Landrace Chickens: Creating and Maintaining

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I received a letter that I'm not equipped to answer properly. So I thought I'd throw it out to the group and see what input you might contribute. The gist of it is: "What are best practices for creating and maintaining a flock of landrace chickens?"

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Duane Wrote:

I've been following your series of landrace articles on Mother Earth News with great interest. As a biologist, I appreciate your ideas of the preservation of genetic diversity. I feel that too often in modern agriculture the constant inbreeding of plant or animal varieties creates genetic bottlenecks that leave our crops or livestock woefully under-equipped to deal with rapid changes in their environment, pets, or disease.

My wife and I have recently begun a small homesteading project at our home in Maine. I intend to try some of your techniques to produce
open pollinated crops that do well in our short, wet, and cold growing season. We also intend to expand to include a a small flock of
chickens this year, perhaps a dozen individuals and a single rooster. We really don't have the need to manage a larger flock, but I feel
with such a small flock size that any breeding programs I initiate will be hampered by inbreeding issues. Even if I bring in a new rooster every generation, it will take me many years to reach my goals.

I was wondering if you knew anyone experimenting with producing landrace chickens? I'd love to talk with them and see how they went
about starting their flock, and how to deal with selection pressures when only having a small number of birds?

[oxbowfarm]

In my opinion, developing a "breed" of landrace chickens is unrealistic on a homestead scale. The number of individuals you need to maintain a genetically diverse population far exceeds the number of birds Duane mentioned. For a true landrace chicken population local to a specific area to develop would require a large number of distinct flocks in the same area which freely shared roosters between each other.

We have a home flock of about that size and what we do is allow the hens to brood their own chicks to raise for replacements and then we replace the rooster every few years, there are almost always free roosters available on Craigslist. Don't really have a breeding goal, but we are selecting for hens with the broody instinct. We started with Black Sex Link hens, they are an F1 cross between two breeds. No idea what breeds the roosters have been.

We would be well on our way to a nice crossbred chicken flock but the mink killed our original flock a few years ago and we had to start over from scratch.

As a homesteader, that's about the limit of what you can do. If you try and get more serious about breeding chickens you've gone way beyond the "landrace" concept. Livestock landraces can't be bred the way Joseph or others create crop landraces, they pretty much require an entire local community involved, and there isn't any way I can see to make that happen in this economy.

[blackox]

Landrace chickens? Well there's an interesting idea! While I do not have a great amount of experience with chickens and have not experimented with a landrace, here are my thoughts and ideas. You are more than welcome to build on top of them or add thing if you can.

First of all I would suggest figuring out what exactly it is that you want out of your birds - Eggs? Meat? Eggs and Meat? Also consider your climate; if it get's very cold choose breeds that are known for cold hardiness; don't choose breeds that have huge, frostbite-prone combs or feathers that are pressed close to the body. Tight feathers are a characteristic of warm weather breeds - "flamboyant" feathers have air pockets and can hold in warmth. Pea-combs are great for cold hardy birds, small and not prone to frostbite. Let's say that you would like both meat and eggs. Obtain a rooster of a nice dual-purpose breed with qualities that you like, and choose other good dual-purpose breeds for your hens.

Let's say that you choose a Copper Maran rooster. For the hens you could have (one or two of each); Rhode Island Red, Delaware, Black Australorp, etc, etc. You could keep the rooster for a year or two and replace it with another rooster from the same line. It would be great if you could add a rooster/hen from a completely different breed in the mix every now and then. We exchange our males for new ones every year. Do what you can to keep the gene pool stirred when you can, adding new ingredients to the "gene soup" every once in a while to spice things up.

I find that the best layers look more rugged and have widely spaced legs. The hens with the sleek and shiny feathers may be tempting to keep but don't. Feel the hens to determine how large and "full" the muscles are if selecting for meat.

(...that's about all I can think of. I might add something later on if I can think of anything. Dinner is ready so I really can't think up anything else at the moment. )

[oxbowfarm]

If you really wanted to copy Joseph's methods with crops, you'd have to start with as many different breeds as possible and then try and make sure you were collecting hatching eggs from as many of the different birds as possible. That way you are recombining the maximum possible genes. Then they have to get selected for survival in the local conditions. Landrace livestock are not selected for production historically, they are selected for their ability to survive and reproduce with minimum inputs in extensive vs intensive systems.

[steev]

What? Animals aren't the same as plants? Who knew? So I'll stop planting eggs and expecting chickens.

