Emily Robertson from True North Hatchery will be joining us to share a presentation on how to breed poultry for health and productivity.    Various topics will be covered, and this session will be held virtually on Zoom.

Most heritage chicken keepers are familiar with ‘pure’ breeding to the Standard of Perfection – a time-honoured technique that predated knowledge of genetics.  In the last 100 years two new breeding techniques have been developed that are quite different from ‘breeding the best to the best’, and are quite useful for breeders who want to make their favourite heritage breed great again, or produce a new breed that is tailored to their environment and needs.

    1. Conservation Breeding – is used to restore vitality, fertility and genetic health to small, isolated populations such as purebred heritage breeds in a small farm flock.

    2. Cross Breeding – is used to amplify egg or meat production (as well as other complex traits) from crosses of heritage breeds and is also the recommended way of developing your own unique ‘breed’ that has the utility traits you want.

This is a members only session, so please visit our membership page to ensure you have a valid SSI poultry club membership to participate.