breeding lf with bantam

[farmerjon1988]

hi all

i was just wondering if anyone could tell me about breeding lf with bantam?

i had a pair of lf brown leghorn and the hen got ill and died and ive been looking around for some more lf hens but i have only came across bantam so i was wondering if i breed a lf cock with a bantam hen would the chicks become lf or bantam?


thank you

 

[valeriebutterley]

I don't know if it could or would happen, but probably could, will the small hen be at risk being at the mercy of a much larger cockerel?
I imagine you would get some LF, some bantam, but I do not know enough about genetics to know the answer to your question.
Chickens interbreed within their different species, don't they?
An interesting question, but I think the risk is to the poor little hen, especially if she will be the only target.

 

[greatbarnet]

I don't know what constitutes a large fowl, but I recently hatched chicks from a Welsummer (standard size) hen and a bantam cockerel, so the other way around from you. The three that hatched turned out to be two bantam hens and what seems to be a standard sized cockerel. He's certainly no bantam anyway, he's probably a little bigger than his mother. So in my experience I got a mixture. But like valerie says I'd be very worried about a bantam hen being squashed and injured by a very large cockerel. In fact I'm worried about keeping this trio together because he's so much bigger than they are.

 

[chrismahon]

Big risk as Valerie and Greatbarnet say is physical damage to the small hen. Having said that the LF cockerel may not be able to catch them -depends how much room they have to manoeuvre. Successful breeding will result in some big and some small and perhaps some in-between. You get size variation even breeding like with like.

 

[Chuck]

You can mix them up without problems except you need a good ratio of males to females 1/6 and space for the hens to get away when they want to. Be prepared to take the male away if the hens are getting pulled about too much. There's no way you can anticipate what you hatch as it will depend on dominance of the birds used. Usually with livestock, smaller mothers produce smaller offspring. So any offspring produced will be small or half sized rather than l.f. I've been mixing them up for years.

 

[tygrysek75]

I do not know what do you wanna gain from it as you can end up with LF hens which will lay tiny eggs.You will have mish mash it is big lottery what will you get from them.If the cocrell is much bigger then you hen he may not be able to fertylize the eggs as not much room on the back of a hen for him to be able to stand on her.I know that some people do use a much smaller hen with slightly bigger cocrels to have chicks smaller in size when they become adult birds.Seramas are breeded like that to achive desired size which will fit standarts for this breed.
Friend had expirience with LF hen and bantam size cocrel and end up with LF hens lying very small eggs(bantam size)

 

[farmerjon1988]

thank you for all the quick replys!

the cockerel isnt really that big he looks tiny compared to my clb cock but he is only young hes not even started crowing yet
but yes the aim was to end up with lf laying larger eggs but if it isnt going to work then i might have to keep my eyes open for
some lf hens.
also i have lf white leghorns does anyone know what colour the chicks would come out if i bred them with the brown leghorn cock?
because ive done it with the white hens and a lav leghorn cock and i had a mix of white and lav chicks
i just wondered if this would work the same?

thank you

 

[Chuck]

The White Leghorn is dominant but only partially or incomplete so you can get some red come through but they should be predominantly white.