I would love to talk about genetics. We do need to control genetic drift, but we all do not want inbreeding depression. I like your approach!

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

Always up for talking about genetics and breeding strategies. The big thing with the clan mating system is its a "long haul" approach i.e. you may see changes quicker with more aggressive breeding programs (i.e. "improve" the physical traits quicker) but this seems to be a good way to balance production with aesthetics (i.e. form and function).

@pseudopetrus

Жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm The other way a small breeder can maintain a heritage breed is to network with other breeders. Even if there is a common genetic base, having an input from a breeder every 3 or 4 years helps give a bit of distance and genetic diversity to combat inbreeding depression without losing type.

A suggestion, you can actually keep each individual hen in a cage and still have a clan of hen all separated with each in her own individual cage, and move the rooster from one cage to another until all hens have been served a few times, that way you will know with certainty, what egg came from which hen. That would be more costly (having a cage for every hen) but if you must know what egg came from which hen, then that would be a possible solution.

@HickorycroftFarm

4 ай бұрын

You are right it can work, basically selecting one hen and doing what you said (keeping her and the rooster separate from the other clans) can work quite well for a more "pedigreed" type system. Because of the infrastructure needed though for us (and I think a lot of homestead type producers) its not feasible to do that (though not impossible). The principle is the same though weather you have four hens and four roosters or four roosters and several hens in each "clan".

you don't know how much i appreciate your videos; they really are packed with important information

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

really glad you enjoy them and this one especially. Its been a long time coming putting this one together so glad to hear it was useful and interesting! We have been using this method for the Partridge Chanteclers since we started with them in 2009 so it does work or at least we feel it does!

Super explanation. I learned about clan mating first in an old English book, Farmer’s Progress: A Guide to Farming by George Henderson. He also ran four clans. He explains that tartans, an Irish child’s game with colored stones, and mosaic designs in Persian temples show how before people could read they could track genetic relationships. He combined clan mating, however, with a bit of single mating, which is what I do. Even without trap nesting, you can figure out who is a great layer, say, by physical examination and observation. There may be a few hens that have a great dual purpose physique AND also lay great. In your case, you'd need four small pens for a male and female during breeding. For my six clans (but generally breeding only three clans a year) I use easily movable 4x4 wire and wood dome pens on grass. I scoot them to fresh grass 1-2 times a day for the week before collecting eggs and for the week to 10 days I'm collecting. My pens are fairly predator proof, but I try to use them in my Electronet area where I raise chicks in the summer. I also use the clan color on the right leg band and the cock's color on the left. As well, I wing band chicks and generally use clan-colored Jiffy wing bands. So I can also run my hens together. I may start a separate pen for my pullets because in my breed the hens are hard on pullets.

@RichardGilbert2727

2 ай бұрын

Wanted to add on egg production. I've read that great progress began when breeders realized a hen passes the trait to her SON. So breed the sons of great layers to other hens and pullets.

Good advice!

I would love to talk more about inbreeding & creating a family

I should mention that for maximum genetic diversity, you need to only use cockerels in your rotation so that they are several generations separate. But you can put a really good rooster back on pullets of the same clan if you are trying to fix some aspect of that clan. A really poor clan can actually drag down the other clans if you dogmatically follow the rotation without making some effort to improve it. Most of the time, what we are dealing with is nice birds, with each clan having it's strengths and also areas where it can improve. In that case, the rotation can work with good old culling. Fill that freezer!

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

Lots wrapped up here. I will start in saying that we put this video together because the vast majority of people who have chickens (i.e. homesteaders) never even think about having multiple roosters or multiple "families" of hens. You are right for maximum genetic diversity you would have to constantly only use cockerels once they have young they all need to go to be replaced by new birds. We do keep back one rooster typically though every year usually because he has some good qualities (or qualities we like in him). It really is all about culling as you say selection has to be applied and that's the best way to ensure it. It would be interesting to go into more detail on this kind of thing but the topics get really information heavy lol.

@pseudopetrus

Жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm I have interest in your line in my part of the country. I am breeding them apart from my main line, (for this year), there is a demand for production quality traits here in show country. The Partridge Chantecler has a smaller gene pool than many other dual purpose breeds and your fresh genes are very valuable and much needed in my region. I hope to keep the breed moving forward and intend to share the best qualities of the breed with other enthusiasts of the Partridge Chantecler.

