Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Another pair sold And we're about half way to covering a month's worth of feed with that!

I really was torn about this pair. I wanted to start getting the youngest cockerels moved so that if I did end up having to process the extra boys, it wouldn't be too many that were still very small. So I picked the youngest Gus x Blue girls pullet to pair up with one of them, the Blue pullet that Athena raised that I mentioned in that last group of pictures, figuring that the age difference would be less extreme that way. Well, she's been out in the outer coop this whole time with much fewer birds in that group and thus my interactions with her have been a bit more one-on-one. She was not on my list to keep, not even just in the mixed flock, but still. Committing to letting her go was even harder than selling the last pair. I was sure I'd be fighting back tears about it.

But, then I got there and met the person buying this pair, and immediately felt better. She's an older lady, just has chickens for fun, and wanted these guys for pets. I will still miss that pullet a little bit, I'm sure, but I'm satisfied she and the cockerel will be in good hands.


This whole hatch a lot and sell the extras thing is a lot more brutal for me to go through with than I expected, though. Phew! Two pairs down, a whole bunch more to go.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

After realizing that the one Splash cockerel has a wry tail the other week, I've been looking for that in my other birds and... ugh, there are a few. Several pullets and cockerels, a couple of my adults... It's not great. From some reading, this seems to be a recessive and possibly polygenetic trait. So, it's going to be an uphill battle to get rid of it, the first step of which will be not breeding any birds that actually have wry tails. That means Ottilie, Pete, and possibly Boba (she's molting so I can't tell if her tail is actually tilted or just missing feathers right now) are no longer breeders, I guess. And that also means other birds are carrying it to have made wry-tailed offspring, and that it's already in the next generation out of two of my pens, so it'll be popping up again I'm sure. Just. Ugh. I also unfortunately have no way of knowing which chicks are Ottilie's to cull them now, and no other chicks to use except for Pete's for the corner coop group, so I'm kind of stuck with what I have with regards to it now.

So, this morning I finally sat down and looked through the big cockerel group, the ones that hatched in late May to June, and made some official decisions on culls out of them. Obviously no wry tails are moving forward, but also I do not want Blue males over Gus's daughters and I do not want Black cockerels over the Blue group so the cockerels of those colors that would rotate to those coops are out as well. I may have mentioned this previously, I'm not sure, but I can explain the reasoning if not.

Anyway, so I have officially added 9 cockerels to the cull list out of that cockerel group. 4 of those were because of wry tail, oof. There are also 3 for sure keeps and 3 maybes as well in that group. The maybes are mostly because I was struggling to tell if some of them were Blue or Black. I'll have to wait until a more sunny day and see if that helps. I do not want to introduce the dark blue gene to any of my other pens, so I want to be very careful with that.

On top of those nine culls, there's the one already from the older cockerels that is a cull for being a Gus x Blue girls baby. I need to look over the other three older cockerels again and finalize decisions for them, but there's one that I am already thinking will be a cull because his tail is a total mess. I don't think it's a matter of needing to fill in more at this point, he just seems to be lacking the proper cushion tail shape. I can try to get a picture of him, but of course those four have historically been very difficult to get pictures of. At any rate, I have at least ~11 cockerels on the cull list right now that will likely be going to the freezer around the end of the month if I get no more interest in them.

The youngest birds, I'm still giving more time to grow of course. There aren't many cockerels there, I think 7 now, so if nothing else I could probably overwinter them all okay once the 11 culls are gone. I will need to look at them and mark down the ones that I mentioned before as culls, Blues that would rotate to Gus's pen and Blacks that would rotate to the Blue pen, as well as any wry tails, so likely there will be a couple cut out from that. Worst case scenario I'll only have to overwinter 15 cockerels--much better than the 26 I'm sitting at now! And all the better to let them fill out more and really pick the right ones out for breeding anyway.

And, of course, I've got to go through my pullets as well. Some of them have definite wry tails, so they are out. I've had a lot of interest in pullets, so at the very least I can still sell those as pet quality and get a little feed money out of it. Colors are less important on them because they only impact the colors of their own chicks, not the whole flock's chicks as with a male. So for pullets, I'm just culling out defects at this point.

