That is very cool. I think it would be greatly to all chickenkind’s benefit to have chickens who know how to treat each other much more kindly.
I set some eggs from the Biel x JG cockerel. Mothers were BA and JG (mother to son breeding, which I wanted to avoid, but it’s getting complicated).
Ended up with 4, and I think they’re all cockerels. For various reasons I wasn’t going to keep any of his sons, but this was an effort to save the Biel and BA lines for the project.
If I go with the JG x RIR back-cross cockerels instead, their children will be cousins. I don’t know if there will be enough diversity in the group (9 distinct breeds–7 if the Bielefelder and BA lines die out) to balance that out.
My choices are limited. I decided not to set eggs from the Bielefelder hen, or either of the young BAs. Of the adult hens, that leaves the older BA and the single surviving JG.
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Are there any breeds you’ve been wanting to try? Maybe adding in a bit more genetic diversity would be helpful.
I have a neighbor with a rooster that doesn’t crow. Like, at all. And it’s very polite and doesn’t mind the humans going into the chicken pen. I don’t know what breed that rooster is, but I was told it was their favorite rooster they’ve ever had. Do you know what breed that is based on my vague description? 
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No, I don’t. If you have a picture I could probably guess.
I have Buckeyes, Marans, Rangers, Speckled Sussex, and 3 colored egg layers that I ended up with accidentally, but those chicks are only 10 weeks old. The current roo in the adult flock is Bielefelder x Jersey Giant. His dad was aggressive and now he is aggressive, so I don’t plan to keep any of his sons. The 14 week old cockerels in the 2nd coop are JG x RIR (Rhode Island Red), so that’s 8 breeds not counting the colored egg layers.
With only 5 adult hens I can’t rely on a broody being available often enough to push the mixing. Probably another 2-3 years before I can really start the selection process.
I was thinking about the Iowa Blue, but can’t find any breeders for that one.
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Hatching eggs during the middle of winter would select strongly from mothers that lay eggs in the winter.
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Thanks for the input, Joseph.
I also asked this question on Permies and somebody suggested just that as well. With your confirmation, I think we will go ahead and do it that way this winter. Would be much easier than all the time spent with trap nesting. My sons will be happy to drop it! They got tired of taking their turn to check the nests every hour or so for days on end. We were doing three different groups so we had the trap nests in one flock for a period then moved it on to the next and the next. A long drawn-out process.
I might still use the trap nests in early fall though, when we sort out the old non-layers.
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Just be sure you’re not taking eggs from first year pullets. They often lay through the winter their first year.
The JG hen is no longer in my breeding group. She apparently carries a dwarfism gene, so now I need to get rid of her descendants as well.
What makes the dwarfism gene undesirable for you?
It’s fatal. Any chick having it manifest (which means any chick with two copies of the gene) will die before reaching sexual maturity, usually by 14 weeks.
Carriers will live normal lives. If I let this get established in my population, I risk chicks dying any time there’s a cross within this population
She died at 12 weeks, a third the size of her siblings.
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Whoa! 
Yeah, a recessive gene that’s fatal is definitely one you don’t want to keep in the population.
The super mixed flock on my farm. I have selected for heat tolerance as the main issue and seem to have a stable mix. We had 50 hatch this spring and lost about six with our high summer heat of 110 degree days.
It started about eight years ago, with hatchery chicks mixed with a local unknown variety. The last two years had added rare heirloom roosters of about nine different types. Lots of color in feathers, different color legs, feathered legs and white earlobes…we had two Silver Phoenix roosters for about six years. They are good with the hens and chicks and pass white earlobes frequently to their offspring. We get all colors of eggs too.
I wonder if there is (or used to be) some benefit of having one copy of the gene.
I don’t know. The research I did indicated that this was first found in a factory farm population of white leghorns, so I’m assuming it never existed in the wild. Captive breeding can allow things to flourish that would force a dieoff in the wild.
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The David the Good / Florida Bullfrog book Free-range Survival Chickens is available now.
I just got a copy. Lots of interesting info:
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Lots of selection going on. A roo was taken by some large predator and two hens just vanished. I suspect the neighbor’s dog, but no proof. The chickens love foraging in his yard. I am essentially without a rooster again until someone grows up. The hens were my best foragers. They always ranged out farther than the rest of the flock.
I currently have 2 pullets and 5 eleven week cockerels, as well as a group of eight that are 6 (?) weeks. I think I have 4 cockerels in that group as well, and a group in the incubator.
Fathers of all the chicks are (JG x RIR (x RIR)). Mothers are Rudd Ranger, BA, Buckeye, and Marans. I am not setting eggs for the JG hen or the JG x RIR.
Lots of choice for the girls, I’ll let them decide who I keep of the young cockerels.
