What are your goals? What variety do you want? I know many breeders of quality birds that I can recommend . You want to win Best of Breed in an Open show or to do well at a county fair or buy quality breeding stock? PM me for more information.
Calico is just a name for cull Mille birds with too much white. Buffs of quality are hard to find anywhere. Probably need to contact someone like Tom Roebuck in virginia or Bob Hawes in Maine. They have been producing the best Buffs over the last few years.
Anyone on here breeding Gold Laced Cochins in either Bantam or LF? Love to see pictures and hear about what you have learned with them I am breeding bantams and I struggle to do it well
As another person stated there are many breeders of SQ Cochins. If I was wanting to start over I would recommend Blacks, followed by Whites, Blues, then Mottled if I wanted to do well. If you want to just have fun and know you can not win a show then any pattern variety is fun and beautiful...
Cochins are to have yellow feet. White is the only color Cochin feet are not supposed to be.
DISQUALIFICATIONS:
Bare middle and/or outer toe - Bottoms of feet showing complete absence of yellow in all varieties
Picture of the main floor of the 2014 Ohio National poultry show. Over 9600 birds entered. There was another building with sale birds, heavy duck, geese, and turkeys. Pictured are the Best of Variety and Reserve of Variety Gold Laced and the BV and RV Columbians.
Gold Laced Cockerel
RV...
If they are truly Self Blue and not Splash you will probably get all Black chicks some split to Self Blue. If your Self Blue are actually Splash you can expect to get Blues and perhaps Blue Mottled.
You can breed any smooth to any frizzle and can expect 50% smooth and 50% Frizzled. Last year I did use a smooth male from a frizzle breeding to breed back to his mother. Type and feather quality were my reasons for using him. I am pleased with the offspring. Generally I use the widest feathered...
I don't or never had until this year. My Columbian hens laid so well I sold some eggs to get more Columbians out after I had already hatched 150 for myself. I have never sold a Black egg and probably won't as long as I AI Blacks. My method above really works well.
These last posts made me want to share what I have found to be the best method of shipping eggs I have tried. I use set rate postal boxes medium or large depending on how many eggs I have to ship. I seal the bottom and all seams to insure no leakage. I use mini flake pine bedding as my medium...