Line Breeding

[gayle]

Here is a web site on breeding and production of poultry.

journeytoforever.org/farm_library/ppp/ppp6.html

They also have a breeding chart set up which appears to branch off to maintain a male line and a female line in which after a number of generations you can borrow off the lines to maintain vigor. But it does show bringing in a new male in the male line after so many generations. it appears it is to start a new line to run parallel?

journeytoforever.org/farm_library/ppp/jpg/ppp6-1.jpg

[gayle]

www.ftcna.com/breeding.html
Here is a website by a breeder of pigeons who has valuable info on breeding programs. If you have a male you would like to see maintained genetically over generations. Shows a breeding chart to maintain his quality.

Here is a very simple, easy to understand LINE-BREEDING (In-Breeding) CHARTS. This should be quite helpful to the novice and intermediate fanciers. This chart can be used as a "line-breeding" chart or for establishing a "strain" when only one bird of the wanted mutant is available.

First Cousin Program

First Cousin Program - The objective of this program is to blend two pairs of excellent pigeons equally. This method is more useful for pedigreed animals or animals or exceptional quality.

Half-Brother-Sister Program

Half-Brother-Sister Program - the object of half-brother-sister program is to blend three birds with emphasis on one. This is particularly successful in first establishing consistency in a new line.

Skip Generation Program

Skip Generation Program The object of Skip generation program is to impress the line with the feature of a single bird (here the Male).

[gayle]

If you have a male quality you want to maintain in your birds the line breeding of a male line works good. Usually by the time you reach the F3 and/or F4 group, you will see these qualities appear. As seen in breeding if your old rooster kicks the bucket, don't worry he will show up again in 3 to 4 breedings.


As breeders have pointed out, use these breeding programs at your own discretion. By being very selective. If a recessive trait shows up which you don't like this most likely is due to a bird which you put in the breeding pen 2 to 3 genrations back. As the saying goes cull hard.

As some breeders say when setting up a breeding program it may be three generations before your quality comes through, so then again as the saying goes. Let patients have it perfect works.

[Fred Kokke]

Great stuff for us people who are just learning how to breed or birds

[gayle]

Here is a website by Robert Blosl which has a page on Rotation line breeding. As we know he raises White Rocks and Mohawk Rhode Island Reds

bloslspoutlryfarm.tripod.com/id60.html

Rotation Line Breeding

"Some breeders found even greater success with their Rocks by mating the uncles to their nieces and the aunts to their nephews."

"This is when inbreeding a family line is established and strong family lines are fixed to their progeny, thereby putting together a foundation of the family lines."

If you can visualize four Poultry houses 4’ wide, 5’ tall, and 4’ deep attached to a 4’X8’ wire covered run. This pen is built on 4”X4”X14’ treated runners that can be moved to fresh ground every 3 to 5 days. The first house is for a family called #1 which is painted red and has #1 painted to the entrance door. In this pen will be two pen sisters (pullets) mated to a cockerel. The females are all toe punched with the pen number #1 punch. The cockerel has been toe punched Pen #4.
The next building will be built the same. However, painted white with the #2 painted on the door. We have again two pen sisters revealing toe punch #2. With them is placed a male bird toe punched #1.
The next building is painted blue with#3 on the door. Again, with 2 pen sisters with the toe punch #3. The cockerel has a toe punch #2.
The final pen that I have, like the other three, is painted green. The number on the door is #4. The two pen sisters are toe punched with a pen #4 punch. The male bird will be a cockerel with a toe punch #3.
So, as you can see, I have about two females with one male. Each breeding season, I take a pencil and write the number of each breeding pen number on each egg. The eggs are hatched in my incubator in four separate compartments and I carefully toe punch each chick to his appropriate pen which would be between Pens 1 to 4.
Each chick is raised to an age where I can make some decision on vigor, breed type, beak, and leg color. I chose the best off-spring in comparison to their parents hoping to improve each generation and pass on to future offspring the improved traits that my goals are at that time.
Now, if you will, visualize two of the best pullets that I have raised from each breeding pen placed back into the pen from which their eggs came. Also, please visualize that I have on their legs a leg band of the color of their building. Now that I have all of the pen sisters in their pens as their mothers where before them let’s pick the best males that will be chosen as mates to these females. We may pick a male not because he is closest to the standard but, more than anything, to look handsome as he can be and to compensate for any faults that the females may have.
The females in Pen 1 will have a male placed into their pen that was toe punched #4 as his sire was before him. Pen 2 females will have a sharp cockerel from Pen 1. Pen 3 females have a cockerel from Pen 2. Pen 4 females will have, as you may have guessed, a male that comes from Pen 3.
So as you can see this simple system places every year the best females back into their pen and the best male rotates down to his right from the pen that he originates from.

