Mini-clan mating

[interior_ocean]

I would not do final selection before they are about one year old. Some can seem great at first but turn out horrible, some you're ready to cull but turn out great when they mature. Health is also difficult to judge early on. I like at least 18 months, preferably two years. But at one year you can do fairly accurate judgements. If you're serious about breeding I do recommend keeping a few more than you're eventually going to need. Saves you from a lot of disappointment.

 

[Pcmandooo]

I would not do final selection before they are about one year old. Some can seem great at first but turn out horrible, some you're ready to cull but turn out great when they mature. Health is also difficult to judge early on. I like at least 18 months, preferably two years. But at one year you can do fairly accurate judgements. If you're serious about breeding I do recommend keeping a few more than you're eventually going to need. Saves you from a lot of disappointment.

Agreed, maybe wittling down to a handful of candidates before winter and then doing final selection the following late spring/summer would be best. I have definitely had run ins with late developing issues. I guess the question is, what is the least amount of birds that can be kept to perpetuate this system? So far overwinter is 3 cockerels, 6 hens, 3 pullets/replacements. Which comes to 12 birds total. More than I’d like to keep through winter but probably the most realistic number.

 

[E flowers]

Well first of all, if you have a standard you're striving for, with this system I think it's important to start with a flock that's uniform and breeds true. Otherwise each rotation is kind of like out-crossing and you're going to get too much variation. But if by standard you simply mean a certain level of quality, then it's not as important.

I agree that a six year old hen isn't necessarily too old. I suppose it depends how old the replacements are when you're going to cull the replacee. I didn't think of that. Either way it's a risk. You do have two hens per line so even if one doesn't make it to breeding you'd still have one.

Branching off a new line shouldn't be a problem. Of course it increases inbreeding but you're unlikely to get problems you can't fix by selection. When line breeding, problems are often blamed on inbreeding depression when the cause is poor selection. Even when inbreeding depression occurs, it's still not to late to start to diversify. If you practice proper selection your system could work indefinitely. And it doesn't exclude other breeding methods from being used simultaneously if you later decide to do so.

I'm curious about breeding to make white pattern red wheaten. I've selected RIR roos, Wheaten maran hens, and white leghorn hens as the parents to get to the White pattern red wheaten but I'm not sure how I would go about breeding them to make them breed true after. I'm hoping I'll end up with WPR/Wh roos and hens who I can separate into clans and clanbreed. Would a few generations of WPR/Wh make ones that breed true? It's all a bit confusing for me and I was hoping this would work. I also don't have much room for a bunch of pens so I was hoping for just 3 clan pens and maybe a bachelor pen along with another separate hen pen.

 

[RememberTheWay]

I agree. at the point in which the hen is three years old there would be an emphasis to replace them no matter what. so i would kind of be riding the wire. Such tight numbers don’t really allow for errors like late developing defects, disease or mortality. How difficult is it to branch off a new family if one is lost or falls short of the standard? Without bringing in new blood of course.

Isn't it better to wait until the hen is older (at least 2/3 yrs old) to begin hatching from them? Could of swore I read that somewhere

 

[ve]

I am doing something similar: I keep 4 families (1 cock and 2 hens each) and breed every 4 years. I hatch 10 -15 chicks from each family and keep one boy and 2 girls only. Next time I breed, boy A will go with girls B, boy B will go with girls C, boy C with girls D and boy D with girls A.