# useing hatchery chicks for raising new chicks



## teddy

I let my chickens range, in an area where predators are a factor. I do pretty good keeping them alive for a few seasons. Hatching seems to bring more roosters. So I keep the flocks numbers up by buying new pullets every spring. I now have a flock of hens that are black and red sex links. I believe that the pullets I restock the flock with come from the same hatchery. I have been getting pullets that are healthy and intrudes to the flock quiet well. I have a buff orp roo who does a nice job looking out for the flock but is getting old.

I was hoping to get a sex link roo. So that the flock can perpetuate on its own. keep the pullets and get rid of the cockerels. The pullets I get every year being from the same hatchery I assume they are half brother/sister brother/sister. And If I get a cockerel from the same hatchery. Will it be safe to just let nature take its course and let the pullets I get from the new sex link roo hatch breed back with him.


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## Fiere

Sex links do not breed true. If you breed a sex link to a sex link, you'll have no better hope of telling the chicks apart than any other regular mutt breed. 

For instance: Breeding a barred hen to a non-barred rooster (barred rock to RIR for example) will make their first generations sex linked. The males will be barred and the females solid, producing a "Black Sex Link". These will both be black downed as chicks but the males will have a large white dot on their heads - as barred rock chicks do.
If you were to let the father mate back with his first generation chicks or the first generation chicks to mate together, or any other combination of matings except for the original pure breeds, you'd end up with a whole whack of dotted and spotted black downed chicks that would be impossible to sex by colour alone.

If you were only worried about line breeding, so long as they aren't parent to child or brother to sister, there is usually very little upset in the lines. Just remember that the best traits will double as well as the worst traits if you are doing extremely tight line breeding. Since you are using basic sex linked hatchery birds, it's rather unlikely that they are closely related enough to produce issues, even though they are all from the same hatchery.


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## hellofromtexas

*Answer* Yes inbreeding is generally fine in chickens and all chickens are kinda inbred no matter where you get them.

*Long answer*
Inbreeding, though should be avoided, isn't as bad as other species as it is in chicken. Even if they are half brother or sister, it still won't have too many negative side effects. The only way to avoid this is having rotational flocks which start from 4-6 different hatcheries. But nobody does this (to include most hatcheries and breeders) because of the high cost and not much benefit. Your chickens are probably already have uncle dad and aunt mom (some relations are worse than that...). But chickens don't really care.

For free ranging, you kinda have to calculate loss in the whole thing but sometimes the rewards are better than the losses.

*Good luck on your roo*


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## teddy

Fiere said:


> Sex links do not breed true. If you breed a sex link to a sex link, you'll have no better hope of telling the chicks apart than any other regular mutt breed.


Hmm, so I'm better off just getting 10 every spring. For a mutt breed these black sex link hens lay lots of eggs. It does seem like the eggs I hatched, both hen and roo look more like the buff orp, and egg production not as good.



hellofromtexas said:


> *Answer* Yes inbreeding is generally fine in chickens and all chickens are kinda inbred no matter where you get them.


I know now that I'm not a breeder, I'm just into selling and eating eggs. I just can not grasp the line breeding, inbreeding thing. I have ten hens left after this winter. One roo, so if I put 25 eggs in the incubator. All the chicks that hatch are half brother/sister and/or brother/sister. So if I keep the pullets/hen and let papa mate with them, they're chicks will be freaky inbreeds?

So I thought if a had a breed that breeds true, Say those cinnamon queen, they seem to lay lots of large eggs too. So 10 hens and 1 roo, I would be able to hatch as many as I wanted, get rid of the roos and the flock would perpetuate all on its own. Apparently sex links do not breed true. But if it does not hurt to let papa mate to what ever pullets that comes out the sex link and buff hatch then their hatch and so on. I would do that but I think it would be easier for me just to buy 10 or 20 every spring.