[blackox]

Good point, that makes me think of the breeds that descended from the livestock animals that the Spaniards brought with them so long ago; naturally selected to take care of themselves. Besides animals seem to have a larger genome than most crop plants and when it comes to my experience the effects of a little bit of inbreeding are minimal and easily reversible.

Still an interesting idea though.

[flowerweaver]

Landrace chickens do exist--Sand Hill Preservation sells both Icelandic and Marraduna Basques(Euskal Oiloa)landraces. Supposedly these have been in the making for a thousand years in their isolated areas and have a lot of variability due to the diverse genetics. Most APA recognized breeds came from the combination of several other breeds.

BTW I am a breeder of rare and unusual chickens and have about 17 roosters and 50+ hens representing about 15 breeds. I sell hatching eggs, hand-tamed roosters, and also have an egg CSA. Because of their threatened statuses, I feel obligated to keep the lines pure. But I've got some hybrids from my communal coop which are quite healthy and attractive so that group may be moving towards genetic diversity.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jan 31, 2014 14:50:43 GMT -5 flowerweaver said:

BTW I am a breeder of rare and unusual chickens and have about 17 roosters and 50+ hens representing about 15 breeds. I sell hatching eggs, hand-tamed roosters, and also have an egg CSA. Because of their threatened statuses, I feel obligated to keep the lines pure. But I've got some hybrids from my communal coop which are quite healthy and attractive so that group may be moving towards genetic diversity.

Is inbreeding a worry to you with your unique breeds? Are there standard protocols in the poultry world for avoiding inbreeding depression? How do you maintain the breeds? Or do you just buy fresh when necessary?

I think that some of the effects of inbreeding in chickens is reduced egg-laying, lower fertility, lower hatch-ability, and delayed maturity. I imagine that highly inbred birds would tend to produce fewer offspring and therefore would contribute fewer genes to the population. In like manner, I would expect a lot of hybrid vigor when different lines are crossed. Which would tend to create quicker maturing birds producing more offspring. I suppose that inbreeding in chickens would be a self-correcting problem as long as new genes were introduced from time to time.


I suppose that chickens are similar to corn. My favorite sweet corn is Astronomy Domine. It is descended from more than 200 varieties of sweet corn. I'm fond of saying that there is more diversity in a single cob of Astronomy Domine than in a 100 acre field of commercial corn. I bet that if a careful genetic study was done there would be more diversity in a single kernel of Astronomy Domine.

[flowerweaver]

Yes. There are several accepted methods of breeding within one's flock that are very complex, that regardless of what they say seem to me would cause inbreeding. Ours is a small set up; so far I try to maintain two breeding pairs with roosters from different sources and then breed their offspring. Or, if I only have one breeding pair, I bring in a rooster from a different source to breed with their offspring. I have not bred father-daughter or brother-sister as many do. I have heard of breeders introducing a small percentage of stray genes to keep the gene pool healthy. For instance Faverolles supposedly originated from the crossing of Dorkings, Houdans, and Asiatics. So if you had a big enough flock and were concerned about inbreeding you could add some of the original genes back in, or even something else if you were looking to move your flock a different direction.

I breed a lot of Polands, and my original stock really do have slightly different looks from different hatcheries, just as two ears of yellow corn of different varieties don't exactly resemble. From my own observations, my accidental hybrids do have more vigor. So I wouldn't doubt over time given 200 chicken breeds one might be able to come up with the Astronomy Domine of chicken landraces. If you take a look at the Icelandic landrace it's as pretty and variable as your corn.

To answer the original question, if you got a backyard flock of a dozen of a mix of breeds as are offered by many of the large breeders and let them cross, you'd have some interesting and healthy hybrids. While not a landrace, it could be managed by the addition of new and different birds over time and create a flock suited to one's locale.

[blackox]

Our two blonde hens are great layers and super broody. They came from a free group of birds consisting of Rhode Island Reds and a Black Copper Maran rooster. We call them blondes because that's how the majority of their feathers are colored, suprisignly nice looking birds for what we've gotten out of crosses in the past. I beleive they are a cross between Rhode Island and Black Copper Maran, they have features of both. They always seem to be in the nesting boxes; I usually reach under hens for eggs but won't do it with the blondes as I am afraid to lose a finger.

