Oct. 9, 2023

Insights and Strategies for Poultry Breeding - Part 1

Ready to embark on a thrilling journey into the world of poultry breeding? This episode promises to arm you with all the know-how to start your own breeding program, right from selecting your initial flock, determining goals and understanding your operation's scale, to seeking expert advice and grasping the importance of quality breeders. We'll share our top tips, tricks, and some insider secrets that will make your poultry breeding endeavor a resounding success. Record-keeping, intentional early bird stressing, and the value of returning to your original breeder will be among our intriguing discussion points.

But that's not it! We will take a deep dive into breeding strategies, line breeding and family line maintenance, unraveling fascinating insights on outcrossing considerations. We'll discuss the pros and cons of flock mating, and explore the process of evaluating chicks at each stage for hybrid vigor. We'll lay bare the benefits of maintaining the lines through the female side of the breeding and the advantages of keeping related birds in the same pen, all leading to consistent and uniform results. Whether you're a seasoned breeder or a newbie, this episode is a treasure trove of information you won't want to miss. So, tune in, take notes, and let's get breeding!

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00:00 - Considerations for Starting a Breeding Program

10:20 - Breeding Strategies and Outcrossing Considerations

23:29 - Line Breeding and Family Line Maintenance

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00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.608
Starting a breeding program can seem like a daunting task.

00:00:02.608 --> 00:00:06.971
Coming up, we'll discuss things to consider to start your breeding program off right.

00:00:17.533 --> 00:00:19.596
Let's just start with breeding message.

00:00:19.596 --> 00:00:25.922
I'll go first here and then y'all can fill in the blanks and give us all carried away or something out of there.

00:00:25.922 --> 00:00:34.893
You know, whatever works, the first thing to consider when you're starting to breed is what are your goals for your flock?

00:00:34.893 --> 00:00:36.825
What do you want to accomplish?

00:00:36.825 --> 00:00:42.229
Sometimes you're going to be more important than others, but, mandy, what are you thought?

00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:52.591
Well, the goal set the stage for the type of birds that you want to get started with and your avenue of approach in where you're going to source them from.

00:00:53.119 --> 00:01:08.429
So I was just thinking about this the other day the fewer birds you're equipped to keep and hatch and grow for yourself, the better stock you need to be starting with, because it's going to take a lot of the work of breeding out of it if you're already starting off with quality.

00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:29.212
But if you want to go down that learning adventure and learn the ins and outs of selection and you are able to have a larger flock, then it's not a bad idea to start with 100 chicks and sort and select your way down to just the best 10 and then get going from there.

00:01:29.212 --> 00:01:45.831
But if you don't have the space, then you do need to be looking for those better quality breeders so that you don't waste your resources on getting started with a small number of birds that may or may not pan out, depending on the program that they came from.

00:01:45.831 --> 00:01:49.647
So knowing your goals will help you find your source.

00:01:49.647 --> 00:02:05.111
Knowing your scale will let you know how picky you need to be starting out and the learning process though there's a lot to know we're going to break down a lot of that in this episode today and go into some details there.

00:02:05.111 --> 00:02:07.888
I'm sure John also has thoughts on this.

00:02:08.700 --> 00:02:08.861
Yeah.

00:02:08.882 --> 00:02:09.764
John, what's your thoughts?

00:02:09.764 --> 00:02:26.390
For my perspective, I think how I look at it is I'm looking for the specific phenotypical expression of the genotype that's going to do best for me in my environment, with my husband's three practices and just the totality of living here on this farm.

00:02:26.390 --> 00:03:01.525
So if I start with 100 eggs from the same breeder and somebody else started with those same 100 eggs across the country, what I select as my prime breeding stock to move forward is almost definitely not going to be the same chicks that would have hatched for that other person, and I think that's part of the selection and culling process is the birds are naturally going to respond or not favorably, not, to how you treat them and how you raise them, and finding the ones that do best for you in that place and time is going to set the stage for your future breeding.

00:03:02.042 --> 00:03:03.983
That's very true About.

