Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I'd love pwrsonally to see a.laced silkie. Any kind. Just to see what it looks like

It would be interesting to see how well lacing like what a Wyandotte or Sebright has works with silkied feathering! When (/ if?) I reach the point where I'm comfortable with adding some projects on the side, maybe I'll try out breeding Silver Laced Cochin bantams into my silkieds. I do like the look of silver lacing on smooth-feathered birds.

I can sort of see the darkness on Zeke's back.

I don't really know what a Cochin ought to look like, but to my untrained eye he's a really adorable fluffy pillow of a bird.

He is at the moment my top pick of the Blue boys for my Blue pen, mostly because of his balanced shape. None of them look bad for their age, the most I can definitely say is some have better combs than the others, but Zeke's already got a nice, balanced, round shape to him that I love. Wyatt, second in line, is a bit chesty, if that makes sense? I hesitate to finalize any decisions just yet, though. I've heard that 6 months of age is the earliest you should make final decisions and they are 6 months old as of a few days ago, but I've seen some of my birds not fully blossom until over a year old. If I want to start hatching first thing in the spring, I won't be able to wait quite that long, but I'm doing my best to be patient for a little longer anyway.

Zeke is a really handsome guy!

Following along because I am interested in the breeding of BBS too.

I have a blue laced silver Wyandotte cockerel and 4 black laced silver pullets I hope to hatch from in spring. I have not seen but one BLS group of Wyandottes in person and very few photos online. Lot's of blue laced reds around.

One of the pullets keeps me guessing is she really black or just really dark blue. Maybe another reason to breed her with the BLS male and see what happens???

Your birds are just lovely!

Blue laced silver is so beautiful! The others have given you good advice on how to tell a dark Blue from a Black. For my Cochins, I've noticed that their flight feathers are generally paler than their body feathers, so that's one place I've found that I can look to tell my Blues from my Blacks. The underfluff around the tail and hips is also pretty telling in my birds. If all else fails, breed her to your for-sure Blue male, and if she has any Splash offspring then you know!

 

[3KillerBs]

None of them look bad for their age, the most I can definitely say is some have better combs than the others, but Zeke's already got a nice, balanced, round shape to him that I love. Wyatt, second in line, is a bit chesty, if that makes sense?

When I was choosing among my cockerels last year it came down to Red and Green. Red was a few ounces larger and *might* have had slightly better type -- but very slightly

I was comparing them to the best photos of quality birds in could fond and realized 2 things about Green:

First, his coloration and lacing was actually better than the hatchery catalog photos,

Second, he had a sort of star quality that stood out even in photos and even more in person.

You know him as Rameses.

If all else fails, breed her to your for-sure Blue male, and if she has any Splash offspring then you know!

Unless she has my luck with hatching splashes.

 

[NanaK]

Her butt fluff looks blue to me but the lacing looks dark. She has not started laying yet but her sister has been laying several weeks now. I'm ready for spring!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Unless she has my luck with hatching splashes.

Oh dear, you're right Better hatch about 400 of them to be sure.

I'm ready for spring!

I hear you! We haven't even really hit winter yet here and I'm over it. Bring on the sunshine, greenery, and babies!!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I've got 1000 assorted color spiral leg bands coming in the mail! Not sure why, but that's exciting to me!

Out of curiosity, what do y'all do for leg banding, if anything? I decided on a two-color system a few months back and got a small package of spiral leg bands at the time both to see if I had the right size for the Cochins and to just test out the system a bit to see how functional it was. Basically, each bird gets two bands on their right leg, one that tells me the coop they originated from and one that tells me the year they hatched, with no overlap on coop colors and year colors. That way I can brood birds from multiple coops together without getting them mixed up, and later on I figure I can see at a glance how old they are when deciding who to retire and replace with growouts. Left leg is reserved for individual identification if needed. It worked great in that trial run, so I'm committing.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I've got 1000 assorted color spiral leg bands coming in the mail! Not sure why, but that's exciting to me!

Out of curiosity, what do y'all do for leg banding, if anything? I decided on a two-color system a few months back and got a small package of spiral leg bands at the time both to see if I had the right size for the Cochins and to just test out the system a bit to see how functional it was. Basically, each bird gets two bands on their right leg, one that tells me the coop they originated from and one that tells me the year they hatched, with no overlap on coop colors and year colors. That way I can brood birds from multiple coops together without getting them mixed up, and later on I figure I can see at a glance how old they are when deciding who to retire and replace with growouts. Left leg is reserved for individual identification if needed. It worked great in that trial run, so I'm committing.

One band per bird usually. In each pen I use as many different colors as I can before I label the bands. So if I have 4 birds and 3 colors, the three first bands will be unmarked and the duplicate color will have a number, word or letter

 

[NanaK]

I've got 1000 assorted color spiral leg bands coming in the mail! Not sure why, but that's exciting to me!

Excited because it's chicken stuff!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

One band per bird usually. In each pen I use as many different colors as I can before I label the bands. So if I have 4 birds and 3 colors, the three first bands will be unmarked and the duplicate color will have a number, word or letter

What kind of bands, zipties? How do you mark them and how well does it last?

Excited because it's chicken stuff!

Haha, that's the crux of it! It could be the most mundane thing (well, like leg bands!), but it's for chickens so it's exciting!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

What kind of bands, zipties? How do you mark them and how well does it last?




Haha, that's the crux of it! It could be the most mundane thing (well, like leg bands!), but it's for chickens so it's exciting!

The plastic EZ ones from TSC. Rough the surface with sandpaper. Use a sharpie and then tape over it

 

[3KillerBs]

Out of curiosity, what do y'all do for leg banding, if anything?

I'm using zipties, but I'm thinking of switching to wing bands so that they don't have to be changed out as the birds grow.