Cochin Bantam Breeding

[Birdie2019]

(Edit: Look at third post for a shorter read, with a little background info left out. Mainly has my question. Anyone could answer it if they had experience with it, no matter the breed.)
I will be getting some Mottled and Black Cochin Bantams around mid summer. We have MF and will experiment breeding to Mottleds as well. We will have 4 different lines to work between: Black (smooth and Frizzle hopefully), Mottled (smooth and Frizzle), Millie Fluer (smooth), and Mottled x MF Project (smooth and Frizzle). We have 3 coops that will/can be open in the summer. One I know will be used for growouts. Another is small, and the other is the same size as the growouts one. I know I can manage one coop to be growouts and culls (depending on amount of each we get). We have two options (that I can think of) for housing:

Option 1:
Coop for Mottled breeders
Coop for Black breeders
Coop for Millie Fluer breeders
Coop for MF x Mottled project breeders
Coop for Growouts
Coop for Culls/Backups

Buy 3 or 4 more coops. Separate by color. Collect eggs, incubate and label eggs, band chicks, grow out. Pick culls and eat/rehome/kill. Pick best and put in breeder coops depending on color. Pick second best and put in their own area for backups. Leave be and repeat. Be careful of Frizzles and breeding.


Option 2:
Coop for breeder hens
Coop for breeder roosters
Coop for growouts
Coop for culls

AI breeder Roos and give to each breeder hen accordingly. Hatch eggs, try to identify, band, and grow out. Pick culls and rehome/kill/eat. Pick best and put in breeding pens. Pick second best and put in own area for backups. Breed. Be careful of Frizzles.

which option would you do? It is more difficult, but I would like to do Option 2 as it’s less expensive, yet more time consuming with the AI (yes, I know how to do it). AI doesn’t take too long though, it’s just catching the roosters. When I hatch eggs, I wouldn’t be able to tell the colors of the chicks until hatch. Even then, I’m unsure I’d know. I need help on that part (and the following part I will mention soon) most. My MF chicks are Wheaten based (tan/light buff chicks), and black and mottled are probably black and white. If they’re different and you can tell, I’d love to see pics comparing. But when I cross my MF and Mottled, will the chicks be black and white or still tan like mine are? I heard they look almost exactly like Mottleds at first generation when older, which does worry me. Trying to figure it out before it’s too late and my lines are a mess. If I breed a MF x Mottled that I mistake as Mottled and use in the mottled breeding program, it will not work at all. Here are my breeding plans:

Black x Black
Make sure color is good with no leakage. Cull if you see leakage. Get best type— cushions, combs, wings, foot color, body shape, width, everything.


MF x MF
Look at best type— cushions, combs, wings, foot color, body shape, width, everything. Of the best-typed Cochins, select those with best color. Use for breeding pens. Look for those with okay type, select those with best color. Cull those with bad color and bad type. Everyone else— look at selected birds and choose the best color and typed for all. Others will be put aside for backup. The other birds with desired traits (type, color) will be put aside for backup. Compare all who are backups and select the best type and color, or those with good coloring or good type. Use for backup. Any other birds will be culled.


Mottled x Mottled
Choose birds with the best type— cushions, combs, wings, foot color, body shape, width, everything. If any chicks have great type and color, put best as breeders and second best as backup. Look at others. Those with bad type will go. Those with too much white are also culled. If any have less than 50% of their bodies Mottled, set aside for other project. Cull all others unless have desired traits. Select the ones with desired traits and put in backup group. Look at all backups, select the best, cull others. Breed.


MF x Mottled
This is the most complicated project. The Mottled chicks set aside for other projects will be examined. Those with best type will be selected. Of the ones with best type, look for color best suited for this program— under-Mottled.
I will choose the best breeder MFs to breed to the best Mottleds. (This will only last until eggs are hatched. After that, the MFs will be put back with the other MFs.) Breed good MFs to good Mottleds to get chicks.
With those chicks, choose good typed birds and choose those with leakage. This generation isn’t as strict. If any have great type and no leakage, use anyway. If any have okay type with lots of leakage, use. Selecting almost all of these chicks.
Breed all selected back to Mottleds.

After the last step, what’s next? What do I look for? I read that to “lock in” the good type, you breed back to the better-typed birds for the next generation. After that, breed to MF.
My guess is to take all with the best type and breed instead to best MFs. Select best type and closest to MF color. Pick breeders and backups and culls. Continue line breeding till you get what you want (years and years and years of work, of which breeding true may not even be possible). I want BOTH Frizzled and smooth Cochin Bantams— one of the reasons I am deciding to do this. Be extra careful with Frizzles in this project.
Am I anywhere close to right at least? Knowing what MF x Mottled chicks will look like would be a big help, my main concern.

 

[Texasclucker]

@MysteryChicken They will be able to help you excellently!

