Ever wonder who to breed to who? What to breed to what? Is it better to breed in Pairs? Trios? Quads? Quintets? Flocks? How old can you breed your birds? Read on to find out!
How many birds per-breeding pen?
This is a very important decision to make, not only will it change how big you make your brood pens, but it will also decide how many pens you need, and how much control you have over what.
Largely depends on your goals
Especially in the beginning of the breeding program, pair mating is recommended, this is for a number of reasons such as its really hard to buy a whole flock to breed from, also when you get a new strain you are going to need to work through a lot of genes, this is best done through single mating so you can keep detailed records.
When you get to a point where you have more, high quality, birds to choose from, then you might want to consider using a larger number of hens per cock, or you may choose to continue with pair mating, if your goals are large numbers of chicks per cock, then flock mating will be your preferred breeding system, but if your goals are to be able to keep detailed pedigree records, then pair mating will be your preferred system, if you would like something in between these two methods, then pen mating (trio, quad, quintet, etc) will be your preferred system.
Keep in mind small breeding groups can be split up so each hen is separate and the cock is moved from pen to pen, for more detailed records.
Also, you can use several or all of these methods, whilst most people tend to mostly stick to one or two, there’s nothing stopping you from using all of them.
Depends on number and size of breeding pens
If you only have three breeding pens, then you are unlikely to do pair mating for long, but if they only have 5 square meters of floor space then you won’t be able to do flock mating, trios, quads, and quintets will be much better suited for this scenario.
Now if you have ten breeding pens, you can really do any of the methods, but if you’re doing pedigree breeding, you are likely to do pair mating.
I find when pair mating, that i can run a rotational type system (each hen in a separate coop) and a inbreeding/linebreeding program at the same time, with a minimum 12 pens: 3 for inbreeding/linebreeding, and 3 for each line (9 for the rotational system), ideally you would have more than 3 hens per line, but this is a minimum, whereas if i was single mating and flock mating, that would be 6 coops.
What are the different breeding groups used in chicken breeding and what are they for?
There will always be the question amongst novice breeders of what are the options? and what are they best suited to?
Pairs
1:1 ratio, this option allows you to best match up your fowl due to the fact that the cock only has to compensate for the faults of one hen, not five.
This is the best option for the serious pedigree breeder, allowing you to keep exact records of not only the sire and dam of each bird, but it also allows you to keep precise egg production records, and hatch rates, of each hen.
This option also helps you clean up your strain, by knowing who laid what egg, you can easily identify the birds that are carrying certain genes, both good and bad.
Even if you plan to breed from larger groups, this method is still immensely helpful for testing potential brood fowl.
Trios
1:2 ratio, this is quite popular amongst fanciers as it allows them to hatch more chicks per cock, whilst still keeping decent records (often when it’s just 2 hens you can tell their eggs apart).
Some breeders use the larger number of hens to their advantage by using hen that together offset the cock, but if only one was used would end with some bad traits being set in the line, with the idea being that in subsequent generations the faults are bred out and the 2 hens progeny are bred together to hopefully match even better than their parents, whilst this sounds great, in reality it does not always work, and a relatively good knowledge of genetics is required for constantly good results.
This method can be used for test mating’s, but results can be harder to decode then if a pair was used.
Quads and quintets
1:3 (quad) or 1:4 (quintet) ratio, these are less common than trios, but due to the larger number of hens means you can hatch more chicks per cock, but also makes it near impossible to keep records of the dam without trap nesting boxes.
Breeders that use trios often also use quads and quintets, and they are often used in the same way,
When test mating with quads or quintets (unless trap nests are used) it’s the male that’s being tested instead of the females, this can mean testing for prepotency, genetic defects/hidden recessives that are present in the females, etc, if you wish to test females then you need the either do trap nesting or pair mating.
Often when using quads or quintets (and even trios) the pullets/hens are full or half siblings, and the cockerel/cock is of varying degrees of relation depending on the goals and comfort of the breeder.
Flock mating
1:6-10 ratios, in some breeds there can be more than 10 hens per cock, but in most breeds 10 is the limit.