00:03:03.983 --> 00:03:25.126
The only thing I can add to that and Mandy touched on it is that there is tremendous value in starting off with high quality breeder birds, particularly if you're buying adult and two, three hundred dollars for a trio of birds may sound like horribly expensive, and I guess in one sense it is.

00:03:25.126 --> 00:03:33.651
But look at it this way If you spend three hundred dollars to buy trio breeders, you're going to spend more than that.

00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:51.403
If you bought 100 chicks, probably you could spend $500 to $1,000 on those chicks, and then you've got the cost of raising those chicks and by the time you cull them down to the best eight or 10 birds you're into it for thousands at that point.

00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:53.865
You know that's getting way out of sight.

00:03:53.865 --> 00:04:05.810
And if you're into showing birds, I want to add this, and it just starting out I would not suggest that you breed from show quality birds.

00:04:05.810 --> 00:04:14.466
Very, very often show birds are not your best breeders, particularly if you're working with the birds that's more than one color.

00:04:14.466 --> 00:04:24.271
White birds are a little easier, black birds a little easier, but you throw in patterned birds like lace pencils or even just blue.

00:04:24.271 --> 00:04:27.689
I mean you know that has to have the lacing chain for it to look right.

00:04:28.699 --> 00:04:36.487
And are there some birds that require specific sets of grandparents and then parents to come together for them to show, and you can't breed them forward.

00:04:37.370 --> 00:04:43.487
Oh yeah, and there's also having a male and female line that could come into play on some patterns and you have to have two flocks to get the one result.

00:04:44.339 --> 00:04:45.303
That's what I was referring to.

00:04:45.303 --> 00:05:05.314
It's called double mating and that you know I tried that for a couple of years with some old English game band-aims I had and I thought this is kind of not fun anymore because you're you got a Male line and a female line and and it's a real headache, trust me sure.

00:05:05.435 --> 00:05:07.963
But there's a bunch of do that and thrive on it.

00:05:07.963 --> 00:05:12.286
No well, it takes dedication to do that for sure, and I don't have the patience for it.

00:05:13.137 --> 00:05:20.348
Well, it does take a lot of dedication and it takes an awful lot of record-keeping, but with that and it's a real tricky place to start with.

00:05:20.468 --> 00:05:49.930
So some people will pick off the birds they want just because they like how they look, but they don't yet know the ins and outs of Replicating that result unless they've got a mentor well, I think if I could leave folks with one piece of advice is, when you're starting out, get good, high-quality adults because what you see is what you're gonna have and and spend some time talking with the person that you got them from to find out how they bred their birds.

00:05:49.930 --> 00:05:58.879
That's, if you can breed along those same lines, you're gonna do better with that line of birds than if you're just Kind of going that it willy-nilly.

00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:00.363
Trust me, been there, done that.

00:06:00.384 --> 00:06:05.564
You know I don't want to repeat it Just moving the hands is gonna disrupt their laying cycle for a week or three.

00:06:05.985 --> 00:06:19.387
Oh yeah in my experience, yeah so this is unrelated to our topic today, but I do find that when I intentionally stress my birds out early, then when they get older, when I stress them out, it's not stressful to them anymore.

00:06:19.387 --> 00:06:28.406
So a lot of my adults I could flip them from this pen to this pen to this pen and they'll lay an egg the next day, and all the way through without interruption, because they're used.

00:06:28.406 --> 00:06:30.079
They're like desensitized.

00:06:31.055 --> 00:06:34.449
Well, I think it's a case that are also used to your management program.

00:06:34.449 --> 00:06:37.279
It's normal, your management style, so they're.

00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:39.701
They're comfortable, in other words.

00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:51.802
Yeah, so I didn't, you know, pamper them and protect them and keep them in the same environment For a year, because when you do that, then when you do change things, they're gonna flip out and they can lay a break.

00:06:51.802 --> 00:06:56.401
That goes on for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, until they're comfortable again.

00:06:56.420 --> 00:07:04.286
Yeah, another thing and this is where I fell down Planned on my face so many times when I was just starting out.

00:07:04.286 --> 00:07:07.154
Okay, I need better combs, I need better color.