Phew, I feel like I was a bit scattered in this post--sorry for the ramble and potentially disconnected thoughts, I was trying to get everything down before it left my brain and I completely forgot.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

2 more cull cockerels in the youngest (Blues that would rotate to Gus's pen), plus two cull pullets with wry tail. There were two more pullets that kinda-sorta looked like they might have wry tails as well, but I couldn't tell if it was how they were standing, how the wind was blowing, etc. So, I will probably not use them in breeding pens unless I literally have no other options.

As far as the older cockerel with the weird tail, I did get a few pictures of him just now as well. Any other breed, I'd say he just needed time for his tail to finish filling out, but these Cochins don't get tails this long, so those feathers sticking out like that means either he doesn't have a proper cushion... or possibly he's got some super weird juvenile feathering like nothing I've seen before in these birds and maybe it'll eventually molt out? The only Cochin I have had that had a tail anything like this at this age is a hatchery Mottled hen that now doesn't have a proper cushion tail in her adulthood, so that doesn't bode well for this cockerel. Anyway, here he is:

This is from above, but he was squirming around in my hand so those feathers didn't show so well.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I've taken stock of the pullets now. Mostly, this was to prepare to move some of them out to the outer coop where they'd be staying if selected for breeding. The thought was to move all of the blue and green band girls out there in a group so that they can get used to their surroundings and sort of integrate in with the birds there without me having to integrate more pullets into the group later on, and then pull the ones that don't make the cut later on, but of course I have a total of 18 pullets between those two band colors and there's definitely not enough room out there for that many. So I'll have to take some time this weekend to really look them over and see if I can cut down to, say, 12 or so to move. I don't think I could squeeze any more than that into that coop along with the birds already there, especially with winter on the way.

Anyway, totals for pullets. Not including those already counted as culls, we've got 11 blue banders, 7 green banders, and 8 red banders.

I should probably take an exact stock of the color bands remaining in the boys after all the ones I eliminated from the running the other day, now that I think about it. Will update with that when I do! After taking stock of the pullets, though, I've now realized I had exactly even numbers of pullets and cockerels hatched this year, 35 of both sexes! For a while there I was thinking I had hatched 36 cockerels and 34 pullets, but apparently that was not correct after all.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I've now gotten a cockerel band count, too, as of this morning. My plan has been to keep two cockerels of each band color so that I have a first pick and a backup just in case. Well, as it turns out, not counting the guy with the funky tail posted above means I have just two green band cockerels left. Job done there, I guess! I'm tempted to give that guy a bit more time, but at the same time I've never seen one like him and have had some absolutely beautiful boys grow out, so I don't know if it's worth holding onto him much longer.

Anyway, I also have just 3 cockerels left with blue bands. Two of those are Splash boys and one a Black. Since these boys would be rotating to Gus's pen where the Splashes supposedly would be very beneficial in cutting out the dark blue gene, I think I may just keep the Splash boys and not the Black. The Black cockerel is very young still, one of the July babies, so he very likely will fill out beautifully... but those Splashes just seem like the right call for that pen. So it's possible I have them sorted already as well.

And that leaves the red banders, of which I still have a whopping 8. I think one or two of those might be Blacks that I haven't taken the bands off of yet--Black red band cockerels are automatic culls as mentioned before--but that's still at least 6 to pick through. Guess I'll be looking them over more thoroughly this weekend as well!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I got a message from someone today that they would not be able to buy Cochins from me this year, but they wanted to keep in touch with me for next year because mine are some of the nicest Cochins they've seen in the area. Definitely brightened my day!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

My top pick Splash cockerel was being brutalized by some of the other cockerels in the cockerel grow out pen. So, in the interest of moving him and the other keepers out of that pen to get them away from the bullies, I took some extra time this morning to assess the red band boys in that group and narrow them down a bit. One is Black as I mentioned before, so he's out. Two more I cut because they're a darker shade of Blue that's hard to tell from Black (not as dark as Bl^d, but not obviously Blue at first glance either), and one of those has a funky comb anyway. I didn't necessarily want to cull for such little things before they'd filled out enough to really judge type, but due to pen space and winter starting to gear up here, I'm going to have to cut down my numbers sooner rather than later. So, my 'keeper' red band count is down to 5: three July cockerels that need to fill out more to judge, and the two older boys that I picked from my assessment this morning.

