Bantam Crosses

When we bought a new house that already had chicken coops built in, we decided to expand our flock to include some bantams, something my husband has always wanted. We searched a few online breeders and decided to get a straight run lot of 25 assorted Cochins.
Well they sent us two of about every type. Which was awesome! Variety and pretty colors! Maybe we could get all sorts of different breeding groups! Unfortunately, we didn't get a mated pair in any of the colors. Not one. (The best we did was a male splash and a female blue) I also fell in love with sebright bantams, so we got three of them. All girls. Just our luck, right? So this winter we decided they got to breeding size and started to produce fertile eggs. We bought an incubator and set up a bunch of mutt eggs.
We searched and searched for what these goofy crosses might look like, but couldn't find much. So here I am sharing my (4 week old) mutts in case anybody would be silly enough to try these crosses themselves.

First up is splash Cochin dad bred to a golden or silver sebright (not sure which and it's not obvious).

They all came out a lovely silvery grey-blue. The semi-feathered feet are kind of funny too.

You can faintly see that it wants to do the sebright lacing.


Next, we have a barred Cochin to a golden or silver sebright (again not really sure who. Some have more golden rings around the eyes than others, but can't really tell)

When they had no feathers but their black wings, we weren't sure the barring would come through at all, but it picked up a bit in the shoulder and head. Next to no evidence of sebright here. Except the incomplete feather footing!


Our last mutt group that has been produced so far has a partridge Cochin dad and golden laced or red Cochin moms. We weren't sure if the golden laced or Reds were laying, but a golden laced went broody so we are assuming these are from the golden laced. However, the red breasting on some of them is confusing us!
At 4 weeks, we can be pretty sure which are boys and which are girls. Interestingly, the 4 boys all have red breasts.


But, the one girl has the same pattern all the way through.

Could it be sex-linked? Random? Was she from a golden laced mom and all the boys from a red mom by coincidence? Any input here would be much appreciated.

Anyone else make these crosses and get similar/different results? Any other interesting mutts out there?

What cute crosses!

You might get some really pretty blue birds, crossing the laced Sebright to the splash Cochin. The lacing is very desired in blue breeds but so easy to lose. I know they're not purebreds, but I think they'll be very pretty . It will be interesting to see if they get gold or silver leakage as they age, or stay solid blue.

I'm ordering some red frizzle bantam Cochins this summer, and to round out the order threw in some partridges, cause they're total eye candy, right? That last little pullet is adorable, I may have to do some cross breeding and see what I get. Next summer I see a whole bunch of little paddle footed fluff balls running around my place

Thank you! Your breeding project sounds like fun! We have eggs from our splash to a black frizzle in the incubator, so I'm excited to see some frizzly Blues soon! I'm wondering if your red x partridge crosses would turn out like these partridge boys with the red breast.

And we are so excited about these blue sebright mutts. We got one cockerel and two pullets, so still trying to decide what direction to go with them. We were thinking about breeding the male back to the female sebrights and trying to get the lacing even stronger in the hopes of getting a defined black and blue sebright, but breeding the pullets to the splash would be cool too!