00:07:07.154 --> 00:07:11.706
Oh, the leg color needs some help and all the tail angles are not right.

00:07:11.706 --> 00:07:13.759
I was trying to correct all of that in one year.

00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:29.161
If we just starting out, focus on one thing, get that established or corrected in your line, then go on to something else, because you will drive yourself absolutely nuts trying to correct Multiple things in one breeding season.

00:07:29.161 --> 00:07:33.595
And not only that, you're gonna wind up producing inferior birds in the law, right?

00:07:34.377 --> 00:07:35.742
This is also true.

00:07:35.742 --> 00:07:42.555
I've been there and I realized like the only efficient way to work on more than one thing is to do it in different pens.

00:07:42.555 --> 00:07:52.314
Yes, but you're still gonna end up with the same result of the traits coming forward desirable in these birds, but you don't have everything ruled into individual birds.

00:07:52.314 --> 00:08:04.086
So if you were doing tails on one pen and lay color in another pen and some other thing in another pen, you still have to go through the Selection hoops to try to get all of that rolled into singular birds.

00:08:04.086 --> 00:08:11.060
So you can make it simple or complicated, but either way you can't do too much in one season.

00:08:11.321 --> 00:08:14.007
Well, you know, I've reached the age where simple is for me.

00:08:14.007 --> 00:08:19.425
Yes, I don't know whether that's because I'm wiser or lazier, but it just works that.

00:08:19.827 --> 00:08:20.855
That's why my birds are white.

00:08:20.855 --> 00:08:24.620
Easy Patterns are tricky near.

00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:29.112
Some patterns are very, very tricky pencil varieties, for example.

00:08:29.112 --> 00:08:36.581
I Just didn't have the patience to work with those and people who do and and some of them do an amazing job.

00:08:36.581 --> 00:08:56.389
You know, I've got a friend out in Oregon who has Beautiful dark brown but he's a master at working with the pencil varieties and they drove me nuts when I had absolutely nuts but when it's well done, it's gorgeous, oh yeah.

00:08:56.389 --> 00:08:57.399
When it's right.

00:08:57.399 --> 00:08:58.061
It's stunning.

00:08:58.916 --> 00:09:03.684
I'm not a little bit marbling at these old English pheasant foul that I acquired.

00:09:03.684 --> 00:09:08.278
I've never had a bird that has been so Elaborate it there.

00:09:08.278 --> 00:09:08.960
They're really nice.

00:09:08.960 --> 00:09:15.221
I need to find somebody that can take them over for me, because I just don't have room, for I'm here and can't do them justice.

00:09:15.221 --> 00:09:16.947
But they're very pretty birds.

00:09:17.791 --> 00:09:22.264
What do y'all saw on Outcrossing good or bad for new folks?

00:09:22.264 --> 00:09:23.307
It?

00:09:23.346 --> 00:09:23.969
depends.

00:09:23.969 --> 00:09:37.711
So if the flock is missing something and none of the birds in the flock have it, you're kind of forced into the situation of if you're going to acquire that missing trait, it's gonna have to come from the outside.

00:09:37.711 --> 00:09:56.570
But if you have all of the ingredients already in the flock, then you just need to take a look at who needs to be mated with who and you don't have to do an outcross Because really it can have more ramifications than benefits and you never want to commit the whole flock to it, like you don't want to have.

00:09:56.570 --> 00:09:59.924
You know, a group of 10 females, then put a new male over all of them.

00:09:59.924 --> 00:10:12.529
That's a mistake because you're putting all of your eggs in one basket and if those genetics don't align in a favorable way, now what You've got to start all over and salvage what you can.

00:10:12.529 --> 00:10:14.195
So you always want to do it on the side.

00:10:14.195 --> 00:10:17.029
If you're going to do it, john, what's?

00:10:17.049 --> 00:10:17.412
your thought.

00:10:17.412 --> 00:10:20.014
I am not going to do it.

00:10:20.014 --> 00:10:26.138
I spent way too much time and effort to find the foundation stock that I wanted.

