Heritage vs. Hybrid

[King of the Farm]

Could someone answer these questions as I want to learn more about chicken breeds.
What is a heritage chicken?
What is a hybrid chicken?
Are all chickens either heritage or hybrid?

 

[Sussex19]

Could someone answer these questions as I want to learn more about chicken breeds.
What is a heritage chicken?
What is a hybrid chicken?
Are all chickens either heritage or hybrid?

I'm sure someone else can give a more detailed reply, but basically heritage breeds are those that have been around for many, in some cases hundreds of years. They have stayed most the same though all that time, and they breed true. So if you have a male and a female from the same breed, their offspring will have all the same traits as them.
Examples are Rhode island reds, Sussex, Orpington, Wyandotte, and many others.

A hybrid is just that, a mix of other breeds. Generally bred to either lay as many eggs over a short time span as possible, or to grow to a size ready to eat in less then 10 weeks.
Because they are bred to be so productive early on, they don't tend to live very long. 6 months at most for a meat bird, a couple of years for an egg layer.

Mostly, but I'm not sure if there may be some 'new' breeds, that might not go into either category. Not sure on that one though.

 

[Amer]

https://livestockconservancy.org/heritage-breeds/
Hybrids are crosses between two breeds for increased production and often sexlinked offspring as well (the males and females can be told apart at hatch.) Hybrids do not breed true.

 

[Red Mangrove]

A heritage is often just a hybrid that's been around for a while and standardized. The Rhode Island Red for example was made around 130 years ago by crossing brown Leghorn with Malaysian gamefowl

 

[Amer]

A heritage is often just a hybrid that's been around for a while and standardized. The Rhode Island Red for example was made around 130 years ago by crossing brown Leghorn with Malaysian gamefowl

Not every crossbreed is a hybrid.
Hybrids are created by crossing two intentionally inbred lines. If you cross two breeds and then breed their offspring you weren’t crossing them just for the end result of more productive first generation birds.
Leghorn Red Malay crosses are not hybrids because nobody intentionally used those birds for meat or eggs.
Also, Rhode Island Reds have more than just Malay and Leghorn in their background, they also have Shanghais and Javas. A hybrid cannot be turned into a breed. They are known for their heterozygosity, each bird is genetically similar but heterozygous.
Pure breeds are known for their homozygosity, each bird is similar and homozygous.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Well, I wouldn't say a hybrid could never be a breed. Every breed started out as one.


Just an example.
Just, take 2 different breeds, like a Wyandotte, & a Polish chicken, breed them together. Breed for traits you want, like a crest, or keeping the lacing true, maybe you like the body type of the Wyandotte, & wanna keep that true. Just from there, selective breeding/culling unwanted traits, & keep all the ones you want. Eventually you could end up with a crested, Laced Largefowl, that has the flightiness of a Polish, & light cream eggs.

 

[NatJ]

Are all chickens either heritage or hybrid?

Some chickens are just mixes, not a deliberate hybrid and not a heritage breed either. "Barnyard mix" chickens would be an example of that: a mix that could include any breeds in someone's barnyard.

New breeds of chickens would not be "heritage" yet. I sometimes hear about new breeds being developed.

Some chickens are sort-of consistent (not a hybrid) but not a heritage breed either. Many of the hatcheries in the USA sell "Easter Eggers" and "Naked Necks" and "Production Reds." Each of those has some consistent traits, and breeds true for those traits, but is not an actual breed and has not been around long enough to be considered a "heritage" type of chicken. (Easter Eggers lay blue or green eggs, Naked Necks have no feathers on their necks, and Production Reds are red-colored chickens that lay large numbers of brown eggs.)

A hybrid cannot be turned into a breed. They are known for their heterozygosity, each bird is genetically similar but heterozygous.
Pure breeds are known for their homozygosity, each bird is similar and homozygous.

Elaborating on that:

A hybrid can be used as the first step in creating a breed, but it takes quite a few years of breeding and selection before the later generations can reasonably be considered a breed. In a case like that, the original hybrid chickens are ancestors of the new breed, not the first members of the breed.

Some hybrids are produced so commonly that they have familiar names (Red Sexlinks, Black Sexlinks, Cornish Cross, etc.). They are not actually breeds, but are often sold and discussed by name as if they were breeds. But no-one can breed two Black Sexlinks and get more Black Sexlinks. Each time someone wants another Black Sexlink, they have to cross a Rhode Island Red rooster with a Barred Rock hen.

 

[Amer]

Are all chickens either heritage or hybrid?

No. Some are mixes, some are too new to be a breed. Some are too inconsistent to be a standardized breed, which is a landrace breed. Some landraces are heritage and some aren't (like Easter Eggers.)

Well, I wouldn't say a hybrid could never be a breed. Every breed started out as one.


Just an example.
Just, take 2 different breeds, like a Wyandotte, & a Polish chicken, breed them together. Breed for traits you want, like a crest, or keeping the lacing true, maybe you like the body type of the Wyandotte, & wanna keep that true. Just from there, selective breeding/culling unwanted traits, & keep all the ones you want. Eventually you could end up with a crested, Laced Largefowl, that has the flightiness of a Polish, & light cream eggs.

