An incestuous family - Cockerel and daughter hen??

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Hello,
this spring my recently aquired gang of bantams hatched 8 chicks - great! Now they're growing the cockerel will be soon interested in them - is this ok?

They are an interesting gang: two Wyandot hens, one welsummer hen, one Ancona cockerel, one welsummer cockerel. All three hens sat together on the clutch of eight eggs- very communal. All eight hatched (all hens) but one disappeared after a while - probably pounced on by a cat.
Having sent some away down south recently, including the Ancona cockerel, I'm left with three nearly-growns joining the 'gang of four' (the original Wyandot hens, the Welsummer hen and cockerel). From their colourings the nearly-growns are: two welsummer/ancona cross, one pure welsummer.

It was very interesting watching the fledging process, as the communal mothers gradually 'pushed out' the new ones from their train, and for a while they occupied different parts of the garden from the adult gang. Now they're coming back together.

Should I take away the pure welsummer pulletto prevent the cockerel humping his daughter? What is the procedure? Or what is the natural norm?

Thanks, Robin

ps the two grey Wyandots are now sitting on a late clutch of mixed pheasant eggs!
 
its fine to breed daughters back to their father as long as this doesnt go on for too many generations, and if you are not planning to breed it doesnt matter at all.
 
Father to daughter And mother to son, isn't a problem - as long as you dont do it to often- this is Line breeding- NEVER do brother to sister - that is inbreeding And that brings all sorts of problems with ir!!
 
sorry - I'm having problems with my english keyboard - should have finished my last post with ---- IT not IR -- sorry :oops:
 
Thanks Dorinda - but I still don't know what IT means...
Does anyone know what the natural behaviour of chickens is - i.e. would fledglings go off and seek new territories and new mates, or stick together and 'line-breed' as would seem to be the case when we farm them?
 
agree with dorinda
The young pullets should be fine with staying with their parents, but i dont know what their natural tendency is
 
Father to daughter and mother to son works for the production of chicks - they are healthy etc - but brother to sister is a nono - chicks often are weakly, often have the worst traits of both it's parents and although I have Had to do it once - the line was weakened by the crossing resulting in birds that weren't good doers and they weren't such good layers either!!
 
What about half brother to half-sister? I have 3 pekin girls - 2 mottled and one black, and a mottled cockerel. The black hen has just produced 2 black girl chicks and a mottled boy - now 7 weeks old. I'm not sure whether the boy is from one of her eggs or one of the others as they kept laying eggs on top of her! To be honest, he is a bit stunted but I put this down to the fact he was the last to hatch and was abandoned initially so he nearly died until we took him in and revived him. He is starting to look a bit more normal now and is definately the most adventurous and brave. Would it be a breeding problem keeping them all with the flock? I had never intended them to breed but now I have them they are quite hard to give up!!
 
It depends if you want to breed from them or just want them to run together.

Some people do not want to inbreed or line breed on principle and nothing wrong with that.

Close matings should only be carried out if the stock is healthy and shows no sign of loss of stamina. I don't agree with Dorinda and consider (as I think most people do) that father to daughter and mother to son is very much inbreeding. I've never had problens with brother/sister matings or half brother/siter matings but don't do it on a regular basis. These two matings are also inbreeding.

For egg production which is my main interest, I find it's best to keep lines seperate, not breed closely and cross them every so often to get some 'hybrid vigor' into the resulting layers.
 
Inbreeding in itself isn't necessarily a harmful process. in Nature, many species that live in close social groups naturally inbreed both parent to offspring and sibling to sibling. Natural selection sees to it that nothing other than completely fit and able progeny survives.
Continual, indiscriminate inbreeding of Domestic stock can certainly produce smaller, weaker or malformed stock which are more prone to disease, but through rigorous artificial selection, the process can also Improve and fix highly desirable traits, whether you breed parent to offspring or sibling to sibling.
There are many strains within Poultry breeds that are ' closed' lines or flocks. These are closely inbred families of birds that have had no new blood introduced for decades, and yet remain healthy and vigorous.
 
No I'm not breeding - this is my first lot of chicks just because I was too soft to take Sybil off her eggs when she went broody. So I guess if I keep this new lot, it will happen again. I certainly have no interest in producing prize-winning chickens but I don't want to produce chicks that may be handicapped or in pain in any way.
 
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