00:10:26.138 --> 00:10:47.595
I don't have the space or the financial resources, but I also have the luxury, I guess, of having the breeder that I acquired my stock from, who will bring in occasional outcrosses, test them on his farm, hatch them out, check them out and if he likes them, he's like hey, I have some eggs you know available if you want to grow them out and see how you like them.

00:10:48.066 --> 00:10:50.815
But then the work of waiting the three generations though.

00:10:52.147 --> 00:11:00.567
Sometimes those ramifications, Right, you get these early maturing boys, so sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, we just don't know.

00:11:00.567 --> 00:11:06.019
But letting somebody else who's a little better at it and has the space to do it than I, that's fine.

00:11:06.125 --> 00:11:08.534
Is that third generation where it gets tricky though.

00:11:08.534 --> 00:11:16.304
So it won't show that first or second season, it'll be later if there's some wonky stuff hiding in those recessive traits.

00:11:17.392 --> 00:11:17.552
Sure.

00:11:17.552 --> 00:11:23.225
Well, that's where your grandparents and great grandparents genes are going to start to pop up in weird combinations.

00:11:25.072 --> 00:11:27.144
Yeah, this is weird combinations that you've got to sort through.

00:11:27.144 --> 00:11:31.164
Yep, you roll the dice every time you mix a male and a female.

00:11:33.067 --> 00:11:40.490
You know, personally I don't advise new folks to outcrop too soon and by too soon.

00:11:40.490 --> 00:11:47.543
If you've started with good birds that have been lined bread, you should go in years without having to outcross.

00:11:47.543 --> 00:11:58.524
But, like Mandy said, if you're lacking in quality in your flock and you don't have the parts to and one bird you can line breed it to, then you're going to have to go outside.

00:11:58.524 --> 00:12:02.985
But here's what I would suggest.

00:12:02.985 --> 00:12:12.985
I got, let's say, a trio of breasts from Mandy and after about 10 or 12 years I knew that I needed to improve a certain quality.

00:12:12.985 --> 00:12:14.096
But I didn't have it in my flock.

00:12:14.096 --> 00:12:21.464
So my preference would be to go back to Mandy, get a bird that has those qualities.

00:12:22.105 --> 00:12:24.587
Okay, I wouldn't go, john was.

00:12:24.587 --> 00:12:30.379
If the three of us were breeding birds and I got mine from Mandy, I wouldn't go to John for an outcross bird.

00:12:30.379 --> 00:12:33.841
I'll go back to Mandy because her birds are going to be related.

00:12:33.841 --> 00:12:43.705
You know it's very distantly related, but they're going to be related to the birds that I'm working with and so there's less wildcard genetic.

00:12:43.705 --> 00:12:49.437
You run a risk when you go to completely unrelated birds and bring those in.

00:12:49.437 --> 00:12:52.234
I think even going two steps away.

00:12:52.234 --> 00:12:53.839
For instance, I got eggs from Mandy.

00:12:54.100 --> 00:12:56.710
You got eggs from Mandy Five years down the line.

00:12:56.710 --> 00:12:57.634
I sent you some eggs.

00:12:57.634 --> 00:13:05.144
I think that's too far removed now because you know we don't drive in the same direction.

00:13:05.144 --> 00:13:13.625
I'm up here in the cold, frigid northeast, you're down in Florida I think they've drifted apart enough by then, where you shouldn't be coming through me.

00:13:13.625 --> 00:13:17.601
I think that would be tolerable because it was still coming from the same genetic pool.

00:13:21.293 --> 00:13:21.995
Basically yes.

00:13:21.995 --> 00:13:24.144
If I had no other option, my first option would be go back to you.

00:13:24.144 --> 00:13:27.480
Second option would be to go to John.

00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:32.304
What about the best way to do an outcross?

00:13:32.304 --> 00:13:34.583
What's your thoughts on that?

00:13:35.027 --> 00:13:44.485
I've heard that using a female is the best rather than a male, and a lot of the chatter I see online is people wanting to get a boy and do it that way.

00:13:44.485 --> 00:13:48.160
But RIP's experience will be good here.

