising — breeding.
You may hear that breeding separates the amateurs from the professionals. Whatever
your station, if you choose to breed your birds, you'll find the hobby (or business) is a
wonderful adventure. If you start breeding and working with particular varieties or start
making crosses and developing highly desirable traits in the varieties that you are main-
taining, you have entered a deeper level of knowing and caring for your flock. Once bitten
by the breeder bug, you never again will be content to just receive a box of chicks in the
mail from a hatchery without having a clear purpose in mind for their use in a breeding
project.
Planning Your Breeding Project
The first step toward becoming a breeder is to sit down and decide your intent. You do
not have to be a budding scientist setting out to create a new breed of chicken that lays
the largest egg or is the fastest-growing meat bird. You may well be looking to deepen
or make more prevalent a particular feather color in your birds. Or you may have a par-
ticular disease in your area and wish to create birds with a resistance or tolerance to the
disease and select out your strongest candidates for this purpose. Some people just like to
play around with breeding projects; they want to see what happens if they put a particular
rooster with certain types of hens. Whatever your reasons for wanting to become a breed-
er, your desires can quickly develop into a rewarding hobby.
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