Cochin breeding, genetics, and showing

[sjarvis00]

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Silver laced will work much better if you good ones available to cross with your columbians. the Black may continue to haunt you for a long time.

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

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When I had some birds with long foot feathers I also had longer primary feathers (weakish wings) on those birds. I would suggest looking at your bird critically.If you want to breed them go for it but recommend being prepared to cull hard. If you don't like the resulting birds then you can look for other breeding options.
Craig

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

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Silver laced will work much better if you good ones available to cross with your columbians. the Black may continue to haunt you for a long time.

Do you understand why I made this cross? Improve the wings. I will have an experimental pen and figure at least 4 years minimum for results. My Columbians will continue to be bred as I do now. I will not be screwing up my whole flock of Colombians on an experimental cross. Next year I will also try a Mottled male on my best Columbian hen. I will only breed better typed birds than I already have or there is no point. If there are any better typed silver laced bantam Cochin birds out there let me know and I will look them up. I agree that I may be taking the hard road but Blacks have the best type. Type first!

Craig

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
Silver laced will work much better if you good ones available to cross with your columbians. the Black may continue to haunt you for a long time.

Do you understand why I made this cross? Improve the wings. I will have an experimental pen and figure at least 4 years minimum for results. My Columbians will continue to be bred as I do now. I will not be screwing up my whole flock of Colombians on an experimental cross. Next year I will also try a Mottled male on my best Columbian hen. I will only breed better typed birds than I already have or there is no point. If there are any better typed silver laced bantam Cochin birds out there let me know and I will look them up. I agree that I may be taking the hard road but Blacks have the best type. Type first!

Craig

you stated in your first post it was due to wings, you also stated that you expected 4 years to get back to columbian and you are at least there, It sounds as if you run a cross similar to our practices you maintained a pure line while outcrossing a improvement line to work heavily on.
I never said you would screw up the flock, I do not know if there good silver laced out there to be had in bantam and will not bother looking for any either as I can care less about the Bantam, the black is teh rougher harder longer road for teh columbian and will be much harder to get back to a good columbian.
I do know from direct experience Silver Laced works very well with Columbian and is easily breed back to columbian and can be used to improve wing primaries, and tail primaries when color defects exist.
I was merely making a suggestion based on direct experience of what does work well. With that being said, since I have no interest in teh bantam form of this breed and that is the apparent real subject and not the idea of open sharing of genetic of other experiences I wish you all teh best of luck in your endevours. I have no need for more drama in my life.

 

[mjgigax]

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That's what I thought.........however I know the black markings on her back are not OK. I wonder if those will molt out or get darker?

we raise Columbian pattern birds in two breeds, when young the black on teh back is fairly common, it does molt out near maturity, however to get very well colored males you need a few pullets or hens with some black in thier back it improves saddle stripping in the males, For cleaner backed hens you will want a male that is very weak in saddle striping. one should never give up good black wing primaries or black primary tail feathers. Getting the lacing correct on female tail primaries and secondaries may also result in males that either demonstrate the same lacing or some white in the sickles. there are a few trics to getting the color right. I should also note not to give up the white leading edge of teh primary flight feathers it os difficullt to get back and will lead to very dirty backed pullets, and hens.

sounds like Columbian breeding needs to be Double Breeding - is that what it is called when you have two separate line ; one with weak colored females to produce good colored males and a second with weak colored males to produce good colored females?

Sorry, I should have gotten caught up on reading thru today's post - I get so distracted as I read thru posts and forget what I want to ask!

 

[mjgigax]

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we raise Columbian pattern birds in two breeds, when young the black on teh back is fairly common, it does molt out near maturity, however to get very well colored males you need a few pullets or hens with some black in thier back it improves saddle stripping in the males, For cleaner backed hens you will want a male that is very weak in saddle striping. one should never give up good black wing primaries or black primary tail feathers. Getting the lacing correct on female tail primaries and secondaries may also result in males that either demonstrate the same lacing or some white in the sickles. there are a few trics to getting the color right. I should also note not to give up the white leading edge of teh primary flight feathers it os difficullt to get back and will lead to very dirty backed pullets, and hens.

It sounds like it is necessary to practice double breeding to get the correct pattern on the Columbians. I have Partridges and I intend to double breed them, but so far I don't have enough offspring to select from. I'm hatching every eggs I can get from them and the Birchens, but hatch rate has been really bad this year.

have a trio of Partridges and 5 of their offspring. I don't know much about good coloring in Partridges though. I have a male that I think (?) is pretty nice but I think the lacing on my hens is pretty clear, esp. on one. So I think I will concentrate on working on females.
Here is a pic, from last fall, of my best hen -

 

[Bnemeth]

First - I LOVE this topic
Second - I am jealous of all the successful breedings

My males do not seem to be interested in my females and I have not had fertile eggs yet(bantams). I'll probably try AI next, is this hard to do with cochins? I've wacthed you tube videos and the process seems simple. Anyone have success with AI?

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

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Check out Cochin International forum. I posted a link about AI in Cochins and an article on AI cochins.. I think you can read any post but must register to post.

 

[elieugene6]

Ok, I have a quick, well hopefully quick, question. I have heard it mentioned in multiple places now, both on the internet and in person at fairs as well as seen it in my own flock.

Is their some reason that cochins aren't laying well this year and/or the eggs aren't hatching well that is different than other years. Basically is their anything that I can do to fix it. My show quality cochin hen has laid very few eggs this year, most haven't been fertile. I know that the fertility is something that needs to be corrected with ai. However I have recently learned that the person I got them from hasn't been able to hatch anything this year (I was informed that they didn't even lay, by a 3rd party and don't know if that part is true). I would assume that due to the quality of his line ai is a must.

I have also heard quite a few cochin people talking about hatching troubles. This is my first year with cochins and I am just wondering if something is different this year?

 

[lilcrow]

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I personally would say yes, and it isn't just Cochins. I'll be glad when this year is over and we can move on to the next.