00:13:50.770 --> 00:13:55.705
You commit a lot less of your inventory mouths to feed if you just use a female.

00:13:58.075 --> 00:14:15.225
I do prefer to bring new blood in through the female side Because, like Mandy said, some folks almost all folks, particularly newcomers will go get a totally unrelated male and you bring that male in and say, oh, this is a great bird, I'm going to breed all the females I've got.

00:14:15.225 --> 00:14:24.619
Well, he may be a great bird, but all your chicks may produce crappy results.

00:14:24.619 --> 00:14:35.969
Well, you just basically thrown away a whole year's worth of breeding effort, feeding chicks, rearing chicks and going through them to wind up with junk.

00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:39.948
Hopefully you still have your original male around to recover from this.

00:14:40.340 --> 00:14:40.482
Yes.

00:14:40.482 --> 00:14:49.422
So I always like to bring in a female and hatch off 20, 25 chicks from her, bred to one of your males.

00:14:49.422 --> 00:14:59.147
If you like what you see, then I would take pullets from that mating and breed back to your own males and bring it in that way.

00:14:59.147 --> 00:15:02.707
That kind of forces you to do it gradually.

00:15:02.707 --> 00:15:06.969
So you've got to evaluate every step along the way.

00:15:06.969 --> 00:15:21.553
Now you've got to be concerned about the whole hybrid vigor thing because your first year of cross you may get really fast growing, fast developing, fast maturing heavy birds.

00:15:22.461 --> 00:15:23.626
Yeah, and it might not last.

00:15:24.379 --> 00:15:30.211
That hybrid vigor usually only lasts you one to two years and then it goes downhill really quick.

00:15:30.211 --> 00:15:34.328
It can go downhill just as fast as it brought things up.

00:15:34.328 --> 00:15:38.087
So just be careful with your outcrossing.

00:15:38.087 --> 00:15:44.090
To me it was always sort of a last route situation to do an outcross.

00:15:45.220 --> 00:15:46.525
You're looking for birds that have that.

00:15:46.525 --> 00:15:48.404
What's the term you used years ago?

00:15:48.404 --> 00:15:49.187
Spizarinctum.

00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:50.562
Spizarinctum.

00:15:50.562 --> 00:15:51.004
That's right.

00:15:51.004 --> 00:15:53.264
Love me some spizar.

00:15:53.264 --> 00:15:54.028
It's a real word.

00:15:54.760 --> 00:15:56.145
Is that code for vigor?

00:15:56.860 --> 00:16:08.350
It is exactly what it means that is that chick that hatches in the middle of the pack or at the low end of the pack and at three weeks is bigger than everybody and at eight is bigger than everybody.

00:16:08.350 --> 00:16:12.028
On cold day you're like no way, you're not going in the freezer.

00:16:12.860 --> 00:16:13.945
Those are my favorite birds.

00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:16.184
That's one in a hundred in my book.

00:16:16.787 --> 00:16:21.486
Oh yeah, ms Donaldson, an old red breeder up in Georgia.

00:16:21.486 --> 00:16:26.019
He used that term a lot because she said I always liked chicks that hatched.

00:16:26.019 --> 00:16:27.264
It was a lot of spizarinctum.

00:16:27.264 --> 00:16:33.966
For many, many years I thought it was a term that my grandmother made up, but no, it's a real, genuine word.

00:16:33.966 --> 00:16:40.427
You can look it up in the dictionary and find the definition, trust me, let's get into flock mating.

00:16:40.427 --> 00:16:49.164
There's some advantages to using flock mating, I think, and there's some bigger disadvantages for me and my situation.

00:16:49.164 --> 00:17:01.850
If you're breeding a bird just to preserve that breed, flock mating is a really good program to use and that's where you're using one male for every 10 or 12 females.

00:17:01.850 --> 00:17:10.265
The downside to be effective, flock mating for preservation people think they can do it with a tree or two birds.

00:17:10.800 --> 00:17:12.527
Oh no, it takes the whole family.

00:17:13.259 --> 00:17:24.160
It takes at least 200 females and 10 or 15 males to really do a flock mating program properly.

