Understanding Crossbreeds

[jdavidson]

I need alittle help understanding this. I have read that a crossbreed is the offspring of one breed hen with one breed rooster and that a hybrid has 3 or more breeds mixed.
I have a leghorn hen and a rhode island red rooster. I have read that these mixed make novogen offspring which are great egg layers.
My questions is if all the above understanding is correct and I hatch these eggs to have novogen chicks....what will I have if I mate the novogen chickens? More Novogen's with stronger genetics or would they not be considered Novogen's at all?
I do not want a bunch of odd backyard breeds at the moment but thought it may be cool to expand my breeds if they were breeds that people are usually interested in purchasing.
I have also read that Black Austrlorp rooster x white leghorn = Austra White
Are these two mixes popular crossbreeds?
TIA

 

[nicalandia]

I need alittle help understanding this. I have read that a crossbreed is the offspring of one breed hen with one breed rooster and that a hybrid has 3 or more breeds mixed.

To me the terms crossbreed and hybrid in chickens are all semantics as both are technically Gallus, Gallus Domesticus. You can expect heterosis from crossing two unrelated breeds of chickens but hybrid vigor is really not the correct term as they are not really hybrids.

I have a leghorn hen and a rhode island red rooster. I have read that these mixed make novogen offspring which are great egg layers.

A quick glimpse at Novogen confirms that they are like Hendix genetics and EW Group (H&N, Hy-Line International and Lohmann Tierzucht). In the business of producing high production type egg layers. They just don´t use any Leghorn or RIR on their breeding programs, so don´t expect that your birds will be as productive or as efficient(Also the Opposite cross is the more productive of this cross, White Lehgorn Rooster over RIR hens, due to known sex linked mutations affecting egg laying performance)

what will I have if I mate the novogen chickens? More Novogen's with stronger genetics or would they not be considered Novogen's at all?

1. We have already confirmed that they will not be Novogen production type birds. 2. The F1 of a crossbreeding program will always lay more than the consecutive F2, F3.

I do not want a bunch of odd backyard breeds at the moment but thought it may be cool to expand my breeds if they were breeds that people are usually interested in purchasing.
TIA

Your cross will only benefit you if you are after egg production with good heterosis/viability, many people will not understand their production value and will actually don´t pay much for crossbreeds since they believe pure stock are better

I have also read that Black Austrlorp rooster x white leghorn = Austra White
Are these two mixes popular crossbreeds?
TIA

In Australia I am sure the Austra White was at one point a very popular cross in the egg laying business. But they have been replaced by current production stock.

Novogen Sex linked cross that produces their final Novogen Brown(akin Isa Brown)laying stock. The parent stock consist of Highly productive RIR type sire with Highly productive White Rock dame

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quite a few different things to discuss here.

Cross-breeds are the offspring of two distinct breeds. In genetics they are often designated F-1. It is the first generation of this cross.

Hybrids are a bit more complicated. They can be cross-breeds with two different pure breeds as parents. Two is enough, it does not have to be three. It could be a mule, which is a cross between a donkey and a horse, two different species but on this forum it is usually about breeds of the same species, like chickens. It could even be the offspring between two totally different hybrids. Most of the time on this forum it means two different breeds but it can occasionally go deeper to three or four. We use the term hybrid on here a lot but it doesn't always mean the same thing. you have to now the context.

I have a leghorn hen and a rhode island red rooster. I have read that these mixed make novogen offspring which are great egg layers.

Not quite. Novogen have been developed from the RIR and Leghorn breeds, but it is a lot more than just a cross between RIR and Leghorns. They are a red sex link, which means they have developed a line of chickens with the gold gene from which you take a male. They have independently created a different flock from the same basic parentage that produce chickens with the silver gene. They take a female from this group and cross it with that rooster that has gold.

You can cross a RIR with a Leghorn and probably get a hen that lays really well, but it will not be a Novogen. Novogen have many generations of specialized breeding behind them.

Novogen are hybrids or cross-breeds, whatever you want to call them, that come from crossing two separate developed lines. As hybrids they will not breed true so no, they will not be Novogens. They will inherit a lot of the traits of their parents and will probably be pretty good egg layers, some maybe better than others.

@nicalandia I came up with them being developed from RIR and White Leghorns, not White Rock. I don't always believe what I read on the internet but it is what I read.

https://www.freedomrangerhatchery.com/novogen-layer.asp

 

[jdavidson]

To me the terms crossbreed and hybrid in chickens are all semantics as both are technically Gallus, Gallus Domesticus. You can expect heterosis from crossing two unrelated breeds of chickens but hybrid vigor is really not the correct term as they are not really hybrids.