Once the young girls start laying I’ll get rid of the mothers. I’ve been saying that for a year but it hasn’t happened yet…
The current breeds are Jersey Giant, Rhode Island Red, Black Australorp, Marans, Rudd Ranger, and Buckeye. The current roo is (JG x RIR) x RIR. The young one (currently 22 weeks) is ((JG x RIR) x RIR) x JG.
For the most part I’m letting the girls decide who of the cockerels goes and stays, with only the exception that if they attack me they’re gone. Given a choice the girls don’t choose a roo that forces mating, so that trait seems to be dissapearing. All my boys are very polite to the hens and not interested in young pullets.
I currently have 28 chicks younger than 16 weeks, and only 3 of them are pullets. All of them were incubated, so there might be an explanation there.
I have another 12 eggs of a BYM bloodline, broodies will raise them for me. I know he said Marans and Jersey Giants are included, and there are also large blue and green eggs.
I think that in this case keeping track of bloodlines may be hampering the project. I’ve been very careful to avoid setting eggs from parent-child groupings, but now all the chicks are siblings, half siblings, or 1st cousins.
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I like your approach of letting the hens decide who to mate with. I like that a lot. It seems like an excellent way to encourage a happy chicken community. I find it delightful to hear that your roosters are becoming polite to the ladies. How lovely. 
Getting rid of any that choose to attack you is an excellent selection criterion to apply, too. You are also an important part of the chickens’ community, after all! 
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Hi everyone,
I just found this topic, as I was wondering if there were people here trying to apply the concept of landracing and genetic diversity to build a more resilient and adapted chicken population. Great! I thought I could share my own view and experiences here too.
I live in France, and in my area ‘‘pure breeds’’ are very popular. I had a chat last week with a man who raises one breed in particular, and who said I should do the same, to ‘‘preserve heirloom breeds’’. I started raising chicken in the spring, and I originally wanted to go for a breed I found beautiful (namely, blue laced Wyandotte, not even a European breed…).
However, I saw an offer for eggs to hatch from someone from the neighbouring village, and these were various crosses (Marans rooster with different breeds of hens). I realized that’s how people used to get chicken in the past: a few hens from this neighbour, a rooster from that other place, etc. Of course, people travelled shorter distances, chicken would be traded among neighbouring villages, and that’s how we ended up with ‘‘local breeds’’ varying from one region to the other: landraces… That, to me, is heirloom: sourcing my flock locally, adding new genes to the mix little by little. My selection is not based on written standards, but on behaviour, beauty to my liking, and adaptation to the living conditions I provide.
My flock is now composed of 8 hens and 3 young roosters (I will select only one in the coming weeks). All of them were born locally in small scale backyard flocks: I had 2 hens this summer that I bought from a professionnal breeder, they only lived a couple of months…
My plan is to get some eggs to hatch in the spring from this flock, and probably add a few eggs from other sources as well. I’m at the very beginning of this journey, and my selection plans will certainly evolve, but this landracing idea will remain.
Do I still want a blue lace Wyandotte? Yep, I’d love to add that beautiful colour and round fluffy shape to my mix!
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A bit of a conundrum. There must be something in the soil.
All but one of my new mixes is male. The six eggs that hatched from the bym, 5 male. The surviving girls (now six) are 4 JG x RIR x BA, one a Marans cross, and one 3 week old BYM.
And while I do want a high percentage of males, so the girls have a choice, to aid mixing, and harvest chicken, this is ridiculous.
So far the young boys are very polite. Of the 20+ only 5 have eliminated themselves by their behavior. I wonder if the JG influence is moving the group toward later maturity.
One of the 8 week cockerels has started attacking my feet, so he’s a likely cull.
I am tryinh to teach brooder raised birds to free range, and it’s an uphill battle. I am feeding them at 3, and that’s all the food they get from me. Some come to the feast with full crops, so some are starting to adjust. No visible squabbling or crying from hunger, although I think I may have been overfeeding them. They’re all slimming down and moving more easily. There’s usually some food left.
It’s interesting to watch feeding behavior. The alpha cockerel comes to the feast with a full crop and hogs the food. I swear he eats a couple cups per day. The others eat until they’re full and then wander away, but not this guy. But then he’s easily twice the size of any of the others. He’s set for culling anyway. One comes to the feast with a full crop, nibbles a little, and walks away.
Two birds went broody, one hatched 4, the other hatched one, trampled 2 during hatching, and crushed 3 long before hatching. Her single surviving chick died. I brought the other 2 in and cleaned them up, then gave them to the experienced broody. A JG cross, she’s just so big that there’s no room for her feet. Her single chick hatched early, and I was trying to keep her on the nest to hatch the others, so I put food in the nest, which made the area even tighter.