00:17:25.041 --> 00:17:27.348
I had always heard that the bare minimum was 50.

00:17:28.119 --> 00:17:31.548
That would be the very, very, very low end, I know.

00:17:31.749 --> 00:17:31.890
Okay.

00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:41.807
Don Strider before and he and I both feel that flock mating you've got 200 females to get the most genetic diversity over time.

00:17:41.807 --> 00:17:57.070
It's difficult to make I shouldn't say make progress but it's difficult to improve a flock of birds just doing flock mating, because there's so much variability from bird to bird to bird.

00:17:57.070 --> 00:18:07.587
There's so many males and so many females contributing to that variability that you don't know who produced what.

00:18:07.587 --> 00:18:16.549
Unless you know who produced what, you can't really make progress when you flock Trust me Like you'll see improvements but you won't be able to trace it back.

00:18:17.140 --> 00:18:19.307
It's only going to be certain individuals that show it.

00:18:20.619 --> 00:18:28.108
It's very difficult to breed it forward from one year to the next when you get those improvements, unless you know what's behind those birds.

00:18:28.108 --> 00:18:31.188
You know what the parentage and grandpactage is.

00:18:32.140 --> 00:18:34.166
But it definitely maintains your genetic diversity.

00:18:34.848 --> 00:18:36.373
Oh, yes, that is perfect for that.

00:18:36.373 --> 00:18:37.884
It's perfect for that.

00:18:38.500 --> 00:18:44.592
But then the impetus is on the person selecting from there.

00:18:45.492 --> 00:18:55.609
Yeah, and with that many birds it could be a little tricky too, because the more quantity you have in there, how much time are you spending getting to know each bird?

00:18:56.601 --> 00:19:01.028
Well, and another downside to that is for the newcomers.

00:19:01.028 --> 00:19:03.854
If they're doing flock mating, they may keep.

00:19:03.854 --> 00:19:07.508
If they're only hatching a few, they'll probably keep every single female.

00:19:07.508 --> 00:19:09.452
So they got birdseed.

00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:10.826
If they're going to hatch from all of them.

00:19:10.826 --> 00:19:23.471
I've already been down that path, like I need 12 hens and then I get my 12 hens and I hatch from all of them, and not even 50% of the results were good once I hatched from them, because I kept them by quantity, not quality.

00:19:23.471 --> 00:19:25.906
Yeah, so here's a conundrum then.

00:19:25.906 --> 00:19:37.009
So if your goal is to have a large production flock, do you go ahead and acquire the 500 or the 1000?

00:19:37.009 --> 00:19:49.349
Or do you slowly work on a smaller group to sort and select each generation to build yourself up to those numbers?

00:19:49.349 --> 00:20:16.943
Because one thing that I've seen is a lot of people wanting to get into certain varieties that could be like income producing for their farm or their homestead, and they tend to order the number they think they need and then proceed to breed from all of them, and then they run into the Try to sell the product and they for the same thing they pay for oh yeah, within that first season even.

00:20:16.983 --> 00:20:17.144
Yeah.

00:20:18.435 --> 00:20:25.469
And then they wonder why it's not working out and why they don't have demand when they thought they were getting into a variety that had demand.

00:20:25.469 --> 00:20:34.724
Or they explode their population too much too soon to try to meet a demand, but then their quality suffers a lot.

00:20:34.724 --> 00:20:43.734
So what steps need to be taken to build to a level of quantity with quality?

00:20:43.734 --> 00:20:45.461
Is that even possible?

00:20:45.801 --> 00:20:46.423
Oh, sure it is.

00:20:46.423 --> 00:21:00.286
I started with two trios of Rhode Island Reds, orange Fountains, and I built the population slowly and if you stop and think about it, two trios of large fell four females.

00:21:00.286 --> 00:21:12.099
Okay, if you get them to lay 150 eggs a year, even if you got a 75% hatch rate, do the numbers on it, that is a lot of chickens.

00:21:12.099 --> 00:21:24.048
So my preference is to start out slow with your birds, build it over time, because that's the only way I can see to make progress with my birds.

