Author Topic: How can I improve a small flock?  (Read 2725 times)

Penny McDonald

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How can I improve a small flock?
« on: April 15, 2020, 04:06:35 PM »
I have a very small flock of BBS (2 black hens, 7 blue hens, and 2 splash cockerals).  Some of my birds I quite like, others should be moved on as pet quality.  I plan to put my best cockeral with 2 or 3 of my best hens (blues) and collect those eggs for my next years grow outs.  Based on the space I have, I can only keep about 10-12 chicks out of this mating to grow out until next spring (maybe a few more if I get rid of a couple more hens). 

From this years mating, I hope to improve overall balance and depth of chest in the hens.  I expect that crossing splash to blue will leave me with washed out blues/splash without a lot of lacing. Most of my stock has somewhat pinched tails, so I would hope to improve that, as well as colour, in the following year.

What would be my next steps?  Do I keep a cockeral and breed him back to the same 3 hens, or keep a couple hens and breed them back to the sire? Or do I find a cockeral from a new source?

Birdcrazy

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Re: How can I improve a small flock?
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2020, 08:28:50 PM »
Penny, it sounds like from your post that most of your better hens are blues. If color is not a factor in your chicks, you are ok on all options for pairing. If you are looking to increase your color of Black chicks, you are limited on pairing using Blue hens. Some say not to cross Black with Blue, however some of my better Blues with heavy edging have come from this cross. Some may be a darker shade than I would like, but if they are of good conformation, I pair them up with a decent shade of Blue to hopefully lighten the color in the next offspring. I have kept some nice Splash cockerels over the years, but that limits you to only Blue or Splash chicks from any pairings. As said before, if color of chicks is not a factor, then best to best confirmation pairings is the way to go. You can increase desired color later with next generations of pairings. Here is a chart to show expected results for color pairings. It is what to expect on average, not gospel. I think your stock genetics may enter into the results. I know with my BBS flock I am usually heavier on Blacks and lighter on Splash compared to numbers from the chart.

 Black to Black = 100% Black chicks
 Black to Blue = 50% Black  50% Blue chicks
 Black to Splash = 100% Blue chicks
 Blue to Blue = 50% Blue  25% Black  25% Splash chicks
 Blue to Splash = 50%Blue   50% Splash chicks
 Splash to Splash  100% Splash

No matter what you do on your pairings, Have fun watching your grow out chicks and look for improvements on your flock conformation. It may take several generations, but that is part of the fun, looking to improve the Ameraucana Breed.
Gordon Gilliam

Lindsay Helton

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Re: How can I improve a small flock?
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2020, 01:53:24 AM »
I have a very small flock of BBS (2 black hens, 7 blue hens, and 2 splash cockerals).  Some of my birds I quite like, others should be moved on as pet quality.  I plan to put my best cockeral with 2 or 3 of my best hens (blues) and collect those eggs for my next years grow outs.  Based on the space I have, I can only keep about 10-12 chicks out of this mating to grow out until next spring (maybe a few more if I get rid of a couple more hens). 

From this years mating, I hope to improve overall balance and depth of chest in the hens.  I expect that crossing splash to blue will leave me with washed out blues/splash without a lot of lacing. Most of my stock has somewhat pinched tails, so I would hope to improve that, as well as colour, in the following year.

What would be my next steps?  Do I keep a cockeral and breed him back to the same 3 hens, or keep a couple hens and breed them back to the sire? Or do I find a cockeral from a new source?

It sounds like you are doing a good job narrowing down your birds Penny. I have always had a lot better luck making progress from season to season by narrowing my birds down to 2-3 of the best trios or quads rather than keeping larger pens that contain lesser quality birds.

It sounds like you are selecting for type first and foremost and have outlined good breeding goals!

The blue gene (Bl) is a diluting gene. It is known as an autosomal incomplete dominant gene. Incomplete dominance means that one allele is not completely expressed (or dominant) over the allele that it is paired with. This results in a phenotype that is a combination of both alleles. This explains why blue chicks produced in a blue, black and splash breeding pen are not all the exact same shade of blue. Some may be lighter in color and others may be darker in color due to the incomplete dominance. Pretty neat! 

In its heterozygous form (one copy of the Bl gene, known as Bl/bl+), black feathers are diluted to create blue plumage. In its homozygous form (two copies of the Bl gene, known as Bl/Bl), black feathers are diluted to create splash plumage.

There are three genes involved in creating the black single lacing on a blue Ameraucana. Those three genes are the Pattern gene (Pg), Melanotic gene (MI) and Columbian gene (Co). Advice will vary from one breeder to the next so hopefully others that work with blue, black and splash will chime in as well, but naturally, one of the ways to continually maintain good lacing in your breeding program is to select for good lacing in breeding stock when narrowing them down.
 
Many breeders will breed father to daughter and/or son to mother if necessary. There are several breeding styles available. Always keep the best birds available while also maintaining the most genetic diversity. Keep in mind that you can use breeding birds for more than one season and sometimes several seasons if necessary. Each year, compare that season’s grow outs with your current breeding stock. Keep the best each time, whether that be the first-year breeding hen or the pullet produced from that year’s hatches. You don't necessarily have to keep the offspring produced just because they are the youngest. Always keep the best available. If you find that a particular mating produces excellent quality offspring, you can use that mating for several seasons. That is why it is so important to track your birds and to keep up with which matings are producing what. 

In good breeding programs, breeders hope for around 50% to be breeding quality and around 10-25% to be show quality. Sometimes the averages are better and sometimes they are worse. Good luck and keep us posted on how your birds do!
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 04:19:24 PM by Lindsay Helton »
Joshua 24:15

Penny McDonald

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Re: How can I improve a small flock?
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2020, 09:12:38 AM »
Perhaps the question would have been better worded as "how to I maintain genetic diversity in a very small flock, while still keeping the bloodlines I started with"?

Don

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Re: How can I improve a small flock?
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2020, 01:32:41 PM »
Hey Penny, Your questions are very good for all of us to review every season for each of the varieties that we are trying to progress. It's best for quality to select the least amount of breeders based on quality. But as you've already considered this doesn't create diversitiy in your blood line if you hope to maintain a closed breeding flock. If you do bring in new stock it's best to do so from a related line. Many AM lines were created differently and crossing another line may very well allow leakage to show up in the males that are produced. The best way to maintain diversity with what you have is to pair mate the best birds you have and mark all of the chicks so you can start separate family lines. You can raise as many families as you can hatch, feed and grow out. All of your hatches are going to be related to the one male since you've already decided to only use one male. But if you maintain 3-4 pair matings you can select and keep those lines marked and begin to diversify those for next years matings. Then keep two or multiple lines going as your space allows.
If diversity is the goal You can Line Breed back to the old Cock for one line, but I would not use the same male for all matings next year. Maybe a cockerel will catch your eye that you could use for one branch of your family.   
Some folks are able to breed early in the season and then offer a pair or two to someone in your area to reduce the stock you are carrying thru the grow out season.

Alternately it's always a great benefit for you to keep in touch with the breeder that you bought from so you might access stock from the same genetic pool if needed. And it's really nice to have some people that live within driving distance that might join in with the effort using your lines for the same reason.

If you've decided that you only want to raise Blue and Splash you will have your results this season with the Splash/Blue matings. Pair mating allows you to balance your selection of individuals to counter any faults in each mating. Good and Bad traits are not as easy to balance or correct in flock matings. And your color selection is going to be a part of that equation as well.  I hope this helps. Feel free to ask again or for more specific answers needed too.  Good Luck and keep us updated.    drc
« Last Edit: April 17, 2020, 03:30:38 PM by Don »
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