i sent a pm to you, but missed something until i read this again... didn't catch that columbian and partridge were scarce. so it sounds like you'll need to start from scratch essentially. good luck in your projects and keep us updated.Hey all, after a long and sad search i have found no gold/silver laced cochin bantams in this country.
i have decided to try and breed some, by crossing a nicely typed partridge gold cochin male bantam, with a pair of nicely typed SLW bantams i know this will give me sex linked offspring(gold female, yellow male), neither of which will be completely laced or resemble a laced bird. I know the next cross (f1) between brother and sister should give me some poorly laced birds, along with a huge variety of other colours.
i plan to keep two f1 males and 6 f1 females from the original cross, and to see if they will produce any laced birds in the f2 generation, my question is, what do you look for in the f1 birds? Would type be more important, or lacing and colour? Do i pick the birds who look the least "wyandottish" or the ones who have slightly better lacing and colour? I assume it would be easier to improve type in the future generations, so i assume picking lacing should be the number one priority?
i have spoken to a breeder who is happy to take the culls and sell them on, so even though it will take a long long time, i see it as my pet project for the next decade or so.
The end result i will be looking for is gold/silver laced, with a possible side project in columbians depending on what gets thrown by the f1 brother/sister cross. I know its a very long road but here we dont have many good partridge or pencilled birds, i have only seen two poorly typed columbians, no laced birds whatsoever.
I just want to get some laced birds to shows and hopefully encourage local breeders to start similar projects.
too bad we can't do an egg exchange to s. africa. LOL