Tom, I know there's no reason for you to remember the pullet that you critiqued for me, but following the judging at Crossroads I was trying to get a full understanding of the judges notes, and "color" didn't mean a lot to me. I needed to get clarification on it, I knew you would know and you were kind enough to oblige me in my quest. I'm not saying that my birds have perfect type - far from it - however at this time I think the color and penciling are serious enough to warrant my full attention in this next generation. As I mentioned in my earlier post, every single female AND male for that matter, develop the barring. There are several of these birds that I think have good enough type that they could find a place in someones breeding program - even mine possibly if I can correct or breed out this problem. I've got a gorgeous hen with excellent type, in that regard I even consider her my best hen, but her color is terrible.
After seeing the picture of your hen, I feel a bit discouraged because I thought by darkening my birds, I would regain the pencilling. If it's not the color, how do I get the pencilling back? Your hen is beautiful and in breeding her, I would think that the only thing left to work on is the lightness/darkness of the base color. Her pencilling is excellent and uniform from what I can see. If you can recall, the pullet you looked at for me has acceptable pencilling on her breast and cushion, but has very definite barring on the rest of her body. You also commented that the areas of the pencilling vs. barring was a bit different from the norm.
I have a very difficult time looking at a mature male and assessing his base color, pullets/hens are so much easier. When I look at my males, once they've gone through a molt, they look very much like any other good Partridge male. I see their color as dark and red, even mahogany, and the barring is not obvious on them. I'm having a very difficult time trying to figure out what males to pair with what females so that I can correct this problem.
Am I wrong in my decision to eliminate all of my males, save the cock bird that I got from Jamie, and all of this years offspring because they ALL have serious barring. My original hens have good pencilling and are reasonably dark, so my thought is to keep them and the one hen that I like so much (type), even though her color is bad, and breed them to Jamie's bird. If the "type" hen still throws this barring - on every chick that is, she'll need to go also.
I hope I haven't drawn this out to much and made a confusing mess of it, but I really do want to improve my birds and have no idea how to go about, other than starting over completely.
If your original hens have decent penciling I'd use them over the male you got from Jamie. You may want to try that same male over the best typed bird with poor color to see if you get some decent birds that way. I do recall the barring vs. penciling. When I had the Partridge bantams, some of the cockerels would carry female looking feathers in their wing bars and shoulders. That would be a male I'd look at to be a candidate for breeding females. Another common practice for breeding females would be to use a male with a bit of red ticking in the breast. He'll throw poorly colored males, but should throw some decently marked females. In your males look for evenness of color from head to saddle as far as the mahogany base goes. I always make sure to keep at least one back up male for breeding season. You don't want to run into a situation where something happens to the one you had your breeding program focused on.
Tom
Golden Feather Farm (http://gff.cochinsrule.com)
Large Cochins in Buff, White, Barred, Black, Partridge, and Golden Laced. Bantam Cochins in Buff, Black, White, Barred, and Self-Blue. Buff Rock Bantams. Wyandotte Bantams in Buff, Black and Columbian. Large Blue Andalusians, Buff Rocks, Buff Minorcas, and SC Buff Leghorns. White Laced Red Cornish Bantams. Working on Buff Cornish...
Golden Feather Farm (http://gff.cochinsrule.com)
Large Cochins in Buff, White, Barred, Black, Partridge, and Golden Laced. Bantam Cochins in Buff, Black, White, Barred, and Self-Blue. Buff Rock Bantams. Wyandotte Bantams in Buff, Black and Columbian. Large Blue Andalusians, Buff Rocks, Buff Minorcas, and SC Buff Leghorns. White Laced Red Cornish Bantams. Working on Buff Cornish...
I think she is a lovely hen, I hope you didn't think I was making disparaging remarks about her. I didn't mean to use your photo without permission, I found it on another website with tons of cochin photos. 
I intended to be using her as an example that I feel shows that penciling is a separate set of genes from color. I just ran out of time to explain my thoughts in the middle of that post. Silver penciled have the same penciling, but totally different colors as another example (unless I am more confused than I realize). That is a much darker bird in the picture you posted, 
but I can't see the penciling/ feather markings due to the small photo size. I do not disagree with you that type comes before color. I just don't know how much more rounded a shape I could get without needing to use AI. I want my birds to be able to do the deed without help and have the best shape possible while maintaining that. I know that goal could undermine success in a show, but honestly, I don't see us going to anything but local shows anyway. I think productivity and purpose need to come first in all poultry breeding. I just think AI conflicts with this ideal. I was concerned that my rooster's hackle feathers might be to light. They don't have a black stripe in them as described in my breeding book, but gold instead. I suspect this could be the source of the lightness in the chick. He also sired (horse word, I know) the batch in the incubator now. If I am right, I may be looking for another cock for my flock. 
