Joe
Guest
May 30, 2004
3:21 AM
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I would like to know what have been your experience with crossing different families of rollers. I have been told that most don't turn out to be any good and if you do get a good one it in turn will not breed any good rollers.
I would appreciate any comments on this topic.
Thanks.
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Mother lode lofts
13 posts
May 30, 2004
12:02 PM
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Joe what do you hope to gain by crossing the two families ?
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Joe
Guest
May 30, 2004
12:50 PM
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I know that by inbreeding and culling you can improve your birds to a point. What happens when you have reached a point when their is little improvement from one generation to the next? You get to a point were the genes are getting homogenious. You can choose to bring in birds from the same family which I have done. But you end up breeding the same. You want to go to the next level and breed a champion. The only way I see is if I mix families and see if I hit on a combination that works. Then breed towards that bird.
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Mother lode lofts
14 posts
May 30, 2004
2:19 PM
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Joe as long as you have a family that carry the the goods there is no reason to outcross,the gene pool is vast,full brother and sister matings generally don't get tight until the 4-5 gerations down the road,the purpose of inbreeding is to bring both the good and bad to the surface,and of course you want to eliminate the bad and concentrate the good,once you outcross you blow open that gene pool again and basicly just cover up the faults,which means that they are still there to pop up,the family that I have was developed out of 3 birds 20 years ago,out of these there were lines developed,new blood comes out of these line's,which in reality is basicly linebred,I had a English Roller guy here recently that started with 4 birds over 30 years ago and has never crossed in,he does carry a distant related side line that he can use as a cross if needed but he has yet to find a need for it,a family allows you to inbreed and linebreed is a true qaulity family,many will fall apart though due to theres just to much garbage covered up and theres more garbage uncovered than good,so what are the options for such familys,keep crossing in and covering it up,you'll find that the best lofts in the country have an inbreed/ linebreed family and the last thing on thier minds is bringing in an outside bird,if done properly there is plenty of blood in various lines within the family,i don't ever see a reason to bring in outside blood into my family,all I have to do is grab it out of another line within the family
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Jeff
Guest
May 30, 2004
2:33 PM
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Good post Joe, I really enjoyed it. There is an article at http;//easonloft.freeservers.com page2 you might find interesting. Hope that helps. I think if you do cross them you will find the young birds are going to inherit from both sides. If the birds you you bring in to cross are better I think you should go with the better birds. Something to keep in mind. My comments anyway.
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Mother lode lofts
15 posts
May 30, 2004
2:53 PM
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Jeff you brought up a good point "if the birds you brought in to cross are better" why down breed the good ones ? dump the other family and use the better family it's really quite that simple,I've seen it over and over again where someone is stuck on what they consider"thier family' and get attached to that,they constanly try to improve "thier" family by "down breeding" a better family with thiers,that makes for a long road a alot of tire spinning,if your family does'nt allready carry the whole package then a differant family needs to be sought.
P.S. Chuck I understand that you are an accomplished Racing Homer fancier,this is just one example where there is common ground between the two breeds,give us your insight here.
Last Edited by Mother lode lofts on May 30, 2004 2:54 PM
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Dry Creek lofts
12 posts
May 31, 2004
8:42 PM
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Scott you are right in what you say about why would you want to breed down in a family. If you are just wanting to breed a supper bird out off your own birds then breed the best to the best. If you are just wanting to start a new family and hope to do better than you have then start with brds that are world class and start a family with these. you will be doing the same thing you are doing now.
If you keep your family then just grade them real hard and only keep the very best. I have found in the past that there are a lot of flyers and very few true breeders and even fewer masters a that. Chuck
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Dry Creek lofts
14 posts
Jun 01, 2004
8:53 AM
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One thing that I forgot to mention is that when you cross two familys of race birds that sometimes there young will fly really well but will not carrie this on to the next generation so sometimes you will cross but will not breed from these crossed birds.
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Anonymous
Guest
Jun 02, 2004
7:17 AM
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What about crossing families to get colors but the goal is not to lose performance?
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Dry Creek lofts
15 posts
Jun 02, 2004
7:33 AM
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By crossing weather you are doing it for color or any other reason the frist thing you do is open the gene pool and move your breeding back to square one. You now have to start over and try to breed out the bad as you did before.
If you are luckey and cross with the right family this may not take to long but it is something that you need to take into account. Each and every family is a product of the person breeding that family becouse they will see in that family what they want and look for and will change there family withen just a few generations simply by how they pair there birds up. Chuck
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Mother lode lofts
17 posts
Jun 04, 2004
7:08 AM
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Same thing on rollers as far as crossing two tightly bred familys Chuck,"hybred vigor" these tpye of birds are bred for one purpose and that is for the kitbox,Racers use it,Tippler fliers use it,and cock fighters use it ect.,and I have and had a few in my kitbox,fine spinners but they'll never see the breeding loft,if I did get tempted to use a hybred vigor cross it would be taken back to the side family that was used,but never back to the main family.
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Arrowslinger
3 posts
Dec 12, 2004
5:09 AM
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I crossed the Frank Reece "Almond Cock" line with both Paul Platz self whites and Tom Hatchers Plonas.
The Hatcher/Reece cross was a disaster, produced attractive birds, but rolldowns upon rolldowns. The Reece birds came into the "good" spin at about eight months and the Hatcher birds were close to that but maybe a little more stable.
The Platz/Reece cross produced some nice spinners, a little larger than the pure Reece birds. They also did not come into the "good" spin until over a year old.
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RodB
14 posts
Dec 12, 2004
2:04 PM
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I dont believe you need to outcross if you create sub familys within the family , then after many generations you breed one sub family to another and the result is hybrid vigour which is the only reason you would want to outcross for in the first place but you retain the purity , if you which to outcross and selected a family that is inbred for the same traits that your birds are bred for and have ties in the foundation blood way back somewhere the outcross may work , if you get an outstanding individual from such an outcross and then breed that to your best hen or best cock and it produces real quality then you have a nice asset to the loft , many times an outcross can give you great a individual or freak but they dont breed on .
The best breeders have always been the best selectors , two men can think they are breeding for the same traits but are actually selecting very different types of birds to breed from which makes outcrossing very hit and miss , you need to really know the background of the family you wish to outcross to , a great line or family can be ruined in a very short time depending on what individuals were selected to be bred from .
Ive always believed if an animal or bird is not raised managed and prepared for performance "properly" its true breeding value can be hidden , its not always wise to judge on face value alone , as the manager its up to you to give your stock its best chance of allowing the genetics to show you what you bred it to do .
An old pit dog breeder once told me that if you have a tub of ice cream and put in a spoonfull of crap no matter how much ice cream you add it will still taste like shitty ice cream .
Rod
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