Selective Breeding of

Chickens

What is Selective
Breeding?
Selective breeding is, simply put, breeding with the intent of
accomplishing some type of goal. Usually, the goal is multi-
faceted. It takes into account various traits, the overall health and
vigor of the chicken, the reasons you have for raising the chickens
and the way (and place) in which you are raising them.
Any breeding with the intent of improving the breed is selective.
This is true not just of chickens, but also cows, horses and other
animals. Breeding that’s not selective tends toward mediocrity.
Just like anything that care is not being put into, the breed will
tend to degenerate over time and become average or worse.
In selective breeding, we keep (i.e., we select) only some of the
offspring from our matings as future breeders. To determine
which ones to keep goes back to our goals and where we are in
our breeding program. From our goals, we have a set of
standards. Chickens that best meet those standards will become
future breeders and those that don’t won’t.
The more selective we can be in which chickens we keep as
breeders, the faster we can improve our chickens.

Breeding Standards
How do we know which chickens to keep as breeder and which
ones to cull?
That goes back to the goals of your selective breeding program.
Based on those goals, you will come up with a written set of
standards for your chickens. The standards will help you know
what to cull for. It will clarify which chickens are most ideal and
desirable for use as breeders.
If you’re raising heritage breed chickens, such as the Australorps
that I’m raising, you will begin with a breed standard, such as the
one published in American Standard of Perfection. This book tells
the desired traits for many different breeds of chickens. It declares
what traits are considered defects, it specifies a proper weight
range for chickens, along with plumage color, plumage pattern (if
applicable), body shape, eye color, comb size and shape and
many other traits. The purpose of the Standard is to define what is
a good representative of each breed. Without a standard, any
type of breeding will tend to deviate, and the chickens will
gradually become less and less characteristic of the breed they
initially came from.
The Standard is an excellent starting point, but you will likely have
additional goals in mind. You may aim to have hens with a certain
degree of broodiness. Or you might focus more on disposition,
desiring chickens that are calm, friendly or easy to tame. You
might aim for the upper end of the Standard’s weight range. Or
the lower end. Or you might aim for consistently high egg
production. Your goals as a breeder taken together with the breed
standard will define what you consider to be an ideal bird versus a
mediocre bird. I recommend that you write down your standard.
This will allow you to more easily review it and improve and clarify
it over time. Your standard will guide you with selecting and
culling your chickens.

Culling and Selection

What do I mean by selecting and culling?
I view these as two different steps. First I cull the worst chickens.
We use those for meat. Later, I select the chickens as breeders.
“Worst” and “best” relate directly to the standard discussed above.
Let’s go over this in more detail.

When to Cull
Before culling, I recommend raising birds to maturity unless there
is some defect that would cause the bird to be in pain or picked
on by other chickens or something along those lines. Raising
them to maturity accomplishes two things. For one, you get a
better idea of how the chicken will turn out. And second, he or she
will be large enough to process for food. Breeding chickens goes
hand-in-hand with raising them for food (both meat and eggs) and
it would be wasteful to cull a chicken early that could otherwise be
grown up to become food for the table.
Males will mature at around 16 to 22 weeks. Females, around 26
weeks, when they start to lay. Your chickens will not be fully
grown at that time, but they will be developed enough that you
can recognize any obvious defects. Cull any birds that have
defects such as a slipped wing, a split wing or toe problems and
any other clear defects set out by your breed standard.

When to Select
Once you’ve culled the worst representatives from your flock, you
will be (hopefully) left with quite a few chickens. These will include
birds ranging from mediocre to very good, possibly excellent. At
this point, I recommend continuing to raise the chickens until it
becomes very apparent which birds are your best, your standouts.
It’s better to only use birds that are a year old or older in your
breeding program anyway. Growing the birds out longer gives
them time to fully develop, to demonstrate their laying and fertility,
and to prove their disease resistance. It also gives them time to
go through a molt, toward the end of their first year.
As these birds are developing, you will notice some that are of
poorer quality, based on your breeding standards. Culling these
when you begin to recognize those problems, but be careful not to
cull too many. You need to be sure to keep enough birds for your
breeding program plus some spares. You want to be selective,
but not so selective that you keep too few chickens as potential
breeders.
Be aware that some birds that do not seem excellent to you at 6-8
months of age may become your favorites later. You may
discover that they have exceptionally good disposition (an
especially desirable trait for a rooster). Or you may discover that a
particular pullet broods well and raises her young better than any
others. Those may make them desirable for your breeding
program even if their appearance is slightly poorer than that of
others.
When the chickens you have left reach a year in age and you are
ready to set up your breeding pens, look over, weigh and check
your birds very carefully, and choose only the best as breeders.
Keep second-best roosters as spares and second-best hens.
There’s always a chance of a mishap, so it’s important to keep an
adequate number of spares.

Concluding Remarks
By diligently using a standard, by selecting only your best birds as
breeders and by following a clear-cut breeding plan, you can
gradually improve your flock, bringing them increasingly in line
with your goals. If you’re able to make headway each year, then
your birds will become better and better suited for your climate,
your environment, the way that you raise them and the reasons
you raise them. And they’ll also develop increased resistance
toward disease. There will be difficulties along the way. This is not
a fast process, but something that requires patience and steady
care and attention.

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Chickens
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