The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding
Breeding Procedure Question
Tailfeathers:
Obviously I haven't been on here in awhile and can see I'm a bit behind! Just wanted to echo John's comments.
I started in 2007 with 15 different lines all from Paul's eggs. Thankfully Paul toe-punched the chicks before shipping them to me. Had 4 different cockerel lines and then rotated the same lines of pullets under each of the cockerels without breeding brother to sister. I've maintained a closed flock and never brought in any new blood.
Since my start it has been a process of specific line breeding and identifying who had what genes. I've managed to identify who had brown egg gene modifiers and eliminate them. I've eliminated almost all the red/orange from the tails of the males. I've increased the black/blue in the tails and wings dramatically. I had birds that weren't giving me any eggs for six months of the year and I've eliminated that. My egg production is up and now I'm working on increasing egg size and color. In working with egg color and production, I created one line that is giving me white eggs with one being a very light beige. Guess what she's carrying? I'm using those birds to color test my males and actually have some of those eggs in the incubator as I type this. I can also go back thru my previous year's breeding pens and see who she's related to. I still have to clean up the hackles on the males. Have yet to get a clean hackled bird and to get full colored beards. And I've yet to get homozygous full beards and muffs.
So all that is to say the faster you can close up your flock the faster you can start identifying what you have in genetic material. I don't know all that much about genetics so most of my breeding is based on things I read and trial and error. Mostly, if it works do it again. If it don't work, don't do it. Right now I'm down to 5 lines (counting the white egg line). Eventually I hope to get down to two. I'll line breed them until I have to outcross and then that will be over to the other line where I'll start a 3rd and use it until I can get back down to two again. I believe this is what Kenny Troiano wrote about in the PP and says he's maintained a closed flock for 25 years.
Hopes that helps some. Keep good records and that will help a lot too!
God Bless,
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