# Inbreeding?



## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

Please bear with me. I am from Georgia. 

I have bought, and paid for two chickens, one cockerel and one hen, both Silkies.

The guy I bought them from stated he started out with one rooster and two hens. He now has about twenty chickens and chicks, all in all. 

My question is, would it be okay to let these two birds reproduce other birds? Or, should I find another cockerel her for her and other hens for the cockerel?


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## TnChickenLady (Apr 15, 2014)

I personally would get new hens for your Roo and a new Roo for your hen plus a few extra so he doesn't over breed her. I "was told" that a good rule of thumb is 4 hens per Roo but not sure if that's low in ratio. My EE rooster has to have 6 hens or he will torture his girls. Hope this helps.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Or just get more hens from another source. You can mix the genetics up a ton just by adding another hen or two. 

If you do that, apply a couple of drops of food coloring in each vent, that way you will know which hen laid which egg and if you want to not use the current hen's eggs until you have a rooster hatch from the other girls you've got almost a whole new genetic mix.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

TnChickenLady said:


> I personally would get new hens for your Roo and a new Roo for your hen plus a few extra so he doesn't over breed her. I "was told" that a good rule of thumb is 4 hens per Roo but not sure if that's low in ratio. My EE rooster has to have 6 hens or he will torture his girls. Hope this helps.


With Silkies the number of females to males doesn't seem to matter as much. Although a newly mature male can be a bit much for a whole passel of females.


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## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

Hi Robin,

First, thanks for replying. 

I am sure I will need this information for the rest of my flock as well. I am under the impression it would apply the same across most any breed, which is why I only asked about the Silkies first. 

One last question, if I may. I should then make sure I keep all offspring from those roosters, then, so they will not mate with them? I just want the bloodlines to be as strong as possible. 

I am seriously considering going across to Vietnam, in order to secure some different breeds from there, and would want the same from those birds.


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## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

TnChickenLady said:


> I personally would get new hens for your Roo and a new Roo for your hen plus a few extra so he doesn't over breed her. I "was told" that a good rule of thumb is 4 hens per Roo but not sure if that's low in ratio. My EE rooster has to have 6 hens or he will torture his girls. Hope this helps.


Thanks TnChickenLady, for your reply. (My wonderful 3rd world internet connection dropped out a bit before I could reply to both of you.)

Anyway, I had planned on six hens per rooster, and see how that went. We will see how much energy the fella has.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It all depends on what you want your outcome to be. Showbird breeders will interbreed to maintain certain characteristics or to help bring them out more. The problem with that is if there is a genetic weakness or bad characteristic interbreeding can amplify the problem. Its really a guessing game on which to keep and which to remove. 

If you are wanting strong stock with good characteristics then time is what you need. The resulting chicks need to reach maturity of at least a year to see what is right and what is wrong.


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## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

Thanks. Well, most of the current birds are going to end up as bar-b-que, or layers, including the Silkies. 

I guess I just want them to be as strong blooded (does that make sense?) as possible. I have seen the results of inbreeding in people. (yes, unfortunately, I really have.) If it were to affect chickens the same, or even similarly, I would not want to do it.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It can happen. The question is, when? Since that is the end result I think you could just add two or three more hens and have enough genetic diversity to avoid problems. Use the female offspring to breed with the Dad, and the male offspring to breed back to the older females. 

If you spot trouble then that's the time to switch things up. There is no time table when inbreeding becomes a problem.


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## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

Thanks for the advice!


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## hellofromtexas (Feb 16, 2014)

ideally yes you wouldn't want to inbreed because you get the recessive problems that come out.

But show birds are very inbreed for the same characteristics and you will rarely find genetic diversity in show birds. 

With chickens you can get away with a little inbreeding compared to other livestock.


It's best to keep it a generation or 2 removed. But very few can do the best sometimes so if you do inbreed just watch for bad traits. There is no time table when or if this will happen. It's just a possibility. 

The time to rethink your breeding program would be with a severe low hatch rate (extreme example: out of 100 eggs you get 10 to hatch and the 90 stop developing at the same week. and you cannot find a problem with the incubator) or genetic problem in the brood. This would indicate a genetic problem


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## Fiere (Feb 26, 2014)

Inbreeding in birds is nothing like inbreeding in mammals. So you have no worries that there's going to be chicks that look like Igor coming out of eggs from even multiple brother sister pairings. As mentioned, the issue with line breeding to the point of inbreeding is that the bad traits are going to compound as much as the good traits are. 