So informative, thank you!

Awesome video! We're not breeding (yet) so this was good information! Thank for sharing!

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it! Though we are pretty big on trying to find a breed that fits the needs of the homesteaders, this method can really be used for maintaining any population of animal (works very well with most small animals with some minor "tweaks" for their biology and lifespan etc.). Its served us well in our flock of Partridge Chanteclers since 2009 when we started and really reduced the number of birds we have had to add to the flock over the years to!

So useful!! Thank you again

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

Thank you 😃. Glad you found it interesting and helpful

This is Great information.. Thanks!

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed this one! it was a fun one to put together to with the visuals etc. So really glad to hear you and others have found it informative!

Thank you so much!

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed this one!

Great job! I appreciate the work you put into the visual aids!

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

This video was a long time coming but do think it turned out well. We have been using this method for a long time and do feel it works pretty well (hard to ever truly be an "island" genetically but having some flexibility to not constantly have to add birds to the flock from outside does help). We do have some plans for more videos like this or at least on the subject.

@goodtimberfarm

2 жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm if you had the last partridge chanteclers in the world, and wanted to keep them going, would you create another clan from your own stock, giving you 5 clans? Or simply stick with the 4 and perhaps just have to hatch out a higher number each year and cull heavily to keep things going indefinitely?

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

@@goodtimberfarm Both options could work. We could split some of our lines and keep adding clans technically they would not be 100% unrelated clans but still can give you more resiliency genetically. If we ended up as the only folks with them it would be a tough balance between genetics and feeding (the big dilemma with keeping any breed). Its always a number game for sure higher numbers produced vs more lines.

You can’t accurately line breed this way unless the hens lay a different colored egg and you can collect them and separate them for incubation. This requires single pair matings.

I really enjoyed this just found your channel

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

Welcome to the channel. So glad to have you following along and we are always happy to answer questions and comments 😃

If you have willing neighbours you can set up a similar system with your neighbours, where each neighbour takes care of one flock, and rotate the roosters each generation, I imagine that’s how it was done back in the day prior to industrial chicken farming?

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

You are 100% correct that is basically how the system worked for hundreds of years. The hard part is finding willing neighbor's with access to so much diversity in breeds now and so many people who don't necessarily see the value in keeping animal or plant populations going (i.e. thinking you can always buy more) its a hard sell to go back to the "old ways". But in an ideal world this is exactly how it should work. After a decade raising Partridge Chanteclers keeping the diversity yourself is the best insurance policy where we are at least to make sure we have the birds to produce us the eggs and meat we need but it certainly does put us at a disadvantage in a way because we have to figure out housing and feeding so many more birds (though with chickens its not impossible). Really the same system can be applied though to everything from seed saving to keeping cattle it just takes a community of likeminded neighbor's to make it work! Great point and this is something that we think about a lot.

Great video,very interesting! I would like to hear more about this for sure.

@HickorycroftFarm

5 ай бұрын

we may do a follow-up to this video as we are in the process of building a new chicken flock and a duck flock, so it may be a good time to revisit this a bit. Glad you enjoyed the video! It's a really simple way to keep a flock going and still be able to make some selection and be a bit more resilient to what goes on off the homestead.

Tell us more about inbreeding. Great video I just ran across it today thanks.

Great info Chris. I am going to line breed. I would love to chat up these birds with you one day. I have acquired hatching eggs from a well known breeder from the haliburton area , in addition have a breeding trio coming. Once I have sone stock they are all going out free range and not sure what my plan is maybe some flock breeding in combo of line breeding not ruling out spiral. I just live these birds.

This video was very in depth thanks for sharing. I have 3 hens that are sitting. they are sharing sitting dutys ,oh yeah we lost one hen :(

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

That's great that you have three hens already sitting! hopfully they hatch well for you! We have one hen left to hatch out (the chicks were starting to hatch tonight) then that's us done for 2022! Glad you enjoyed this one. It was a long time coming but its basically the method we have used since we started (with the odd new bird added here and there). We used the same method with our Cayuga and Khaki Campbell ducks when we had them (from 2008-2019) so it does work for homestead scale production!

To me, this system of breeding is the best way a homestead or small scale breeder can insure good genetic diversity without intensive record keeping or the risk of inbreeding. That's a very valuable thing to have and it's so simple to do. As long as you have the infrastructure set up, it's not hard to do at all. The hardest part is picking just one breed to focus on! Seriously...it's not easy to choose just one!