00:21:24.914 --> 00:21:39.734
Well, every hatch that I do now I'm setting the expectation that the bird is either going in the freezer in December or January, or maybe one in ten is good enough to stay alive to breed forward.

00:21:40.698 --> 00:21:41.319
I agree with you.

00:21:41.319 --> 00:21:44.694
Maybe, If you're lucky, you have 10%.

00:21:45.556 --> 00:21:52.209
But I have a big freezer and we have plenty of people in the neighborhood that like eating fresh farm eggs.

00:21:52.209 --> 00:21:58.086
So having an ethical outlet for the breeding calls is always really important.

00:21:58.086 --> 00:22:02.734
The local raptor rehabilitation center has stopped accepting roosters.

00:22:02.734 --> 00:22:04.821
They usually do about this time of year.

00:22:04.821 --> 00:22:13.028
But we do have various wildlife recovery organizations in our state that will accept roosters or cull hens.

00:22:13.028 --> 00:22:22.825
I usually just put them out on one of the various social medias and somebody will come get them, because even to get them to 10 or 12 weeks you've invested a lot of money into it.

00:22:22.825 --> 00:22:25.701
You just infeed in your time and labor.

00:22:25.701 --> 00:22:29.523
You know people who really there's folks who depend on it.

00:22:29.523 --> 00:22:35.480
They just go around collecting roosters and take them right back home and as soon as they get home process them right away.

00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:38.538
So they pretty much all they have into.

00:22:38.538 --> 00:22:42.528
You know four or five pounds of meat is the gas money to go and fetch them.

00:22:43.015 --> 00:22:45.299
So this brings us to.

00:22:45.299 --> 00:22:50.429
How do you begin to make good, solid improvements in your birds?

00:22:50.429 --> 00:23:01.566
To me, you know, and a lot of people think, line breeding is a huge no-no and they equate line breeding with breeding for showbirds only.

00:23:01.566 --> 00:23:04.029
That is so far from the truth.

00:23:04.029 --> 00:23:07.288
It's not even funny, lock in your good traits.

00:23:07.469 --> 00:23:08.714
Yeah, call out.

00:23:08.734 --> 00:23:10.673
That's where consistency comes from.

00:23:11.336 --> 00:23:12.059
Absolutely.

00:23:12.059 --> 00:23:17.326
Line breeding will help you identify the penetration of your birds.

00:23:17.326 --> 00:23:22.226
It will help you remove the poor quality birds and individuals.

00:23:22.226 --> 00:23:28.428
So long term it gives you really good improvement in your flock.

00:23:28.428 --> 00:23:31.423
So okay, what is line breeding?

00:23:31.423 --> 00:23:34.344
Let me explain it and how I use how I did mine.

00:23:34.344 --> 00:23:39.125
I maintain my birds through what I called family line breeding.

00:23:40.036 --> 00:23:48.126
All the females in the pen were related and I maintained usually a minimum of three breeding pens.

00:23:48.126 --> 00:24:02.714
So if I had pen one, two and three because all of the females related, I could grab a bird out of pen three that I thought had the qualities I needed to help improve pen one and breed them in there.

00:24:02.714 --> 00:24:06.546
And I might use them two or three years as long as I was getting good results.

00:24:06.546 --> 00:24:14.726
And then I may switch over to using a pen to mail and I could cross mail back and forth within my line.

00:24:14.726 --> 00:24:26.510
But because I was maintaining the lines through my female side of the reading, I got tremendous uniformity, tremendous consistency and tremendous results like that.

00:24:27.377 --> 00:24:29.730
And somebody says but yeah, but how long can you do that?

00:24:29.730 --> 00:24:36.211
We have more information than we could possibly cover in one show, so we need to continue this discussion.

00:24:36.211 --> 00:24:41.165
In our next show you can get part two starting your breeding program next week.

00:24:41.165 --> 00:24:47.105
In the meantime, be sure to email us and share your thoughts at potporkieperspodcastcom.

00:24:47.105 --> 00:24:52.714
Until then, may all your birds be happy, healthy and productive.

00:24:52.714 --> 00:24:58.739
Thank you for listening.