The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding

Really? Snow?

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Paul:
Hopefully we don\'t see any snow until January-and that’s too soon to suit me.  I prefer the heat rather than the cold!  Very impressive website!  With lots of top quality birds used as breeders.
 
We breed by families.
 
We use a system of breeding full sisters to either a non-related or distant related male.  Each pen is assigned a number from one to 15.  When we have more than 15 breeding pens in the same varieties we use a + and can number 1 to 15 again.  The pen number is recorded on each egg when collected.  They are sorted by their number before going into the incubators.   They are partitioned in groups by their number when placed in the hatching trays.  Then toe punched their number.  The code is 1, 2, 4 and 8 starting with the chicks outside left web being 1, moving right, and ending with the chicks right outside web being 8.  The + are punched the same, then slit with a razor blade.  Several years ago I had 26 breeding pens of black, blue and splash.  The hobby turned into just another job!  Cut back the next year!  With this system of toe punching, records can be kept on how all birds-up to 30 pens are bred.

faith valley:
Paul,

I like your system of toe punching~ I enjoy hearing how other track their lines and sort their pens.  You said that you mated by families.  How many females do you put in each pen?

Patty

Paul:
The least is one, and the most that we have had is 15.  It all depends on how many chicks we manage to keep and how many pullets we sell in the fall.  We have only kept 18 black, blue, splash pullets and 17 wheaten, blue wheaten and splash wheaten pullets for the 2011 breeding season.

Usually 3 to 7 full sisters are in one breeding pen with one male.

I have been informed the best way to breed is use a son on his mother and daughters with their sire.  Then mate offspring from each of these two matings together.  Eleven years of breeding poultry and I\'ve never tried this system of breeding.  I\'ve also read where one fancier, breeds his for seven generations, back to the same breeding male.  I don\'t think I\'ll try that breeding plan.

faith valley:
7 generations bred back seems like you would certainly lock in your traits.... but that sounds like it would be super tight as well. I agre, Idont think I would try that method.  

We do line breed ours. If they get tight, we try to locate a male from the same original line to bring in to loosen the genetics. Usually that first year we get some interesting offspring, but the second year they are good.

Patty

John:

--- Quote ---the best way to breed
--- End quote ---

If anyone is interested I can email a Breeding Chart to you.  It is by Gene Gilbert and was featured in GAMECOCK years ago.  I don\'t use the system, but it may be of interest.  I\'ve shared it with Paul and others in the past.
I do believe that unless you want to introduce a trait that your birds don\'t have you can breed from a closed flock without needing to introduce new blood.  Inbreeding can cause problems, but by maintaining two or more stains of each variety you can avoid them.
Sometimes those that buy chicks from me are concerned about breeding them together, since some could be full siblings and they\'ve heard about the horrors of inbreeding.  I recommend they don\'t worry about it that first year.  Setup at least two matings of the best, keeping \"compensation mating\" in mind.
The following year breed the males from pen 1 to the females from pen 2 and vise versa.  The other alternative is to breed sire over daughters and/or sons over dams if needed.

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