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely agree! and also agree about the infrastructure. I think that's the most prohibitive part of this. We talk about it a lot that in the "old days" each homestead or small farm (or family) would have their little flock of chickens a few hens and a rooster. Their neighbors almost certainly had the same kind and it basically ended up that each family had one "clan" so if multiple families in a given area all had the same type of chicken nonene had to really maintain big populations of birds. But at least for us its been a necessity as we have seen homesteading become popular and wane over time. It is hard to pick just one, that's why we have tried over the years to pick one kind of any given species (i.e. one chicken, one goose, one sheep etc.) that way we can still have some variety in our diet and such but can keep each one somewhat simple. Of course its never simple when you try to have multiple lines of everything lol.

Very interesting video. New friend here.

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you found us, and thank you so much for following along.

@DaveCollierCamping

2 жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm my pleasure

Thanks this is an interesting topic as there are many “small scale” backyarders wondering how to breed meat birds without inbreeding issues and without being super smart on breeding lore. If you have 4 roosters and replace them with best progeny, are you going to be “inbreeding” after 4 generations? If so, is that considered to be a long enough genetic separation to be sustainable long term? Or am I getting things confused?

One weak ljnk in the system would be the roosters, i.e if one of them dies or doesn't perform. However, I guess you could just rotate another rooster to this clan (from the same clan this rooster came from) - especially if you have four clans and hence more generations. Have you had any experience with this "problem"?

Im new to chickens and getting ready to get some. Im interested in starting a homestead after I graduate. However, right now, my family will let me have a small flock of 6 for a few eggs and meat. I intend on getting barred rock chickens. I only have money for a single coop so this kind of breeding won't be an option. I will most likely get 6 chickens, probably 2 of them roosters from different lines. This will allow me to make a few generations before I need to buy some new roosters for new lines. Anyway, my main question is that if I go through and start a homestead. Is it possible to setup 3 small coops with 1 hen and 1 rooster in each for a total of 6 birds? I know you said recommended at least two hens but is this possible? I intend on letting them free range most days so the flock can roam outside together.

How do you make a hen go broody?

Great video! Have a few questions. When it comes to culling hens at the end of the season, how many should be culled if any? Can you cull all and replace with their daughters? Or do you recommend keeping the best looking ones and replace with the best looking pullets. Thank you!

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

This is a great question and unfortunately I don't have a simple answer for it lol. Honestly all options can work but we find a bit of a hybrid approach tends to be what we do here. Basically we try to keep 4 hens minimum per line with an ideal winter flock size for us at around 24 birds (i.e. 20 hens). But because we run multiple lines sometimes we we will keep more birds from one or two lines and less from another either because they are not as well put together or for a variety of reasons we just don't have the number we need from the line (i.e. few hens hatched or losses to predators etc. as this kind of thing does happen). We also do occasionally keep more older hens than we "need" but because we use natural incubation for 100% of our production here if we have hens that have proven to be good broodies etc. they sometimes get to stay a few extra years. You probably do achieve improvement in your birds by culling everything each year and starting with new birds i.e. you would have a fairly fast improvement potentially if you keep keeping the best of the best. The nice part of keeping the maternal lines together is that if you do decide to keep older birds you can actually have a bit more diversity in the line genetically (i.e. they are obviously all related but not necessarily sired by the same rooster) which could be viewed as a good or a bad thing I suppose. I guess bottom line with this approach is knowing how many birds you need to produce the eggs and meat you want for your family and somewhat back calculating from there as to how many hens you keep over the winter months. The nice part is you can always adjust the following year if need be and keep more or less hens. We do find that going below three hens per line can be a gamble sometimes but that's just been our experience. These are great questions though and we may do a video explaining some of it a bit more (with some other thoughts around the topic to!)

@thomaseldred1515

Жыл бұрын

Thankyou! This is great info for me to get started. I have my flocks and am ready for next season.

Interesting! Could you add a letter or number with a marker on the leg band?

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

You could with a good sharpie.... not sure how long it would last, though. You would probably have to check it often

Thanks this was very interesting. How often should roosters be changed out? I have a backyard flock but I'm also in a rural area so I can have a rooster. I just don't know how old he should be when I pick a son of his to keep.

