|
Poultry Books | Smallholding
Books | Livestock Books
Breeding Bantams Pt 2 from
Starting with Bantams
- by David Scrivener
Just £7.95 with
FREE UK DELIVERY
An extract from the book Starting with Bantams by David Scrivener
published by Broad Leys Publishing Ltd This excellent book is written
by an experienced bantam and large fowl poultry breeder and show
judge.
This part of the article covers out-breeding, upgrading and cross-breeding
Out-breeding
Out-breeding or out-crossing is where very unrelated
strains are bred together. It may be done to rejuvenate an overly
in-bred strain, as illustrated in the Sebright example referred
to earlier. In this case, after the outcross, it is then back to
in-breeding as normal for the next few years. Where the production
of utility birds is concerned, it will be used regularly. If you
were thinking of producing ‘laying bantams’ for sale,
most likely with Araucanas, Marans, Welsummers or Welbars, then
the best method would be to develop two separate in-bred strains
of whichever breed it is. The productive layers would be strain
crosses between these two lines. This is the method used to make
commercial ‘hybrids’.
Maximum hybrid vigour is only obtained in F1 stock
from in-bred parents. (F1 stock is a hybrid strain from the careful
crossings of pure-bred parents of the same breed, giving uniformity
and vigour). Quite a large scale operation is needed to do this
properly, with very careful record keeping so that the parentage
of every egg and chick is known. This is why no-one, as far as I
am aware, produces utility bantams.
Upgrading
Upgrading has most often been used in ‘third
world’ countries to improve indigenous stocks, in so far as
the local climatic and disease conditions allow. Highly productive
American and European poultry (or other livestock) often sicken
and die in the tropics, but crosses of three-quarter breds with
local breeds give a practical compromise between productivity and
survivability. For hobbyist poultry keepers, this process is used
as an emergency measure with nearly extinct, rare breeds. In the
1960s, poultry breeder Rex Woods bought most of the surviving large
Spanish and crossed them with Minorcas. This was followed by more
back-crosses to Spanish, to produce a vigorous population of nearly
pure White-faced Spanish.
Cross-breeding
Cross-breeding is the mating of one pure breed with
another. It is not normally done in bantam breeding, unless in an
emergency (as with the Spanish example above), or when a new breed
is being made. As there are already more than enough recognised
varieties for the world’s bantam breeders to keep going, it
is not something that is generally advocated. In many cases, there
is no point as it is highly likely that the breed clubs would not
recognise a new creation.
There are a few varieties of bantam which would be
acceptable as they already exist as large fowl, but have not yet
been bantamised. Examples to consider include Cuckoo, Dark, Red
and White Dorkings, Gold and Silver Campines, Ixworths, La Fleche
or Modern Langshans.
In the case of the Dorkings, the initial cross would
be between under-sized large Dorkings of whichever colour is to
be made, and Silver Grey Dorking bantams, the only colour currently
existing. After about five years of breeding many, and just breeding
from the best, the result should be reasonable but not yet perfect
specimens.
The same process, one or two initial crosses followed
by years producing large numbers of chicks from which only a small
proportion will be used for breeding, will be used for the other
suggested ‘new’ breeds. In all cases, one parent will
be the smallest available specimen of the large breed. For the other
parents, I suggest Brakels and Pencilled Hamburghs for Campines,
White Sussex, Jubilee Game and White Ko-Shamo for Ixworths. For
La Fleche, use Black Minorcas first, followed by Black Rosecombs.
Rosecombs are too small to mate with a large La Fleche.
In the case of Modern Langshans you may not be able
to find any large ones, so start with a Croad Langshan bantam x
Black Modern Game mating.
As all these projects involve producing a lot of
unwanted birds, be prepared to eat a lot of cockerels, and have
a lot of cross-bred pullets to sell as layers.
The genetics of poultry will have to be studied in
depth. You will need an up-to-date book, for much has been discovered
recently. Dr Clive Carefoot, in particular, has proved that a lot
of the old text books were wrong on the partridge, pencilled and
double-laced patterns.
Starting with Bantams
© 2004. David Scrivener
|
