Of the thousands of chicken-keepers here in the UK, their
interests are so varied. Some people like to show poultry. Some people just enjoy
breeding different breeds, ornamental fowl, utility or rare breeds. But the
vast majority of poultry-keepers keep their chickens as pets with the added benefit
of the fresh eggs! The huge majority keep commercial breeds and ex-battery hens.
Many people think of these hybrid chickens as the end
product. They live, lay eggs, and die. But it need not be so, as many people have
found out. You can, and should breed from them. To breed from your hybrid
garden chickens you will obviously need a cockerel. So what cockerel should you
look for? Find a young boyo that is not too big, because then he could hurt
your hens while doing the business.
My first choice was a Rhode Island Red from a family that
laid plenty of eggs. One of the reasons for this is that most hybrid hens have
a massive part of Rhode Island in them already, so the offspring can be quite
pretty little Rhode Island Red lookalikes. It is also one of the few breeds
that are being bred for utility.
Chances are that you will be able to find a cock from a
strain that lays well. This is something that is being passed on, generation
after generation, by selecting and weeding out hens that are not performing
well enough. Your hybrid hens are bred just for laying, so that side is sorted.
To make sure the next generation lays as well as their mothers, it is therefore
necessary to find a cockerel that comes from a strain of good layers. Simple as
that!
Take the guesswork out of the breeding, use a cockerel from
a traditional utility-breed, not too large, and you will produce more
garden-hens that can lay eggs for you. You can then breed again from second and
third generations, and then start from the beginning again with more hybrid
hens. Just remember, strain/family is more important than breed when it comes
to laying.
When it comes to finding a suitable cockerel, don’t be
afraid of using a bantam of one of the more traditional breeds. They are often
a more suitable size for hybrid hens and the bantams often lay better than
their larger counterparts.
In my next blog, I will give some simple tips on how to
breed from pure breeds. After that I will try to give a few useful hints for
breeding the rarer breeds, and how to keep on improving the breeds.
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