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

well that depends and there are multiple answers for this. If you only have one rooster than you likely will want to switch him out every year IF your keeping hens back from any you produce. You can inbreed and people do cross roosters back to their pullet offspring but if you only have one rooster you won't be able to do much selection since eventually you will have to get another from an outside source (so on a small scale with just one it doesn't make sense to do that in my opinion but others may disagree). If you only have the one rooster and one line of hens than it might not make sense to keep his sons unless you plan to bring in more hens (i.e. you can cull all the hens and keep the male side of the equation instead). If you can keep more than one roster and spilt your hens up into lines then you can move him to another line OR breed him back to his daughters. Its kind of a "hybrid" approach to the clan mating system. Clan mating somewhat maximizes your genetic diversity within your flock BUT you can occasionally couple that with some inbreeding as well to try and homogenize some traits in a given family or clan. Long term and this is again just my opinion selection in a clan mating system will be slower than a very intensive inbreeding system BUT long term there are other traits which will be selected for (broodiness, longevity etc.) that may not happen the same in a more intensive inbreeding system just because of the speed of which it happens (i.e. inbreeding is a good way to "fix" or stabilize physical traits because it reduces the variation genetically). I don't know if that really answers the question but its a complex topic where people have some very different opinions (though I would try and seek opinions from people who have been actually practicing their opinions for some time, the longer the better because they will have some good insight and experience there!).

@ScaryFear

Жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm Ok thank you. I'm a weird situation where I'm allowed to have chickens and a rooster. I'm zoned agriculture but on a small plot right next to a subdivision and neighbors are kind of close. Might be pushing my luck with one rooster. I wish I could have four and individual coops and runs and not care if they crow. I don't mind the sound. Literally right accross the street its residential.

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

@@ScaryFear that all makes perfect sense so yes keeping a hen flock and bringing in a new rooster every year or two may be your best option to be honest. Still keeps you going though and thats positive (and great you can still have birds in that kind of situation to!)

@ScaryFear

Жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm I think you're right. I'm thankful I can have a rooster. But yes will have to change him out every other year. I get attached to them too so that also makes it hard. He's friendly and a lap chicken so it hasn't been easy thinking of what will happen in future with him.

Do you have any issues keeping the clans from doing their own rearrangements during the day when they are foraging or are they cliquish and keeping to themselves?

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

They seem to form zones, almost like territories and all stay where they should for the most part. We band all our birds (each clan is a different colour) because sometimes hens wander to a different group and this way we know. When we want to start actually letting them collect eggs to sit, we do not let them freerange, they will be locked into their building and a joining pen only for the month or so that it takes everyone to start sitting in the spring. During this time only one group is allowed out to freerange per day.

I have Partridge Chanteclers, my first flock. I bought 36 chicks and have culled 12 roosters with another couple of losses I'm down to 17 total. I have decided on one rooster for breeding.. I have about 15 hens and a one eyed rooster I am keeping.(not the breeder) I have only one coop. Will allowing the one rooster to breed all my hens keep my breeding viable? Can I take rooster from his decendants to continue the colors I want? The rooster I've chosen is a very dark reddish in color vs. the orangey color most roosters show. I want that color to be passed on. Any suggestions? The concept of clan breeding is something I intend to explore as my flock and expertise grows. I live in Kentucky and I'm getting eggs every day and I have a hen gone broody, in November! Thanks, great video.

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

Glad to hear you have Partridge Chanteclers they are not a very common breed in the US (not super common here in Canada either). It's If you have to be independent or nearly so (i.e. not easy to bring in new birds for one reason or another) than setting up clans is a good idea. A lot of people do line breed and to be honest if your trying to fix traits that are physical breeding back to related birds can fix the traits you want pretty quick (though you generally will have quite a few culls some for poor shape, colour and some for physical defects). But you may loose some of the production qualities (i.e. growth rate, egg laying etc.) over time. It really all depends on how many birds you can handle i.e. the more birds you have born the more selection you can do etc. We haven't explored this in a video yet but for smaller animals (like guppies for example) you can colony breed BUT it tends to work best if you have a LOT of babies (and usually over time you end up separating the colony into more than one as well). The only thing is you don't know who's offspring your selecting from (so if your culling heavy you could have a heavy tendency towards offspring from one of your hens over the other 14 for example and not even know it). It doesn't sound like its a problem at first but it can be later down the line. You could use your current flock to start clans though. This is a dilemma with modern homesteading because historically all your neighbors likely had the same breed so each family had their own "clan" so to speak . Which meant that you could keep a flock of 15 hens and a rooster have all the eggs and chicks you need yourself and just source a new rooster every year from the neighbors (and vice versa) but that seldom works now as its hard to find others with the same breed near you hence why separating your flock into clans is really the long term compromise. The good news is you can breed him to your hens this year and either find a new rooster in the future or don't keep any of the offspring until you can set up the infrastructure to house more than one clan. (i.e. its not always a "linear" process)