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## hellofromtexas

teddy said:


> Hmm, so I'm better off just getting 10 every spring. For a mutt breed these black sex link hens lay lots of eggs. It does seem like the eggs I hatched, both hen and roo look more like the buff orp, and egg production not as good.
> 
> I know now that I'm not a breeder, I'm just into selling and eating eggs. I just can not grasp the line breeding, inbreeding thing. I have ten hens left after this winter. One roo, so if I put 25 eggs in the incubator. All the chicks that hatch are half brother/sister and/or brother/sister. So if I keep the pullets/hen and let papa mate with them, they're chicks will be freaky inbreeds?
> 
> So I thought if a had a breed that breeds true, Say those cinnamon queen, they seem to lay lots of large eggs too. So 10 hens and 1 roo, I would be able to hatch as many as I wanted, get rid of the roos and the flock would perpetuate all on its own. Apparently sex links do not breed true. But if it does not hurt to let papa mate to what ever pullets that comes out the sex link and buff hatch then their hatch and so on. I would do that but I think it would be easier for me just to buy 10 or 20 every spring.


I know it sounds weird but the rarer the chicken the more likely it was a very inbred chicken.

There is a degree of separation but in order for it to be scientifically not inbreeding it has to be 4-6 degrees of separation (think 3rd cousin to 5th cousin). Not many breeding programs have that much.

For example there are about 2 lines of lavendar orpingtons I know of in the U.S. Finding anything but those 2 lines is near impossible without importing from england.

If you want to not inbreed chickens you would have to keep several different flocks (4-6). That way when you breed you keep your lines separate. Think of it like a circle and when hatching eggs you take the cockerel with 4 to 6 degrees of separation in flocks from the pullets and put it with that group

You can't rotate the male like other breeding systems because rotating roosters stresses hens because it messes with the pecking order and you don't get eggs from stressed hens. To clarify the established male in a group of hens. This is why inbreeding is more common in chickens to include hatchery chickens.

The only breeds where inbreeding does not occur is the fancy mix breeds where in order to breed it true you need breed a and breed b. Like Cornish Cross is a Jumbo Cornish Rooster and a White Plymouth Hen. Yes, sex-links are one of these crosses that take a bit of time to breed. The 2nd poster semi described it so I didn't think it necessary to include in mine.

*Here's how you breed sex links.* It's a bit complicated. Hopefully you were good at the Mendel genetic boxes in school.
Sex Link Genetics
University Of Kentucky on sex link genetics 
Wikipedia on Sex link

But that's just the way the cookie crumbles with chickens


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## Fiere

The breeds like the cinnamon queen, black star, and golden comet are all from cross breeding stock at has been selectively bred for egg production. They mate them together in various ways to produce chicks that are identifiable as male or female right out of the egg by down colour. The fact that their parents are best of the best egg layers makes them extremely good layers as well. While I can easily create a "black star" hybrid here on the farm, it won't be as good a layer as my birds aren't battery quality layers. It's easier to buy birds from hatcheries like this because they've been doing it for years and thus their genetic stock is geared to give the consumer exactly what they want. 

