Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
It's not all that easy to be proactive and contact the hatchery to find out where
they get their stock for the breed you're interested in before ordering. A great major-
ity of the time, they do not want you to know they drop-ship and will not give you
a straightforward answer when you question them. You'll find out when you get the
chicks.
This doesn't necessarily mean that you are starting out with inbred chicks, because
the hatchery that maintains that breed probably has a very large flock. What this does
mean is that all of these chicks are descendants of one hatchery, and represent one
opinion of what this breed should be.
Choosing breeding partners from two separate gene pools may result in a hatch of
diverse first-generation
off types
with color variations, comb differences, build differ-
ences, and so on. Gazing upon this group of offspring, in which not all of the chicks are
identical in all aspects, you may think you have “crossed” birds. What you are really
seeing is the diversity of the gene pool. By crossing these diverse and separate lines,
you are flushing out some of the genes that aren't always visible within a particular line.
This renews the breed's vigor and ensures that breeding diversity will flourish for sev-
eral more generations.
Mating Strategies
When setting up breeding pens — establishing poultry matings for breeding purposes
—choose the strategy that balances your needs and those of the particular breed or cross
you hope to breed. One approach is to keep a single male with a set number of hens.
This strategy works best if you keep a distinct breeding record of parentage. Trios (two
hens and one rooster) are ideal. With just two hens it can be rather quickly determined
which hen is laying which egg based on the color, size, and shape of the egg. You can
easily document the parentage of each chick that is hatched.