A quick glimpse at Novogen confirms that they are like Hendix genetics and EW Group (H&N, Hy-Line International and Lohmann Tierzucht). In the business of producing high production type egg layers. They just don´t use any Leghorn or RIR on their breeding programs, so don´t expect that your birds will be as productive or as efficient(Also the Opposite cross is the more productive of this cross, White Lehgorn Rooster over RIR hens, due to known sex linked mutations affecting egg laying performance)

1. We have already confirmed that they will not be Novogen production type birds. 2. The F1 of a crossbreeding program will always lay more than the consecutive F2, F3.

Your cross will only benefit you if you are after egg production with good heterosis/viability, many people will not understand their production value and will actually don´t pay much for crossbreeds since they believe pure stock are better

In Australia I am sure the Austra White was at one point a very popular cross in the egg laying business. But they have been replaced by current production stock.

Novogen Sex linked cross that produces their final Novogen Brown(akin Isa Brown)laying stock. The parent stock consist of Highly productive RIR type sire with Highly productive White Rock dame

View attachment 1928249

Thank you for the education. This helps me greatly decide how I would like to proceed.

 

[nicalandia]

I came up with them being developed from RIR and White Leghorns, not White Rock. I don't always believe what I read on the internet but it is what I read.

Yes, we should take what we read from the Internet with a fair amount of salt, however we should also use deductive reasoning to reach a logical conclusion.

I ran out of time to make a meaningful post, but I will post a lengthy post about the subject at hand.

 

[nicalandia]

Novogen Brown hen is indistinguishable from the Isa Brown hen, that is not a mere coincidence because Novogen is part of the French Groupe Grimaud.


Timeline:

In 1997, the ISA Group merged Hubbard forming Hubbard ISA.
In 2005 Isa Group was sold to Hendrix Genetics and Hubbard to Groupe Grimaud.

the Erich Wesjohann Group with its subsidiaries Hy-Line International(Hyline Brown) and Lohmann Tierzucht(Lohmann Brown).

It's not a mare coincidence that when you put the Hy-line Brown, Isa Brown, Novogen Brown, Lohmann Bown, all they look the same, their genetics have been shared between these giant corporations(at least until recently).

So far the most "Open" line we can cross reference with and use their publicly available data is the Hy-line brown, white and tinted strains.

Here is a genetic research of the ovocalyxin-32 (OCX32) gene for egg laying performance, the study was done by J.E Fulton, LGC Genetic and Hy-Line International.
https://biosearch-cdn.azureedge.net/assetsv6/hy-line-app-note.pdf

Excerpt from the research
"The study focused on eight elite brown and white eggshell commercial egg-laying lines" from three different breeds: White Leghorn (white eggshells) White Plymouth Rock-derived lines (brown eggshells) Rhode Island Red (brown eggshells).

Hyline Parent Stock for the Hyline-Brown end product : https://www.hyline.com/userdocs/pages/BRN_PS_ENG.pdf

Hyline Parent Stock for their Hyline-Silver(reciprocal cross of the Hyline Brown Sister)
https://www.hyline.com/userdocs/pages/SB_PS_ENG.pdf

Grant Parent Stock of the Hy-Line Brown egg colored lines:

Silver Based: White Plymouth Rock(Elite line)
Gold Based: Rhode Island Red(Elite line)

They cross their RIR and WPR lines with their White Leghorn lines to produce Tinted Eggers.
Hyline Sonia: RIR Sire, White Leghorn Dame: https://www.hyline.com/userdocs/pages/SO_PS_ENG.pdf

Hyline Pink: White Leghorn Sire, White Plymouth Rock Dame:
https://www.hyline.com/userdocs/pages/PINK_COM_ENG.pdf

 

[nicalandia]

I would also like to point out that a White Leghorn x RIR or the reciprocal cross(RIR x WL) will produce Tinted colored eggs, Novogen does produce these type of crosses using their Elite brown eggers(Either RIR x WL or WL x WPR they are really not specific about and not as open as Hyline are with their tinted eggers), Since Tinted eggs demand is really specific to market/Country they are not as popular as the White or the Brown eggers.

Also Brown egg shell is a polygenic trait with a few of those genes located in the sex chromosome Z, hens produced from RIR rooster over WL hens will produce a darker shade of tint than the WL rooster over a RIR cross.

This is confirmed is this old but very good research:
https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/historicpublications/pubs/SB252.pdf

And also by Hyline own performance stats: Hyline Sonia(RIRxWL) average egg color at 38 weeks 52 and the Hyline Pink(WLxWPR) average egg color at 38 weeks is 46 and both brown parents(RIR and WPR) have expected average egg color at 38 weeks as 88(1 being White and 110 the darkest possible usually not obtain under normal production)

Hyline product information and management guides: https://www.hyline.com/aspx/products/productinformation.aspx

From the research: https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/historicpublications/pubs/SB252.pdf

 

[chickens really]

A cross breed and hybrid are the same and then another breed added is a backyard mix breed..definitely mutts then..
Not that that's a bad thing though either..