A hybrid could never be a breed. Its offspring could be standardized into a breed but the hybrid itself is not true breeding. Also, PolishxWyandotte is a crossbreed, not a hybrid unless someone bred them together to produce F1s with increased egg/meat yield.
Delawares are an example of a breed that was created from the progeny of a meat hybrid.
New Hampshire Reds actually only had one breed in their ancestry, Rhode Island Reds, so it is actually possible to make one breed out of another without crossing involved.

 

[rockethoe]

A hybrid bird is an f1. That is: its parents were from two different standardised breeds. It does not matter the intention of the breeding, the offspring from a crossing is an f1,l from different parent stock, and therefore by definition a hybrid. Wether or not it is a useful hybrid or not is a different matter. Red sexlinks and cornish cross are popular hybrids. If you cross two hybrids you get the f2 (or s2) generation. Most of this generation will not be the same as their parents. They will revert to their grandparents traits. This is what is meant by “not breeding true”. However a small portion will have (some of) the desired traits. If you continued to select for those traits over the next few generations it is possible to stabilise the genetics.


Heritage birds are breeds whose genetics have been stabilised through breeding and selection a long time ago. They are standard recognised breeds. An example is Sussex or Australorp. If you breed a Sussex hen with a Sussex rooster, the offspring will be Sussex chicks.

There are stabilised breeds that are too new to count as heritage.

 

[Amer]

A hybrid bird is an f1. That is: its parents were from two different standardised breeds. It does not matter the intention of the breeding, the offspring from a crossing is an f1,l from different parent stock, and therefore by definition a hybrid.

I disagree:

“Hybrids Fueled the Modern Poultry Industry​

During the Twentieth Century scientific breeding revolutionized poultry. College educated geneticists created modern hybrids with the intent to create strains of birds especially efficient in converting feed into eggs or meat. Probably the best known is the Cornish Rock hybrid, developed from the Cornish and Rock breeds.

Prior to the development of hybrid meat strains, chicken was a relatively expensive meat produced by slow growing Light Brahmas, Jersey Giants, New Hampshires and other breeds.

It took much feed and time for these birds to grow to market size, thus making chicken an expensive meat enjoyed mostly on special occasions. The Cornish Rock changed it all.

This hybrid produces an eating size bird in half the time on much less feed than the old timers. Credit hybridization with precipitously dropping the price of chicken in the grocery store or on a restaurant menu.

Today the average American eats about 60 pounds of chicken meat a year.

Scientists also created hybrid egg layers capable of producing upwards of 300 eggs a year. Among the best-known laying hybrids are California Whites, a Leghorn based white egg layer, and the ISA Brown, a complex hybrid that is an amazingly efficient producer of brown eggs.

Hybridization is often not as simple as crossing one breed with another. Sometimes complex series of matings over multiple generations are required to develop sophisticated highly productive birds.

How About Crossbreeds of Chickens​

According to Dr. Lamont, crossbreeding technically refers to mating two or more breeds. The intent to improve traits is usually not a defining factor. Crossbreeding results in chickens that do not breed true and are not registered by the APA.
“In the early days, around 200 years ago, cross breeding was used to introduce a visible trait, like barring (on the feathers) that helped identify sexes at hatching,” she said.
Today this is common with hybrid strains where females and males have different colored feathers or patterns. It’s a much faster way to separate the gender of baby chicks than vent sexing, which must be used with most chicken breeds.

In vent sexing a highly skilled and experienced hatchery worker gently squeezes the bird’s vent, revealing slight differences between males and females.

Few people enjoying a small flock of backyard chickens keep roosters or have any interest in breeding their birds. For them it doesn’t really matter if they own registered breeds, hybrids, or crossbreeds.

Families can pick and choose their chicks based on the traits they like the most. Hybrid layers often are the most efficient at producing the maximum number of eggs, but many true breeds also lay well and connect their owner with the glory days of poultry when attending chicken shows was a passion.

Many hatcheries allow customers to order a diversity of chicks, making it easy for a customer to order a diversity of breeds and hybrids.”
https://www.scoopfromthecoop.com/breeds-hybrids-crossbreeds-just-what-are-they/
source: Nutrena feed

Most hybrids are crossbreeds, not all crossbreeds are hybrids.
And I say most are crossbreeds, because Cornish Cross are actually the offspring of two strains of the same “breed” crossed together yet they are still considered hybrids.

Also to note the term hybrid was never adopted to replace “crossbred.” Crossbred was already a term. But hybrid really means the offspring of two species, yet they needed a distinctive term for birds that were the F1s of two inbred strains that were used for meat or eggs.
Designer breeds is the term used for crossbreeds or their offspring that are marketed on egg color or aesthetics. (Showgirl, Favacauna, Midnight Marans). Sometimes they are intentionally made into sexlinks for the convenience of the hatchery.