Rotational Line Breeding Program



The four breeding pens that I have revealed in my case can be expanded with more than two females. You could have 4 to 6 females but, in my judgment, I’m not interested in quantity but quality. I want my whole strain of White Plymouth Rock large fowl to look as they were uniform or, as old timers would say, “They all look like peas in a pod.’’
A four pen system, as I use, has a 16 year time limit before new blood needs to be added. If you eliminate pen 4 and go with just three family lines, you can go about 12 years without entering new blood. If space is really limited, as many large fowl breeders have a problem with, may I suggest just two such pens and you can go about 5 years without new blood. You could always go back to the breeder that you started with or from someone who has the identical blood lines as yours to replenish new blood if necessary. You could easily hatch 40 to 75 chicks from two such family lines then cull often and hard to save space for their prodigy.

[gayle]

ultimatefowl.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/line-breeding/

Here is a method used to keep your line pure, it is a preservative type method.
It is used by breeder to preserve bloodlines of quality.

3 Times In And Once Out = To Breed a Pure Strain.

It is a form of breeding known as “3 times in and once out.” This system was used to produce, in cockers’ terms, a “pure strain.” The following chart will explain how the system works.

First Generation Hen Cock ½ hen ½ cock

Second Generation Hen to son Cock to daughter ¾ hen ¾ cock

Third Generation Hen to grandson Cock to granddaughter 7/8 hen 7/8 cock

Fourth Generation Hen to grandson Cock to granddaughter 15/16 hen 15/16 cock

Now in the 5th generation you breed the 15/16 hen to the 15/16 cock. Then, choosing the best hen(s) and cock(s) you begin again (Narragansett, The Gamecock, 1985, pp. 44-45).


ultimatefowl.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/generations.jpg?w=655

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[gayle]

Here are two websites which promote Spiral Breeding.


www.wyandottesandrocks.com/2011/01/how-to-effectively-breed-showbirds-by.html

How to effectively breed showbirds by spiral breeding

For Season 1, mate all males to females of their own line.
From your first hatch the best Daughters of Season 1 are added as breeders to the line that produced them (they stay with their mothers.) This is why you toe punch the young so that you will know which daughters came from which mothers. (Sons are compared to their fathers for quality and only the best are kept in a bachelor pen until needed). A bachelor pen is a separate pen for all your roosters that are not being used.
In Season 2, mate the 3 or C line male to the 2 or B line females, mate the 2 or B line male to
the 1 or A line females, mate the 1 or A line male to the 3 or C line females - rotating them.
Females from Season 2 are added to the line that produced them alongside
their mothers. The best son of the 3 or C line male mated to the 2 or B line females is
kept and mated to the 2 or B line females; same for other matings, old cocks are
retired.
Once everything is going well males are used twice, then retired and replaced by a son. Males rotate one line over every other year. This gives you a year of out cross and a year of line breeding.

forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?s=d061954920798b7534cd0a1a2ac43a5e&threadid=336292&perpage=25&pagenumber=2

Line Breeding Using Spiral Breeding

Many breeders of purebred poultry use line breeding with their flocks. A more complicated, yet more
effective way to line breed is to Spiral Breed. To do this, maintain three lines - Line A, Line B, Line C.

For Season 1, mate all males to females of their own line. Daughters of Season 1 are added as breeders to
the line that produced them (they stay with their mothers.) Sons are compared to their fathers for quality.

In Season 2, mate the C line male to the B line females, mate the B line male to the A line females, mate the A
line male to the C line females - rotating them.

Females from Season 2 are added to the line that produced them alongside their mothers. The best son of the
C line male mated to the B line females is kept and mated to the B line females; same for other matings, old
cocks are retired.

Once the system is up and running, males are used twice, then retired in preference to a son. Males rotate one
line over every other year. This gives you a year of outcross and a year of line breeding.

Spiral Breeding is a very old system. There is one breeder and his family that reputedly maintained a line of
Rhode Island Reds for 90 years on this system, he and his family kept five matings each year.

[gayle]

When you start line breeding cull hard and that is super hard, If you let some birds slide you will slide your flock into a deep rut.

Make sure you have your birds at the ultimate level that you want them before you start.
Line breeding is to maintain genetics, not for developing a strain.
When you get your strain developed then start linebreeding, double the factor.

[gayle]

Some people who do strict line breeding run two or three line breeding groups parallel. then after so many years rotate a rooster over. Getting in a rut is nothing new. It happens.

[gayle]

www.longshadowfarms.com/linebreeding.html

[gayle]

www.polishbreedersclub.com/inbreeding.htm

A discussion of the differences between inbreeding and linebreeding (Written by Ron Okimoto of the Onigadori genetics website)

Chickens probably do not line breed very well. They have about twice the genetic load as other animals like humans. The genetic load is just a measure of the lethal equivalents in a genome. Humans have one of about 2.5. This just means you have the equivalent of about 5 recessive lethal genes in your genome. This is why brothers and sisters should not mate because they share half their genetic loads and recessive lethals or detrimentals can be expressed in the progeny of inbred matings.