That being said, I don't breed brother sister pairings very often. I do half brother, half sister, father to daughter, and that's as close as I get. Usually, I try to have a rooster who is in no way related to his hens, at least recently (might be from the same line but he is not built with the same birds), then I have two or three groups of hens who are not related to one another. They might be half sisters or cousins or what have you in each group, but group A won't have any relation to group B or C (again, the line breeding may come into play here but the birds themselves haven't had the same next of kin in 20 generations.


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## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

Still being very new at raising chickens, I am ignorant to a lot of things regarding them. I truly appreciate the input from everyone here, and in short time, that have helped to clear this topic up for me. 

I feel much more at ease regarding this, now.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

We learn almost every day ourselves. Or someone new will ask a question that gets us thinking. So, having conversations like this are good for us and for them.


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## TnChickenLady (Apr 15, 2014)

Chans Farm I am only working on my second chicken season so I learn something new from everyone here as well. I used to raise parrots ( whole new ballgame! ) that's the good thing about joining an informed group, you get several answers and go from there! Welcome to the Chicken forum!


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## chickenmommy (Apr 30, 2013)

Lol igor fiere you are too funny 


Sent from my iPhone using Chicken Forum


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

TnChickenLady said:


> Chans Farm I am only working on my second chicken season so I learn something new from everyone here as well. I used to raise parrots ( whole new ballgame! ) that's the good thing about joining an informed group, you get several answers and go from there! Welcome to the Chicken forum!


We all need to take in to consideration the differences in end results. I absolutely do not talk about meat birds, except in this situation, because I have no experience with them.

But show birds? That's a whole nother topic. And I would never suggest that anyone raising show birds should do the kind of breeding chans will be. Line breeding, yes. But with careful thought and consideration.


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## hellofromtexas (Feb 16, 2014)

I don't like inbreeding because chickens can have a lot of recessive genes that are hidden till inbred. 

There is a recessive gene that causes incurable wry neck. There is a recessive gene that causes chickens to lay pure white eggs... The point of this tho is there is a lot of unknown when inbreeding or line breeding and I would try to keep it removed as much as financially possible. Generally at least generation or 2 and not the same generation. You could get something wonderful or something dreadful with inbreeding and there are no cheap genetic test for chickens that I know of to prevent the dreadful.


Chickens are very different from mammals but this doesn't remove them from all risk of inbreeding. With other livestock it's 4 generations removed. So they may be 3rd cousins but there is still 2-3 generations of genetic diversity 


For show birds, since the goals are almost the exact same for every bird there isn't much diversity and it's the same with purebreed show dogs. They both will have more health problems then their mutt cousin.

For rare rare chickens, it would be near impossible to establish a breeding program without some slight in breeding. And if someone does find it possible, it's usually an arm and a leg and their first born child.

If the breed is generally common and it's like $3 per chick it's best to save yourself any heartache and just pay the piper but I don't know your goal and I don't know your purpose.

So what is the end goal of your breeding program? Pet quality? show? excellent layers?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

hellofromtexas said:


> For show birds, since the goals are almost the exact same for every bird there isn't much diversity and it's the same with purebreed show dogs. They both will have more health problems then their mutt cousin.


My 8 year old show birds would not agree with your statement. That is why it is done with considerable thought. If done properly show birds can be just as hardy and healthy as any other bird.

Hatchery birds that were bred for egg laying capabilities have far more issues than show birds.


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## LittleWings (Jul 15, 2013)

I agree with Robin. I have seen more health problems with hatchery chickens than show chickens. 

There is a difference between inbreeding, (brother and sister) like a hatchery could easily do, and line breeding (cousins) like a breeder would do.

To the OP, hopefully the breeder knew what he was doing and started with 3 different lines, which is very diverse. 
If your chicks are not brother and sister, then I say breed them.


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## Chans_Farm (Apr 27, 2014)

hellofromtexas said:


> So what is the end goal of your breeding program? Pet quality? show? excellent layers?