@melvinwagner3989

Жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm Thank you very much fior the response. It took me three years to finally find some Chanteclers. I tried to obtain Canandian birds but no luck. Finally found one in the US. I now have chicks, just yesterday a hen brought some 13 babies and that is not the broody hen I mentioned first. So I'll have two batches of chicks. It's not even December yet. Last night we had a storm and I had to go out and cover my hen with the chicks, she was getting drenched out side the coop, but wouldn't go in. I got drenched getting her covered and dryed a bit , in place. She's all good this morning with all 13 chicks.I did not get all the roosters removed from the flock before they started bredding, so I am not sure of the parentage of the chicks. Chanteclers are beautiful birds. They seem to work well with my Royal purple Guineas. They are so entertaining and compete with the chickens in a playful way. Never a dull moment. Thanks again.

@HickorycroftFarm

Жыл бұрын

They certainly are a great breed for going broody and successfully raising chicks! no doubt about that! Which is an amazing trait for home production of meat and eggs (i.e. lots of replacements to chose from!). They are excellent mothers to and the elements don't seem to phase them very much at all when it comes to keeping those chicks alive and well!

Do you have a video for the coop/tractor you breed them in?

@HickorycroftFarm

8 ай бұрын

I don't think we have a specific video on the coops but do have a couple where we go over at least a little bit what they look like inside etc.

I'm in the VERY early stages (8 eggs and 17 three week old chicks) of breeding my own semi wild free range flock of game fowl. I have 17 barred rock chicks and 8 eggs of the Liege Fighters. Going to clan breed the Liege Fighters to keep them pure... but also breed the Liege Fighters with the barred rocks to create a new hodgepodge breed of survivor chickens that live in the woods and roost in the trees. Liege fighters are massive 13lb birds that can stand 33" tall and have been rumored to kill hawks. My hopes is to create a barred liege fighter that envelops the best of both breeds. Toughness plus productivity.

@HickorycroftFarm

2 жыл бұрын

sounds like you have an interesting project planned! Looking into the Liege Fighters it is probably a really good plan to keep separate clans to keep that breed going as it sounds like they are a pretty rare breed with some unique qualities. The clan mating system does work well for maintaining and slowly improving a breed or population of anything really if you have the resources to maintain enough individuals (which for chickens is doable!). Your plan with the Barred Rocks would probably work well to (I know we often come off sounding like we only like "purebreds" but its really more about production qualities and maintaining those valuable traits as part of a population) but it will likely be a long term project to get them to where you are happy with them. These kind of projects are doable and worthwhile though just take time and it sounds like your on the right track considering the clan mating system!

@frustratedmajority851

2 жыл бұрын

@@HickorycroftFarm Yea im pretty excited to see some progress. Wild chickens are VERY well fed, so why can't we breed them to be exceptional eggs layers too? And while we are at it, let's make them giant and able to hold their own in a fight so we don't constantly lose them to predators. I understand they will hide their eggs.. but I'm gonna worry about methods of gathering the eggs after I manage to get them to actually be heavy layers.

I'm finishing my coop now and I want to use this spiral mating system however, I don't have the space nor the intention to keep clans completely seperate. Would it work if I just keep all the adult hens from all 3 clans together in my main coop (from where they can free-range my entire property) and from them select the best females for breeding (ringing them for identification) and only take them out of the flock when it's time for breeding? I am thinking of having a bachelor pen where I will keep my roosters seperated from the hens and 3 small breeding pens where I can put the selected hens from each clan with the cock they are to mate with for a couple of weeks (until I have enough eggs) and then release the hens back into the main coop and the cock in the bachelor pen. From there I'd hatch the eggs in an incubator and keep the chicks from each clan seperated in a growout pen until they are big enough to be ringed and introduced to the flock.