Cochin Thread!!!

[Mr. Ree]

As many of you may have noticed, I havent been around much lately. Needed time away just to get things in perspective again, as well as many other things going on I have had to deal with. My uncle, who is 46, had a massive heart attack a few weeks ago, and last week my Grandfather was in an accident and hurt his neck. Just have had alot going on late for sure!

As far as news goes about the birds; I ended up hatching 40 chicks this year, a number I feel is nice to have for me to be able to go through them and see what I want to keep later this year. Birds are still laying their behinds off, just out 4 dz eggs in the fridge cause they were to old to hatch. Also acquired a nice Blue smooth pair that I plan to breed and see what I get. They have decent type, could be better but could also be much worse, GREAT color and nice bright yellow beaks and feet/legs. Out of the 40 chicks (2 seperate hatches) I can tell I have 8-10 frizzles, and so far I can tell I have 7 pullets and 4 cockerels. Did manage to get some pics of this years birds, hope you guys enjoy.














~Casey

 

[Fancy Feathers]

Wow, gorgeous birds. And those frizzles are all kinds of cute!

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

Good to see you back Casey. You and Tom posting in the same week is great. I appreciate Cochin breeders with experience and knowledge sharing with all of us. Hope others on this thread also do. Really like the young birds. Looking forward to seeing the Blues in the future.
Craig

 

[posey]

Casy, gorgeous all of them.
Question: How old are they in the last photo and when did the cockerel start to show the wattles?
Thanks
Posey

 

[JosieChick]

Yeah Mr. Ree and his lovely white birds!! So glad to see you are back and well! I just love those frizzles.

Blackcochin- I may have an opportunity to get some started birchen cochins.

I have been keeping my eyes peeled for a silver laced cochin cockerel but so far everything has been pretty poor quality...

I was thinking the other day...I have two blue standard cochins that I hatched last year and they are just in my layer pen but one of the girls looks pretty decent, maybe I should look for a boy for her....maybe I will try to get some pics of her today and see what you guys think. I just hatched them because I wanted some large fowl cochins too but I hatched all girls. Figures, right?

 

[Mr. Ree]

Posey, those birds were in the first hatch I had. They hatched 3-26 and 3-27, so they are about 8 weeks old, but I could tell the sex by 4 weeks. This particular picture was taken about 2-3 weeks ago. I have a group of around 30 that were hatched 4-30, so they are 23 days old today, and so far I still cant tell the sexes of them all, but I expect within a week to ten days I will know what I have.


Also, if anyone around KY (I can NOT ship at this moment) is interested I have a nice White Frizzle/Smooth Pair for sale. Nothing at all wrong with these birds, I used them for breeding this past year, just need to make room now for some of the birds I plan to keep out of this years hatch. Smooth cockerel and frizzle hen, I hatched and raised the cockerel last August and the hen was bought from Jamie Matts last Spring, she was hatched in September 2010 according to Jamie. Asking $65 for the pair. For any other info, details, and pictures please PM me.


~Casey

 

[posey]

Thanks Casey

 

[Mr. Ree]

Your very welcome. Also, after looking through some of the older chicks today I have decided to let go of a trio I have. They are about 8 weeks old, smooth pair and a frizzle pullet. All look to be very nice birds. I would NOT consider these birds to be SQ. They should have the right type and everything else going for them, but they are showing a willow color to their legs. Would take $25 for the trio. Have pics for anyone interested.


~Casey

 

[JosieChick]

Alright cochin experts! I have two birds in separate pens that have never been together that have developed a skin problem around their eyes. I spray my birds with frontline routinely and use ivermectin topically once in the spring and again in the fall unless I am seeing a problem. Both birds have thickened, redder than normal skin around their eyes like they have been scratching. Eyes are clear and look great and it is on both sides of the head. It looks like they have big, puffy eye lids. I treated one a few weeks ago with ivermectin again and it doesn't seem to have helped? I have tried carefully putting a salve around their eyes to see if it is just irritation but that hasn't helped either? Is this some kind of wild mite that I need something else for? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I am at a loss.

 

[posey]

I'm not an expert but I have a gal with the same eye condition you described. A month ago, I had a Silkie who was really sick and her eyes was all swollen shut. I tried everything finally got her eyes open but I thought she was blind. It took several days for me to realize that the problem was mites. Really tiny itty bitty colorless mites. I dipped her and nursed her and she is doing great right now. She is not blind and running around the yard just like before.

I know I have a mite problem. Had it last year too. This property that we are on is new. We have only been here just over a year. We can't get rid of the mites no matter what we do. They show up in all of our coops and there is no cross contamination of birds or us. It is just where we live, plain and simple. We do have lots of migratory birds and Mockingbirds that live here year round. A month or so ago, I spent hours dipping every single chicken in permethrin. I hate that stuff but it helps. I ran my fingers through their feathers under water and tried to get them all soaked through. Very difficult when you are talking about extremely fluffy giant cochins. You should have seen the dead mites floating in the water. We cleaned out and scrubbed down the entire coop (12X16 feet) no small task. Fresh bedding and DE on the floor and in nest boxes. The next day, I used eprinex on everyone. Here we are little more than a month later and I have to do it all over again this weekend.

We are soooooo frustrated. We don't know what to try next. I know that 4 of my girls are laying internally and I have very strong supicions that it is directly related to the **** mites. Because after we go through all of this some of them lay for a couple of days then they stop.

We use DE. We use Sevin, Eprinex. I don't know what else to do.

JosieChick, when you say that you "spray Frontline" on your birds, what do you mean? What and how are you doing this? I haven't heard of this or tried it yet.

Just a note: I know that people all over BYC say that mites are host specific but I knew that I got mites from treating my birds. This last time, I did research on mites. Here in NC where I live we can have 4 different types of mites. Yes they are host specific but what that means is: they can only reproduce on their specific host, i.e. the chickens. However...the mites can crawl onto us humans and burrow into our skin and live. They burrow from one place to another laying eggs that will never hatch because we are not the right host. But they can cause us to itch ridiculously and have red swollen sores where they have traveled. We try to only use natural things on our birds and ourselves but I have had to use the chemicals on the chickens - just no choice. I was finally successful at killing off the mites that tried me out by using essential oils.

Any help with this problem is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Posey