Cochin breeding, genetics, and showing

[ki4got]

Quote: ok... wasn't sure. i do the midgets not the giants. LOL

 

[lilcrow]

ok... wasn't sure. i do the midgets not the giants. LOL

Yeah, me too

 

[cieraphoto]

i thought maybe they meant brown-red.

I mean brown, not brown red or lemon blue.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: so the sex-linked chocolate brown or the khaki-dun then?

 

[cieraphoto]

so the sex-linked chocolate brown or the khaki-dun then?

I don't think it is either. Here is a photo from the SOP

 

[ki4got]

Quote: that would be the non-silver version of birchen. aka brown-red i think, at least in the bantams.

 

[nicalandia]

Brown red is relatively well developed in bantams, there are a few breeders that have bred their own line and they are very typey and good looking. Because of the nice bantam Brown Reds you will see very nice bantam Lemon Blues. Brown red is still a project color in LF, because of this there are no true LF lemon blues.

Good Brown Reds(dark red) are not good candidates to reproduce Lemon blues, brown reds that are not too red enhanced make good lemon blues, as these birds will produce lemon colored birds with lemon colored hackles and saddles, blue does fade or dilutes the gold but its not a powerfull diluter that will dilute red hackles to lemon hackles all of the sudden, just take a look at blue copper marans, they keep their copper color even after blue

 

[lilcrow]

Good Brown Reds(dark red) are not good candidates to reproduce Lemon blues, brown reds that are not too red enhanced make good lemon blues, as these birds will produce lemon colored birds with lemon colored hackles and saddles, blue does fade or dilutes the gold but its not a powerfull diluter that will dilute red hackles to lemon hackles all of the sudden, just take a look at blue copper marans, they keep their copper color even after blue

Nic, in all of the discussions of heard about lemon blues I've never heard that statement. Everyone that I know of raising lemon blues at the very least starts with brown red. I don't know if we're having a jargon misunderstanding or what. I'm talking about gold version of Birchen.

 

[nicalandia]

Nic, in all of the discussions of heard about lemon blues I've never heard that statement. Everyone that I know of raising lemon blues at the very least starts with brown red. I don't know if we're having a jargon misunderstanding or what. I'm talking about gold version of Birchen.

what I said is the Best looking Lemon blue birds I have seen(regardless of breed) were produced by using gold birchen without red enhancers, why? simple it will produce true Lemon colored Saddle and Hackle feathers, now if you start with a Red enhanced brown red then blue wont magically turn them into lemon all by itself, remember blue can only Fade gold tones on Birchen background and is not a gold Diluter like cream

 

[mibirder]

Before I started my lemon blue Cochin project, I had a discussion with several former breeders regarding the lemon color. Every photo I've seen the required (per the standard) is much more orange than lemon. Few breeders rportedvachieving the appropriate color before moving on to other varieities. If you look at the Game standard example drawings and photos, the lemon color is very distinctive and not orange.

I have not raised any Lemon blues to date as my blue lines seem to be carrying silver rather than gold. However, I've noticed that the heterozygous silver-gold S/s+ males are distinctly more yellow that orange, but obviously not a rich lemon color. On the plus side, their accents seem to be fairly consistent colored, another common weakness. This season, I'm going to breed a few of the males back to Brown Red to see if that' gives some improvement in lemon accent color. Of course the bad news is that the number of lemon blue males produced this way will be quite low and females probable even less. I also have some new blue lines to continue looking for the gold carriers.

Dave