In my case, I just didn't want chicks with two heads (Tasmania, Australia joke), or any other "features" I wasn't prepared to handle.

Really, I didn't know if it would affect the quality of the meat of the chicken, by allowing them to inbreed.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

That's where it falls on you. If they have everything that the need to grow healthy and strong then it should not be a problem. 

One word of warning, if you feed something not normally found in their feed make certain it won't make the meat or eggs gamey tasting. Its been years since a forum member had an issue with the eggs from her birds tasting funny. They were free range and it was finally pinpointed to them chowing down on some plant. Its been a while so I no longer remember what it was they were eating.


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## Fiere (Feb 26, 2014)

Inbreeding of birds is seriously a none issue unless you continuously breed brother to sister to brother to mother to son to sister to brother to mother. 
Sure, line breeding and inbreeding can multiply the risk of recessive traits ten fold, but when you are breeding to the standard of perfection, you don't want recessive traits. Every line of bird in a poultry show is a different route to the same thing. Round here, Breeder A will have Line A, Person B will have Line B, and Person C will have Line C. None of these birds are at all closely related, yet they all are competing to see what line and breeding program is the best and closest to the SoP. Then Person D will mate Line A to line C and then pair that offspring to Line B to create Line D. This goes on and on to create many lines and have most high end breeders all breeding something different. Genetic diversity is paramount. Good breeders spend a lot of time and money to get different lines in to improve their birds all the time. And yes, they linebreed, a lot. And cull, a lot.
Saying show birds are inbred to the point of them lacking vitality is actually pretty insulting, to be blatantly honest. 


Anyway, there is nothing wrong with letting your birds inbreed a little bit. I personally would make sure I changed up the lines a bit by adding a few hens or another rooster, but it's not going to make or break you. They'll still lay eggs, and they're still made of meat. They will not come out with two heads or three eyes or whatever. Can genetic material compound? Yep. Can this be a bad thing? Definitely. But it is also a good thing. If it's not viable, cull it.


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## hellofromtexas (Feb 16, 2014)

Chans_Farm said:


> In my case, I just didn't want chicks with two heads (Tasmania, Australia joke), or any other "features" I wasn't prepared to handle.
> 
> Really, I didn't know if it would affect the quality of the meat of the chicken, by allowing them to inbreed.


Inbreeding for meat is less of an issue because it's not a continuous inbreeding but be careful there are still risk. The feed and age affects the meat taste.

For the hatchery thing....
Yes but hatcheries are the prime example sometimes of why inbreeding or bad breeding is bad.... Hatcheries aren't the finest breeding program around or the finest handled.

Careful breeding is ideal


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

Inbreeding can be a valuable tool, and is best done as early as possible. Allow them to breed, incubate and hatch her early eggs (slip her eggs under a broody other hen, if available). If there is a recessive defective gene, it will manifest and you will know early. It's called test breeding. If both possess a bad recessive gene, 1 in 4 will manifest, and you should reconsider using either of them for breeding. Araucana for example posess a bad dominant gene, the same one that manifests the hard cheek feathers, which is lethal to embryonic chicks that inherit that gene from both parents. When breeding those, from every 4 fertile eggs laid, one will hatch with no cheek feathers, one will die before hatching, and 2 will be fine, like their parents. (It's surprising that it is not the no-tail gene that causes the problems, in manx cats it is similar, only it is the the short-tail dominant gene that is lethal, if a female manx conceives 4 fetus's by another manx, 1 will die in utero from having doubled the short-tail, 2 will be short-tailed carrying a gene for long tail, and 1 will be long-tailed). Anyway, test-breeding will tell the tale. Hatching 12 should give you a good picture, statistically. If all is good, then you have superior breeding stock, because they will have proved themselves.


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

Chans_Farm said:


> In my case, I just didn't want chicks with two heads (Tasmania, Australia joke), or any other "features" I wasn't prepared to handle.
> 
> Really, I didn't know if it would affect the quality of the meat of the chicken, by allowing them to inbreed.


Actually, the 2-headed thing isn't a product of genes, it is a conjoined-twin
thing, and can happen in the healthiest gene-lines. Since pullets are especially prone to laying double-yolk eggs, until they mature, don't let that occurrance be part of the equation.


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