There is a huge difference between inbreeding and line breeding, even though they are basically the same thing. It does require several different flocks and the introduction of new stock every so often, plus careful management of breedings. And yes, there is more genetic diversity with plain old sex links from a hatchery (even the same hatchery) than rare breeds. Genetic diversity in animals is not as big of an issue as one would think, the only problem is bad traits quickly become worse and if continually bred can become debilitating. This of course is curtailed by not breeding these traits continuously and introducing new stock to breed out a trait in a line. If you don't plan on breeding for any purpose but your own, I wouldn't even worry about who is who, tbh. 
I know for me, I have a horrible problem with getting in fresh unrelated stock due to my location. Hatcheries are few and far between, and breeders even farther. So while I may travel 7 hours away for stock, I'm bringing in stock that is potentially related to stock I already have, depending on breeds. My EOs are the only birds I have that are diverse genetically due to their breeder getting birds from all over North America for his flock. We have no idea which chicks are related to which so I could end up with brothers and sisters or completely unrelated stock, but they will be bred together regardless for type and quality. My australorps are closer related than the royal family because they have been bred for colour, even though I have 4 different lines here, if you were to do a pedigree on them they'd all be related. I buy a few hatchery birds and then outsource show quality animals to line breed and slowly cull the hatchery traits. My barnevelders for example are 4 semi related hens (half siblings) from a small breeder in Quebec (if I'm not mistaken) and they are being covered by a hatchery roo from Ontario. The quality of the hens outweighs the poorer quality of the rooster, and through selection and line breeding, I can hone the traits I want to see and cull the ones I don't. I personally don't inbreed because I find the lines get too fuddled to quickly. I will not breed a father to a daughter or a brother to a sister, I will breed an uncle to a niece and a granddaughter to a grandfather. I will also breed half siblings together *if* I can not outsource. I would not breed this closely with my other animals but poultry is an entirely different kettle. My geese are a big unknown as they come from the same breeder so they could be cousins or siblings, and I will breed them together yearly (if they prove to be a pair) but I will not breed them to their kids on the off chance they are siblings because that negates any diversity in the lines and vitality problems could ensue.

Because I've rambled long enough; if you do get a sex link rooster and cross him over your sex links, you will not get "sex linked" chicks. But since the lines are full of production layer blood, the resulting hens will be great layers, too. Crosses like that are nothing to scoff at if you are looking for egg production. Just be prepared to raise cockerels at least until they can be sexed. If you don't want to deal with cockerels at all, buy more pullets yearly. Breeding your own saves on the cost of pullets, buying pullets saves of the cost of keeping cockerels fed until their sexable. The choice is up to you, and I certainly wouldn't be worried about the genetic diversity.


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## hellofromtexas

I think we are arguing the same point. Line breeding is still scientifically inbreeding (example given earlier uncle dad or aunt mom) but it is not direct inbreeding (grandpa dad or grandma mom). In order to get away from inbreeding you need 4-6 degrees of genetic separation (4 degrees (or generations however you want to phrase it) = 3rd cousin). You always need a degree on separation or sometimes the recessive genes will come out and sometimes they are very bad (like genetic disorder wiping out hatch bad).

I know this whole model sounds like a weird version of Flowers in the Attic but the chicken novel. The whole describing the degrees of separation are best done on a pedigree and as long as it's one or two in chickens it's fine.

The model for a rotational breeding program given earlier is widely used for sheep and cows and other livestock. This is so you at least breed to a 3rd cousin at worst. In sheep and cattle, inbreeding problems will show up sooner and will be more problematic. Thanks to artificial insemination it's fairly easy to avoid with some breeds.

And the rarer the breed the harder it is to add genetic diversity. Especially the ones that cost the hundreds or have to be imported from far-away-istan.

It's fine in chickens (the uncle dad breeding) but other species it's not. Truth be told on genetic diversity, one of the species with the least is humans. This is because prehistorically, there was a natural disaster that made humans very few in number.

And yes black sex links are a hybrid chicken. The sex link comes from the gender and color cross. You need a non autosomal barred hen and then a solidish non barred color roo. The genetics links I gave have more information and it's a complicated cross.

They actually can be meat or egg crosses but both crosses below. This is because the sex link trait is produced by just the color gender crossing. Egg is just more popular because laying pullets are more popular than meat pullets

*For black sex link breeding.*

*Egg*
You need a *Rhode Island Red Rooster or Black Australorp Rooster* and A *Barred Plymouth Rock Hen*.

*Meat*
*New Hampshire Red Rooster* and *Barred Plymouth Rock Hen*

It's very important to get these exact colors, exact breeds, and exact genders right or it fails. (there are other breeds but you have to follow the boxes.

Breed chart of possible crosses that gives me headaches. It's one of the complex color crosses and the female gene goes to to male and the male gene goes to the female. For this reason you have to get these breeds and follow these boxes. Be sure to get the right color gender crosses. It won't work with a rhode island red hen and a barred rock rooster.


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