How many of these 16 American Bresse chickens will be kept out of the dinner pen? Hatched from a trio, the male is new to us. It's imperative to be careful when mixing bloodlines within the same breed. There could be a resurrection of buried recessive traits or a just a poor blend of the genetics. Sometimes, you can achieve outstanding results!
It's a 3 to 5 generation breeding test to see it through, in order to see what the ramifications might be. In this video, I mentioned finding a pair for someone (they already have the Northstar line) and based on what I found in this small group, I'll be advising them to wait for better.
Here is the video from when I first put this group into a grow pen...
• 3-4 Week Old Weigh In ...
Additional notes on this sort:
A lot of what I saw was expected, especially the couple of instances on bent toes. That means it's recessive still in both lines. The chunk factor wasn't as strong, through as many birds, as what usually hatches from my line. The male wasn't the meatiest, but he has the color. So by sorting for the fleshing, I can recapture that through subsequent generations just through simple selection for those table traits.
The male used, since he has his flaws, will not be bred back to. Rather, he'll be bred away from and only the offspring who sort out as decent quality will move on through the program. I wasn't able to pick a male from a sea of 100 birds, he was my only choice.
Since it is a line cross and there are some potentially hidden traits I haven't yet seen, all birds sorted out will be dinner grade. Unless they're specifically requested by someone who already has one or the other line, who is willing to cull through for the best results.
I plan to sibling mate the offspring to each other, which will fast track the expression of hidden recessive traits and further set in what is desired. Those hatch results will be very telling but it'll be an 8 month wait. The best results will then be bred back into my line again, both ways, through the male and female side.
While this initial line cross had reduced fleshing and growth rate, there was a much higher instance for darker blue legs, whiter earlobes and some added fluffiness which may go towards improved tails. Back length, keel length, keel straightness all stayed good. Width wasn't quite as strong, but that's easily fixed through future breeding with my females and the fleshing will return through those means as well. Hopefully with the coloring improvements that I'm after, which was the whole point in doing this line cross.
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