More than likely I'll be calling on Monday to make the appointment to have the extras processed in early December. I've been trying to wait it out as long as I can before doing so, but we're getting to the point where I just really need that space opened up for the winter.

I've still got to assess my blue and green band pullets as well and get them moved out to the other coop, but it's been so cold this week! My toes were frozen solid by the time I was done with the cockerels this morning! We're supposed to see temps above freezing again by the end of next week, so hopefully then I can spend some time out there to get all these pullets checked out and make some cuts to their numbers as well.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

My top pick Splash cockerel was being brutalized by some of the other cockerels in the cockerel grow out pen. So, in the interest of moving him and the other keepers out of that pen to get them away from the bullies, I took some extra time this morning to assess the red band boys in that group and narrow them down a bit. One is Black as I mentioned before, so he's out. Two more I cut because they're a darker shade of Blue that's hard to tell from Black (not as dark as Bl^d, but not obviously Blue at first glance either), and one of those has a funky comb anyway. I didn't necessarily want to cull for such little things before they'd filled out enough to really judge type, but due to pen space and winter starting to gear up here, I'm going to have to cut down my numbers sooner rather than later. So, my 'keeper' red band count is down to 5: three July cockerels that need to fill out more to judge, and the two older boys that I picked from my assessment this morning.

More than likely I'll be calling on Monday to make the appointment to have the extras processed in early December. I've been trying to wait it out as long as I can before doing so, but we're getting to the point where I just really need that space opened up for the winter.

I've still got to assess my blue and green band pullets as well and get them moved out to the other coop, but it's been so cold this week! My toes were frozen solid by the time I was done with the cockerels this morning! We're supposed to see temps above freezing again by the end of next week, so hopefully then I can spend some time out there to get all these pullets checked out and make some cuts to their numbers as well.

I've decided that when I eventually move, I'll have to find somewhere to take process birds. Even if I don't get them back afterwards, the way you talk about it makes it seem so nice.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The simplicity of it does make the whole process a bit easier. I tend to get a little too attached to birds even knowing they aren't for keeps, which means that it's difficult for me to send them to process regardless. But it's an inevitable part of hatching, especially in an area where bantam roosters are hard to find homes for like around here. I hope you're able to find a place to have birds processed wherever you end up moving to!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Okay, I've dragged my feet on this for long enough. After looking over the blue and green band pullets several times now since mentioning it in my past few posts, I've come to a decision. I mentioned I was going to narrow down those pullets to around 12 total between the two band colors to move to the outer coop, but I just can't on those blue band pullets! They are all so beautiful and so full of potential! So, since there are 11 of the blue band girls, I've decided that I'll just move all of them to the outer coop this weekend, and leave the green band pullets where they are for now, making more space for everyone and giving me more time to let the blue band girls grow out.

As for the green band pullets, I do have them narrowed down to 6 total now, as one of them I realized is dark blue, so out. I'll have to look at them again and really scrutinize them for flaws, but unless someone has something bad that I just haven't noticed yet or develops something glaring before spring, those are probably going to be my breeders for the 2024 green pen. Now I really need to look at the red banders, who have been neglected through this whole process, and see if there's anyone that stands out as a cull or a definite keeper yet among them!

Not sure how the next few days are going to go for me, but it's supposed to be nice, so I'll see if I can squeeze in a photo session with them soon. If not this week, hopefully next week after the weather clears off again. We're looking at rain over the weekend, and unfortunately silkied feathering soaks up water like a sponge, so they aren't going to be looking their best for pictures in that kind of weather.