Chicken question?

[mudwrench]

how often do you have to swap out the rooster in a small flock? i dont want to have cyclops chickens from in breeding. also turkeys

[Cardinal]

I have never swapped out my roos. I keep backup roos too (sons of the first, and sons of a different one). I have 20-30 birds, mixed flock of gamebirds, RR, Buffs, delawares.

[mudwrench]

thank you...........

[West]

We too let a few hens sit if they choose to go broody. Then after half of the hatch survives chick hood we still have half the hatch that are roosters. Sooo... we pick and choose the best roosters out of the bunch. And may harvest some of the older roos if they don't do a good job. We watch the roos and how they mate and if they are good to the hens like giving up food to them and alerting the hens that there is food under their foot. So many roos are giving away or made into dogfood/bait ect..

[Cardinal]

We too let a few hens sit if they choose to go broody. Then after half of the hatch survives chick hood we still have half the hatch that are roosters. Sooo... we pick and choose the best roosters out of the bunch. And may harvest some of the older roos if they don't do a good job. We watch the roos and how they mate and if they are good to the hens like giving up food to them and alerting the hens that there is food under their foot. So many roos are giving away or made into dogfood/bait ect..

I do the same thing West. The Good roos get to reproduce and have their own little flocklett. The mean ones go to freezer camp. I have a bunch of broodys settin an unknown number of eggs right now.
My flock is diverse enough that I don't worry about inbreeding problems.

[summerthyme]

While you certainly don't need to change roos every year or so, if you don't buy new birds every so often (or trade with a neighbor who didn't get their original stock from the same hatchery the same year), you WILL see inbreeding problems. Chickens are one of the most susceptible species to inbreeding issues.

The trouble is, you may not recognize them when you see them. "Birth defects" aren't impossible, but aren't the most likely problem. What's more likely is seeing poorer growth rates, lower rates of egg laying, and most of all, significantly reduced hatchability of the eggs. Most casual chicken keepers won't notice this much, because they're letting the hens set on the eggs, and don't notice if she only hatches 5 or 6 out of 12 eggs. Eventually, you'll likely notice it in your feed bill compared to the number of eggs you're getting, but even then, very few people keep track close enough to really see this.

And, of course, now it really doesn't matter much. If your flock does get unprofitable (at whatever level you define that), it's no biggie... you just buy another batch of chicks from a reliable hatchery. However, IF TSHTF and suddenly your birds are all you will have, unless you live in an area where there are many small homesteaders who all have a small flock (hence, you can trade roos), you might have a problem.

My suggestion is for the healthiest flock, if you're raising your own replacement hens from broody hens, is to not keep a "head rooster" for more than 2 years. Even then, he'll be breeding his daughters, and the third generation will have a high inbreeding coefficient. At that point, either borrow a roo from someone else for a month, and then plan on saving a couple breeding roos from the resulting fertile eggs that resulted from the mating, or trade for or buy an unrelated new one.

The other possibility is to keep two separate breeds, and swap out roos occasionally, giving you essentially three flocks- two purebreds (probably kept fairly small, unless you can afford to feed a LOT of chickens) and one "production" flock which are crossbred. The production flock will have significant hybrid vigor and should produce well, if the original flocks are from egg laying breeds.

Also, remember that the more traits you select for when choosing animals (of any species) to breed from, the less progress you'll make in any of them. Best bet is to choose the most important TWO traits, and work on them for a couple of years (at least chickens can have multiple generations within 2 years... it's taken us 35 years to finally get the quality cattle we've been working towards... and we're about ready to retire, now that we have a herd we would have killed to have 30 years ago!). Then, once you get birds who meet your goals, you can work towards something else if necessary. For home production flocks, generally the most important traits are egg production/grain consumption ratio (this can include the willingness and ability to free range) and disposition... you don't want roos which attack you or your kids, and you don't need to have to "harvest" your meat birds with a .22 rifle!

Broodiness may- or may not- be one of your important traits. Way down the line are things like feather color, etc.

This is why many of the purebred breeds of ALL species end up often losing their practical traits when people decide they're "pretty" and start breeding them for show. You end up with a lovely silver-pencilled leghorn strain that lays about 2 eggs a week, or Border Collies with perfectly symmetrical markings who couldn't herd a sheep if their life depended on it. Bah!

Summerthyme