Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

With breeding season right around the corner I thought it would be neat to hear some peoples breeding strategies I.e linebreeding, family/clan breeding, spiral matings, rolling matings Etc. So what is YOUR breeding stategy and why?

I will let OC answer that one. I do what she tells me.
Currently, for turkeys, I use my main Man who is from one line over my 2 original females who are from a different line. They give me very distinct offspring. I am also using him over the best of the daughters.
I have only had 2 really nice males so far but I have hopes for one that I sent to WWW as a 6 month old. It seems my females are nicer than males. The other males get culled along with any poorer females. I will be culling 2, year old females this year as they didn't live up to their promise.
Let's hope I have enough years left to get more nice birds out there.

A thought: from the few books i've read on breeding, some "lines" produce great hens and mediocre roosters, and vice versa and its hard to create a line that produces both sexes of quality.
Fyi: i have no practical experience, only theory

:)Thanks KB
After 10 years of breeding Columbian Wyandottes I can say with absolute certainty that I have only scratched the surface concerning poultry breeding.
I practice line breeding with an occasional outcross, but its only because I haven't been able to bring in new blood.
If I was able to buy a superior stock, I would bring in e new male every few years and test breed to a small group of hen, which would give me a new "family" to keep the birds from being too closely related.
If I have learned anything at all in those years, it's that Breed Best to the Best and hope for best doesn't lend itself well to breeding chickens.
Here its more of an effort to balance the shortcomings of the breeding stock, and you never really arrive at perfect birds, just an occasional moment where it all comes together, but if you blink you may miss it.

Breeding best to best doesn't work if they have the same faults. I try to breed best to best but if it doesn't work out I switch mates. Some times the results surpass expectations.
One lesson learned; is to start off with the best stock that you can get. It takes years off your efforts to get superior stock.
If I know where to source good stock from the same line I don't worry about Inbred depression, but if the Breed is quite rare you have to keep more birds and be mindful of any bottle necks that may be coming from breeding too closely and keep more birds.

SO true! It took me 2 years to get the stock I wanted and then I lucked into my foundation birds when a sale to the US fell through!