Used in rotational methods, and much larger breeding operations, sometimes used by small scale breeders when not in a rotation, but usually is associated with rotational breeding.
You can get a much larger number of chicks per cock then with any other option, however all hope of pedigree breeding is lost unless you use trap nesting boxes.
This option is best used after a strain has been developed, and not in the beginning when there is still plenty of genetic diversity, and there’s not many good birds.
It is best suited for people wanting to keep a premade strain alive, or raise birds for a particular purpose eg: meat production.
Is it better to breed extremes or similar?
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions around this question, so I will try and clear things up for you.
Extremes or opisites
Eg; breeding squirrel tailed bird to dropped tailed bird, the idea is that the tail angle of their offspring would be somewhere in between, however this is in fact a misconception, and the resulting progeny would be mostly squirrel tailed and/or dropped tailed, with maybe the odd one in between, however anything in between will not breed true, this is due to the fact that tail angle (along with most traits in chickens) is polygenic, meaning its governed by many different genes and can be slowly breed to the proper angle with good selection, the reality is that squirrel tail shares very little genes with drop tail, and also very little with say 45 degrees, so it simply doesn’t make sense that they would magically mutate into the 45 when bred together.
It’s best to avoid this as much as you can as its only making any homozygous genes heterozygous, in other words it’s just reversing all the work you and any breeders before you have done.
Similars
Eg; breeding a bird with a 45 degree tail, to one with a 50 or 60 degree tail, this way the sire and the dam shear a large number of genes, and you are much more likely of getting homozygous genes, and also the angle tail you want (which will breed a lot more true to type then if extremes where used) this way breeders can create uniformity within their strain.
Now it must be remembered that tail angle – along with 99.9% of form and function traits – is polygenic and can be shaped and moulded over time with proper selection, but there are some traits where breeding extremes gets you a intermediate, for eg; blues and the colour on the erminette chicken, these genes are monogenic and can be selected the same, albeit you can select them to a point, but you definitely can’t go from say a pair of homozygous black birds, to blues, without the introduction of a splash bird.
Can I breed young birds?
A lot of breeders will argue about this, some say yes, some say no, some say only males, some say only females, but why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of breeding young birds? I will give my educated opinion about this, but there are exceptions to any rule so you may find you have different results.
Pros of breeding pullets
- Pullets produce more eggs then hens
- Pullets often start laying earlier in the season then hens (if you time your hatching)
- You get a slightly longer breeding life out of pullets then if you wait until one or two years
- Less time spent waiting
Cons of breeding pullets
- Pullets lay smaller eggs which result in small chicks, some breeds reach full egg size in one season, others don’t achieve it until their second season
- Some breeds take longer to mature, in these breeds pullets look almost nothing like mature hens
- Unproven, she hasn’t had time to prove herself in many traits such as how she molts, egg count, broodiness, ect
- You have to be prepared to cull a whole generation of her offspring if she doesn’t perform well (does not molt well, makes it to a certain age and dies, has a terrible egg count, ect)
I personally try to avoid breeding pullets, if i have to i will breed her after she has reached full egg size, but even then i would rather wait until the next season, but it’s up to you if you want to risk breeding pullets.
So what are pullets good for?
Pullets are excellent for test mating, be it to check her hatchability, or a cock birds fertility, check if she carries a particular gene, or to check if a cock bird carries a particular gene, check for homozygosity, they can also be kept around for a steady egg supply during the breeding season when other eggs are being set in the incubator.
Pros of breeding cockerels
- May be more fertile then an older cock
- Less time spent waiting then if you wait until hes a cock
- If you time hatching right, the you can get chicks earlier without the use of lights
- You can get a slightly longer breeding life out of a male if you start breeding him as a cockerel
- You can use him for test mating
Cons of breeding cockerels
- Some breeds take longer to “finish” in these the cockerels can look completely different to the mature cocks
- Hes unproven, when you put a cockerel in the brood pen you have no idea how he’s going to perform, what his fertility is going to be, how he’s going to treat the hens, how long he’s going to live (some make it to a certain age and just die), if he’s going to thrive in his environment, how he’s going to molt, ect.
