Spiral Breeding

Line Breeding Using Spiral Breeding

Many breeders of purebred poultry use line breeding with their flocks. A more complicated, yet more

effective way to line breed is to Spiral Breed. To do this, maintain three lines - Line A, Line B, Line C.

For Season 1, mate all males to females of their own line. Daughters of Season 1 are added as breeders to

the line that produced them (they stay with their mothers.) Sons are compared to their fathers for quality.

In Season 2, mate the C line male to the B line females, mate the B line male to the A line females, mate the A

line male to the C line females - rotating them.

Females from Season 2 are added to the line that produced them alongside their mothers. The best son of the

C line male mated to the B line females is kept and mated to the B line females; same for other matings, old

cocks are retired.

Once the system is up and running, males are used twice, then retired in preference to a son. Males rotate one

line over every other year. This gives you a year of outcross and a year of line breeding.

Spiral Breeding is a very old system. There is one breeder and his family that

reputedly

maintained a line of

Rhode Island Reds for 90 years on this system, he and his family kept five matings each year.

Thanks to Moorehouse, Schrider, & McCary for the basis of this info.

Spiral Breeding