Breed this possible

[Andy809]

Hello, I was checking out the isa browns hydridization, and I'm unable to really understand how it is possible to make isa browns. If someone can understand it, could you please see the attached photo and assist me?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Hello, I was checking out the isa browns hydridization, and I'm unable to really understand how it is possible to make isa browns. If someone can understand it, could you please see the attached photo and assist me?

It's just like with CornishX. 4 pure lines are crossed over generations to make an ideal mixed breed

 

[Andy809]

Yes, but how is it that nobody could figure out the crosses?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Yes, but how is it that nobody could figure out the crosses?

Because it's a trade secret. Just like with CX. They didn't advertise it to the public

 

[NatJ]

Yes, but how is it that nobody could figure out the crosses?

It doesn't even have to be a secret, if they just refuse to sell any of the pure lines (A, B, C, D).

Making color-sexable chicks is pretty easy. Making ones that lay as well as ISA Browns is not nearly as easy. That takes a lot of careful breeding work.

If you want color-sexable chicks, you can use Delaware hens with Rhode Island Red roosters. The daughters will lay about as well as the parent breeds do (probably not as well as the ISA Browns). There are quite a lot of other breed combinations that will also produce color-sexable chicks.

 

[Andy809]

But how are people unable to figure it out within the years? Im just starting and would like to get to make isa browns or better.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Because there are hundreds of breeds, probably thousands of combinations and different strains in each breed.

 

[Andy809]

Because it's a trade secret. Just like with CX. They didn't advertise it to the public

It doesn't even have to be a secret, if they just refuse to sell any of the pure lines (A, B, C,
Making color-sexable chicks is pretty easy. Making ones that lay as well as ISA Browns is not nearly as easy. That takes a lot of careful breeding work.

If you want color-sexable chicks, you can use Delaware hens with Rhode Island Red roosters. The daughters will lay about as well as the parent breeds do (probably not as well as the ISA Browns). There are quite a lot of other breed combinations that will also produce color-sexable chicks.

So the isa browns are just rebredding the delaware hens with Rhode Island Red (or other breeds that make the isa) or just getting different parents until you get the best egg layers?

 

[Andy809]

It doesn't even have to be a secret, if they just refuse to sell any of the pure lines (A, B, C, D).

Making color-sexable chicks is pretty easy. Making ones that lay as well as ISA Browns is not nearly as easy. That takes a lot of careful breeding work.

If you want color-sexable chicks, you can use Delaware hens with Rhode Island Red roosters. The daughters will lay about as well as the parent breeds do (probably not as well as the ISA Browns). There are quite a lot of other breed combinations that will also produce color-sexable chicks.

So is it more of the best of the best pure breed parents, not a mixture of breeds?

 

[NatJ]

So the isa browns are just rebredding the delaware hens with Rhode Island Red (or other breeds that make the isa) or just getting different parents until you get the best egg layers?

Pretty close, yes.

What they probably really did:

Breed white hens and red roosters, raise a bunch of daughters, keeping track of which daughters came from which parents. See how well the daughters lay.

Take the white hens and the red roosters that produced the very best daughters, and breed each of them to mates of their own color, to get more white chickens and more red chickens.

Using that new generation of white chickens and red chickens, breed the white hens with the red roosters and keep track of the daughters so you can find which parents were the best...

Repeated over and over, for many years.

They eventually ended up with the current set of chickens, that are probably not recognizable as any specific pure breed, but that are very good for producing ISA Browns.



Looking at that chart in the first post, I would say that A and B would be two lines of white chickens. Breeding them together gives the white hens that become the actual mothers of ISA Browns. C and D would be two lines of red chickens. Breeding them together gives the red roosters that become the fathers of ISA Browns. Each year they are also breeding A roosters with A hens, and B roosters with B hens, to get the pure As and Bs they will be crossing next year (and C roosters with C hens, and D roosters with D hens.)

The only thing that keeps you from doing the same thing yourself: space to raise a lot of chickens, money to pay for the housing and feed for all the chickens, and how much time you are willing to put into the project.

So is it more of the best of the best pure breed parents, not a mixture of breeds?

Sort of yes, sort of no. Each of the lines of chickens (A, B, C, D) would be like a breed, in that it can reliably produce more chickens like itself. But it is not a breed that has a name, gets sold by hatcheries, raised by private breeders, entered in chicken shows-- so in that sense it is not really a "breed" as we usually use the term.