 

[Birdie2019]

I may have to end up figuring the chick thing out. I was gonna have all the girls together in a coop and all the boys together in a coop. Perhaps I should put some sort of dye on the hens’ vents each time they lay (different color for different varieties), as I’ve heard of what some had said on other websites. However, I’ve never seen anyone actually doing it, just talking about it. If that won’t hurt them, I will label each egg according to color, and have each chick hatch with its egg (that part I have figured out with no doubt of it not working). However, some feedback would be nice for the egg situation, as I think the chicks will be splits, and I won’t be able to identify them.
I’ve been reading on the old “Millie Cochin Info” thread (is there a new one???), and am finding some info on there. Most people said breed out to Mottled for one generation, others said two for good measure and to “lock in” the type. I don’t know which way to do it yet, but I have written it out by step instead of big long paragraphs this time.


To sum it up:

Mottled x MF = F1
Select all to breed
F1 x Mottled (best typed) = F2
Select those with best type
F2 x MF (best color and type) = F3
Select best type, then color.
F3 x MF (best color and type) = F4
Select best type and color.
Line Breed.

ORRRRRRR
Mottled (SQ) x MF (best type and color) = splits, F1
Select best typed, then color.
Splits, F1 (best type) x MF (best type and color) = F2
Select best type, then color.
F2 (best type and color) x MF (best type and color) = F3
Select those with best type, then color.
Line breed.

 

[bantamsrmyfav]

Did the food dye work? Although I understand AI is an option, do you know if just pairing them up for a few hours or a day work? Maybe you can do one hatch with half MF and half another black group then the next hatches half MF and the next type of dark coloured group?

Given the fact that chickens are fertile for about 2 weeks but a month to be sure and eggs usually are only hatchable after being laid for about 10 days yes you might have some eggs that are fertile that you can't hatch so that could be a problem (unless you don't have a problem selling them as mixed coloured eggs).

Or you could have the roosters in one coop and the hens in multiple coops but that would be similar to option 1 for the amount of coops, maybe one less coop (you can keep MF and mottled or black together then the chicks would be distinguable). I think having more than 1 incubator could help or if you hatch them in bins in the incubator that they can climb out of then band them.

 

[Birdie2019]

Did the food dye work? Although I understand AI is an option, do you know if just pairing them up for a few hours or a day work? Maybe you can do one hatch with half MF and half another black group then the next hatches half MF and the next type of dark coloured group?

Given the fact that chickens are fertile for about 2 weeks but a month to be sure and eggs usually are only hatchable after being laid for about 10 days yes you might have some eggs that are fertile that you can't hatch so that could be a problem (unless you don't have a problem selling them as mixed coloured eggs).

Or you could have the roosters in one coop and the hens in multiple coops but that would be similar to option 1 for the amount of coops, maybe one less coop (you can keep MF and mottled or black together then the chicks would be distinguable). I think having more than 1 incubator could help or if you hatch them in bins in the incubator that they can climb out of then band them.

Thing is, idk if the food dye would work. If it did, I could tell what color hen laid what egg. Then I could choose how many of what color I want to set. I’m not sure I completely understand the question? I will probably end up doing the Mottled x MF, which will work. My pure MF chicks are the same each time (buff colored that grow in black or buff based wings at the start). With Mottled and Black, I could probably learn the differences if there are any. But as they grow out, I could tell the differences. Anyhow, you shouldn’t put a Mottled x Black as you will probably not get pure birds. Mottled x MF is doable. I still couldn’t put hens and roosters in both varieties. For best results, I’ll probably (test it first, then) end up having to build more coops.

 

[bantamsrmyfav]

When I move to the country my goal is to have a large coop for roosters each of a different breed and one for hens each a different breed then pair them up for fun to see what hatches. So I am hoping the food dye thing will work although I have tried it in the past and it did not. I read that you need to put it in a certain part of their cloaca and I was too busy at the time to bother with researching where exactly. I remember someone else using lipstick around the cloaca, I can't remember how that went. When I worked at a turkey breeder farm they had trap nests for the hens to go in and the nest door would close then we would let the hen out after collecting and marking the egg based on the hen that laid it (they were tagged) but I might just end up having a couple hens of different egg colours fertilized at a time and put them in a separate coop. Anyway I am going off topic...what I meant was what if you only had MF and black fertilized in one hatch (MFx MF and Black x black in one incubator). Then the next month only MF (MF x MF) and mottled (Mottled x Mottled) in the next hatch. The month after that MF and mottled crosses only.

 

[bantamsrmyfav]

Mottled chicks usually have more yellow or white down than black but I've seen some surprises.

 

[bantamsrmyfav]

Well I just thought about it and see a problem with my plan..you would have a lot of unfertilized eggs in the incubator. Let's hope the food dye works then!

 

[bantamsrmyfav]

Here is a youtube video of a lady who uses an old phone to record her chickens laying eggs then putting coloured tape on their backs to identify which one laid the last egg. Would probably work for someone who is able to collect the eggs throughout the day.

 

[gootziecat]

How long does it take to get rid of the vulture hocks breeding Cochin to MF (I assume d'uccle). Doesn't it tend to rear its ugly head down the road? Thanks.