Chickens have a genetic load of around 6. Nearly all inbred lines generated by full sib matings fail after just three full sib matings. Once the inbreeding coefficient goes over 0.375 the lines tend to fail to reproduce one male and one female to continue the line.

So inbreeding in chickens is not a very good thing to do a lot of.

The reason people like to line breed is that it is the fastest way to select for type that is caused by a complex interaction of genes. If you have a superior animal the fastest way to increase the frequency of the superior genes in your line is to line breed.
Line breeding is just when you take the superior parent (hen or rooster) and cross the progeny back to the parent (father to daughter or mother to son). You then take the superior parent and again cross it to its new offspring from the inbred mating. You repeat this until infertility becomes a problem or the parent dies.

You can select other progeny that presumably will be better than average for your flock to breed in non inbred matings or to other close relatives to try and set the good traits in your line.

The reason that this works is that in the first mating the progeny have only half the sires genes. We say that the inbreeding coefficient (F) is 0 because none of the non inbred progeny can have both the alleles from the sire. When the sire is crossed to his daughter F = 0.25 this means that 25% of the genes of the progeny are identical by descent (both alleles of a gene come from the sire) and 75% of the total genome comes from the superior parent. These first generation inbred progeny have been fixed for 25% of the sires genes. With the next inbred mating of sire to grand daughter F = 0.375 and 87.5% of the total genome. Mating to his great grand daughter F = 0.438 and 93.8% of the total genome comes from the superior sire. After this inbred mating the gain is much less (the next inbred mating results in F = 4.69 and 96.9% of the total genome) and the birds are getting pretty old, so you can pick the best son and start it over again.

Line breeding can produce very rapid gains in the quality of your line for certain traits, but nearly always results in a degeneration of the reproductive capacity of your line and you end up outcrossing and starting over. For a few generations it can give you some outstanding birds at a higher frequency than you would get by not inbreeding, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. This is why commercial breeding companies try to avoid inbreeding and concentrate on improving the whole population. The gains are not as dramatic, but they don't fall on their faces as often.

I don't know what the best breeding scheme is. You should do a little inbreeding but not a whole lot and if you inbreed I'd recommend parent to offspring inbreeding because all the genes that become homozygous by descent come from the superior parent. If you brother sister inbreed you get about the same amount of inbreeding (0.25, 0.375, 0.5, 0.594, 0.672.) for the first few generations, but the genes that become homozygous by descent come from the superior parent and the inferior parent. So if you brother-sister mate you are not only fixing genes from the good parent, but from the not so good parent too.

Maybe the best advice is that if you inbreed always use a superior animal for the mating. If you do not you are just increasing the bad genes in your line. Any mating between related individuals is inbreeding. Line breeding and full sib mating cause the same amount of inbreeding for the first two inbred generations. Theoretically line breeding and full sib matings should have the same detrimental results for the first two inbred generations. Full-sib mating would be more detrimental for the 3rd and subsequent inbred generations.
The difference is that all the inbreeding comes from the superior parent in line breeding, but half the inbreeding comes from the inferior parent in full-sib matings. This is why I'd recommend inbred matings involving only birds that you think are good enough to warrent it.

[gayle]

www.scribd.com/doc/61526661/The-Chicken-Health-Handbook

Inbreeding
Inbreeding is a sure way to reduce hatchability. Continuous, close inbreeding causes a phenomenon known as"inbreeding depression," for which low hatchability is usually the first sign. Later signs are fewer and fewer eggslaid, and chicks lacking in "constitutional vigor," meaning they're droopy and unthrifty, and may or may not die soonafter hatching.Inbreeding is unavoidable if you raise an exhibition strain or you're trying to preserve one of the fast-disappearingclassic breeds. For every 10 percent increase in inbreeding, however, you can expect a 2.6 percent reduction inhatchability. A flock that reaches 30 percent hatchability is nearing extinction due to failure to reproduce. A flock canbecome extinct after only six to eight generations of brother-sister matings. Inbreeding depression has two distinctcauses: concentration of genetic factors and the inbreeding itself. You can therefore slow the decline and improvereproduction in two ways. First, by selecting and culling for number of eggs laid, hatchability of the eggs, and vigor of the resulting offspring. Second, by using less close matings that result in more gradual inbreeding making fifty birdsthe minimum size for an inbred flock.

The implication is not to do to much brother and sister mating.
You might breed your flock to extintion.

[gayle]

I have also had it explained to me that line breeding causes a positive added phenomenon. It causes long feathering on birds.
How I don't know. But if you set line breed birds next to birds that are not line breed you will see that line breed birds will have longer flowing feathers.

[korfuskluckers]

Great info Gayle. Thanks for posting!