- You are going to have to be prepared to cull all of his offspring if he shows a flaw later in life (a genetic trigger, if he doesn’t molt properly, ect) which given the fact he can be bred to a lot of hens, might be a large number of birds
As you get to know your strain you may learn what cockerels are going to turn into bad cocks and what cockerels are going to turn into excellent cocks, you can use cockerels just as you can use pullets for test mating, only you can put a single cockerel over a lot of hens, making them a valuable tool for the testing pen.
Here are some good protocols for breeding pullets and cockerels
Take photos and weigh birds as pullets/cockerels, then again as hens/cocks, if there’s a noticeable difference then it’s wise to wait until the birds are hens/cocks, but if you do choose to continue using them as pullets/cockerels then weigh and take photos of each one so that after awhile you can learn what changes to what.
Don’t breed the progeny of the pullets/cockerels until their sire/dam has had time to prove itself, the last thing you want to do is breed failure to thrive into your whole strain just because you were impatient.
Breed them to cocks/hens, this can be a good way of testing what a certain bird can produce as assumably the cock/hen your breeding it to has already got offspring from another pairing, so you can compare the way they look, act, and preform, to the offspring from the cock/pullet or cockerel/hen.
Is it alright to use a defective bird in the breeding pen?
It depends on the defect, squirrel-tail or crooked-keel are both polygenic and can be selected away from with time, but most other defects such as duck-toe, wry-tail, crooked-toe, slipped-wing, split-wing, split-tail, in-knee, bow-leg, etc etc, are monogenic and are dominant or more likely recessive, if it is recessive (which is 99% of monogenic defects) then all of the birds offspring will be carriers, and if the bird you bred the defective bird to also had the defect or carries the gene for the defect, then you will see it in the offspring, otherwise, you may think you got away with it, and to be honest you might not see it for another few years if your lucky, but after a few years it will show its head, usually by then you have bred these birds into the rest of your flock, and before you know it most the birds you produce have the defect and will need to be culled.
So if you have to (it’s all you’ve got) then you can, but keep strict records, cull hard, and understand you won’t get rid of it overnight.
Here’s how it would look if you breed a homozygous (shows defect) to a non carrier(no genes for the defect), for this example i am going to use duck-toe:
duck-toe/duck-toe x proper-toe/proper-toe =
100% duck-toe/proper-toe (show proper-toe, carrie duck-toe)
duck-toe/proper-toe x duck-toe/proper-toe =
25% duck-toe/duck-toe, 25% proper-toe/proper-toe, 50% duck-toe/proper-toe.
25% will be visually duck-toed, and the remaining 75% will have the proper-toe, but out of those 75%, only 25% will be genetically free of the defect (these are the ones you need to breed), so you will need to take both males and females that have the duck-toe, and breed them to the best of the 75%, out of those you need to cull anything that produces even a single duck-toed chick as they have the gene, by doing this if you hatch enough you should have a fairly good idea of who you can breed, but you do need to remember that this test isn’t 100% accurate as the egg that had the duck-toed chick might not of been set or hatched, but it is still accurate enough that you can narrow it down to the least likely to have the duck-toe gene birds.
The next step is to make sure you cull any birds that produce duck-toe, both male and female in a mating that produced the defect, and after a while you can breed it to a point where you don’t see it anymore.
This formula works for any recessive defects, however i wouldn’t breed a bird with a defect unless it was the last of a strain, or if your starting a strain, all you can get your hands on, with recessive defects you can never fix them if both males and females all have the defect, this is one of the few times you should do an outcross.
Conclusion
Choosing the right breeding system isn’t just about space or bird count—it’s about your goals, your level of commitment, and where your strain is at in its development.
Whether you’re building a strain from scratch or fine-tuning an established one, the right breeding method—pair, trio, quad, quintet, or flock—can make all the difference in quality, predictability, and genetic progress.
Remember: success in poultry breeding isn’t about taking shortcuts, but about understanding genetics, observing your birds closely, and making intentional, informed decisions generation after generation.