I would be interested to see some of your crosses, flowerweaver.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I have often wondered about the importance of culture to the survivability of poultry. By using the word 'culture' I am using it to mean the learned behaviors and social interactions that exist within a flock of chickens: Behaviors that are learned from the mother and from associating with other birds. It seems to me like their are huge differences in fitness between birds that are brooded by a hen and birds that come out of a chick factory.

I wonder if it is even possible in this day and age to find chickens that have descended from an unbroken line of birds that retained the ancestral culture? I wonder how many generations it takes for a flock of chickens to re-establish some semblance of a stable survival-enhancing-culture?

OK... So there are some wild species of birds in this area, grouse/Quail, that have never been domesticated. I suppose that it would be possible to switch eggs out in a nest and have the wild birds raise some chicken offspring. That wouldn't give them the ancestral chicken culture, but it might be closer to a viable culture than what they learn when starting in a chick factory and being raised with only peers.

[steev]

As much as we tend to think animals other than ourselves are hard-wired little automatons, that's just ignorance and hubris on our part, (We're special! Yeah, right, but not in a good way.).

Cats are a very useful model of the necessity and fragility of species-culture. The kitten that doesn't grow to adolescence with a culturally apt mother will never learn to eat what it catches, only to play with its prey, rather than getting down to business. Granted, starving can kick in some ancestral tropes, but would you trust genetic memory to bring your kids through societal collapse?

If you do, I suggest it would be wise to set aside a copious stock of fava beans and Chianti.

[blackox]

Jan 31, 2014 22:01:41 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

I have often wondered about the importance of culture to the survivability of poultry. By using the word 'culture' I am using it to mean the learned behaviors and social interactions that exist within a flock of chickens: Behaviors that are learned from the mother and from associating with other birds. It seems to me like their are huge differences in fitness between birds that are brooded by a hen and birds that come out of a chick factory.

I wonder if it is even possible in this day and age to find chickens that have descended from an unbroken line of birds that retained the ancestral culture? I wonder how many generations it takes for a flock of chickens to re-establish some semblance of a stable survival-enhancing-culture?

OK... So there are some wild species of birds in this area, grouse/Quail, that have never been domesticated. I suppose that it would be possible to switch eggs out in a nest and have the wild birds raise some chicken offspring. That wouldn't give them the ancestral chicken culture, but it might be closer to a viable culture than what they learn when starting in a chick factory and being raised with only peers.

Most of my flock have almost no sense of self-preservation and are rarely broody, with the exception of the Muscovy ducks. Many of my birds wouldn't think twice about walking up to a racoon or fox. "Yo, cooon, what's up brah?" Those that were hatched by a broody bird have their wits about them and have good foraging skills. The line improves each time a new batch of babies is made (We've only been going for three years now). I forgot to mention that the broody-hatched birds are too friendly with their caretakers (us) it is hard to walk through the poultry yard without stepping on a duck or chicken, even the geese are super-friendly. With the different birds being raised together they are beginning to pick up things from each other, mostly beneficial.

I think that there are a few places out there that still have unbroken lines. Deep in the country on the family homestead that's been farmed for generations, same place to find old family heirloom veggies that have been passed down. There my not be as many of these around anymore, but the U.S. is a big place; you're destined to find them somewhere.

I've only ever seen a bobwhite quail (twice) before and one of those would have a problem with one of our chicken eggs. Being smaller birds the incubation period for the quail is probably shorter than a chickens incubation period, instinct may cause the bird to stop incubating before the egg is ready to hatch. As long as you find a protective, broody hen with the right qualities and the right rooster it should be fine, improving when you get a few generations in.

[flowerweaver]

Although one reads that today's poultry have had the broodiness bred out of them (and this may be so with the more common and commercialized breeds), I'd say about a third of my original flock that came from the hatcheries were broodies. The ones that consistently stayed on the eggs until hatching were Buff Lace Polands, Salmon Faverolles, and Cuckoo Marans. My best BL Poland gets something like post-partum depression though, and starts throwing the chicks around so I have to take them away after a few days and raise them myself.

I would have to say the breed I think comes closest to what Joseph is describing is the Egyptian Fayoumis which have been around since Biblical times. They are very self-preserving. I have never seen a chicken that could fly that far, and have such an 'attitude' for a lightweight bird. They were good egg layers, too. But I let that breed go because they were the least friendly and not very easy to handle, always disobedient. They were the kind of girls that would be smoking behind the barn if they could!

[steev]

Mmm! Smoked chicken! I suppose behind the barn is as good a place for the smokehouse as any.