Cochin Thread!!!

[joanie_maine]

I am looking for a white standard cochin rooster and a standard gold laced cochin rooster. I live in Northern Maine, anyone know of someone that has one available?

I have LF Cochins and I have chicks - they are only three weeks old right now and not ready to go.

I may have a white cockerel, though it's a bit early to tell if it might be splash.

I'll post again when I decide which birds are available and the varieties.


There is a show at the Windsor Fairgrounds (Windsor, ME) on Oct 7th. There will be some decent breeders of poultry there that day

 

[lilcrow]

• Mr. Ree
• 
• 

To be honest, and quite frank, with you about it, your not going to find any Bantam Silver Laced Cochins that look like the Whites, Blacks, etc that you see at a show, or see people posting pictures of. The variety is pretty hard to find, and that is why several breeders are outcrossing to Black, White, and Columbian to better type on them. Most people that have them and that sale eggs or birds, are not going to be anywhere near close to what type should be for a Cochin. So to be honest, either way you go, your probably going to get about the same result. From a hatchery you will get numbers, and may get lucky with a couple that are really nice, and I wish you the best of luck if you choose to do so, wish more people were interested in the SL Cochin Btms. And also remember, even if you dont get a bird that looks like a White or Black, doesnt mean you cant breed for that and help the variety become less rare.

~Casey

​

​

Casey hit the nail on the head. None of us are professional breeders. I would prefer informed hobby breeders. Most of us hatch less than 25-50 of any one variety in a year so we don't have extras sitting around all the time. In the case of SL the best course to take may be get some hatchery chicks. You ordered eggs from as good a hobby flock of SL as I know of. Perhaps Annamays are better but she did not hatch any this year so that is of no help to you. .Raise and cull then breed the best Rooster to a good typed Columbian hen. That is probably the preferred method because both are silver based so fewer problems down the road. Then you take the best typed of those chicks from that 1 cross and mate back together. The 1st cross will show no lacing. But you will some laced birds when you breed the X birds together. Raise the laced ones and keep cullling. No easy way but that is probably the best. Tom did it years ago and came up with some birds that looked pretty good. When he sold them they became very hard to find.

Craig
My mistake,sorry - I was thinking Silver Pencil.

 

[MomsGoneMild]

Thanks for the response, when I decided that they were what I wanted to work with, I hadn't realized how rare they were. Still not sure what I should do. I thinking of maybe taking my chances with the shipped eggs again, but if I'm probably going to end up in the same situation, then maybe the hatchery is the better option and I should pray for a few nice ones. I ordered the eggs from Lucky Pickens, her hen Lacie seems to have good type which is one of the reasons I purchased the eggs from her (also couldn't really find them anywhere else) I'll attach pictures, tell me what you think and thanks again!

Photos from Lucky Pickens Farm

I have a SL pullet and cockeral from this same breeding pen. They were hatched 4th of July so are about 3 months old now. This is my first hatching so I know nothing about type, colors, standards, etc. other than what I read here on BYC (and most of that I can't retain.) With my novice eye watching them grow out I see that my cockeral has better "type" than this Rooster in this pic. My novice eye watching my pullet is concerned that she may be a little narrower than preferred, but she isn't the worst I have seen. Her lacing is coming in very nicely, but she is still so young to tell really. I would LOVE for her to have lacing like this picture. Her breast lacing is perfection, so I have hope for her all over lacing. If she had the body type of the cockeral she would be a pretty darn good start for someone. He has a really nice tooshy. Just not sure what I am doing with them yet. Perhaps when they are of breeding age, I can share some of their babies with you. I will post pics of them when my computer is back up and running (at librabry now). I do have pics of them as growing babies in my profiel photo album.

 

[MomsGoneMild]

I checked out my BYC albums, there really are no good ones of either Sliver Lace. If it helps any at all I found one where the pullet is standing BEHIND my photo subject. You can see her lacing coming in on her cushion and that's about it. The subject of the photo is my fave. I think it's a blue calico (project), someone correct me if I am wrong.

Here is the link to the photo. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ga...3/3c/3c9eeec7_2012-08-2110.32.18.jpeg&setName=


Maybe this helps just enough to give you some hope of finding decent quality bantam SL Cochins. I think you will be happy with LuckyPickens over a hatchery any day.

xoxo Annmarie

 

[cochins1088]

I absolutely DON'T want to discourage you because I know that SL are desperately in need of help and I'm excited that you have decided on this gorgeous variety. But, I do want to mention that at some point and hopefully sooner than later, you will need to begin double breeding. This is the practice on maintaining two separate flocks, one is the producer of your best quality pullets and the other is to develop your best cockerels. Not so long ago I was breeding Partridge which are the gold version of this double laced variety, and one of the reasons I gave up on them is because it was taking a tremendous amount of space i.e., two separate breeding flocks and then an undetermined number of grow out pens and so forth. Gail sent me some great info on the topic of double breeding, and I think there is an article on CI. I also got some incredible information from Tom Roebuck.
Best of luck with your venture it is truly a worthy one.
Nancy

I don't completely understand, so I should be breeding to improve the roosters and hens separately in two different flocks? I'll have to look into that, it sounds a bit reduntant. Our "coops" are a bunch of those chain link dog kennels placed in either the machine shed, or barn. Each is about 6 feet by 12. I planned to have 3 up, one for the silver laced, one for my standard cochin layers which are all sorts of colors, and the last for my extra roosters (I love the roosters and they are so friendly that I could never see them go, so they have their own little bachelor pad) I could probably find a forth kennel, or divide one if they should be improved separately. I'm extremely excited to start this breeding project and have been doing research daily. Thanks everybody for all of the help! I think I will go ahead and order a few more eggs from Lucky Pickens so that hopefully I will have a couple roosters and hens to choose from for my starting breeding flock.

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

I don't completely understand, so I should be breeding to improve the roosters and hens separately in two different flocks? I'll have to look into that, it sounds a bit reduntant. Our "coops" are a bunch of those chain link dog kennels placed in either the machine shed, or barn. Each is about 6 feet by 12. I planned to have 3 up, one for the silver laced, one for my standard cochin layers which are all sorts of colors, and the last for my extra roosters (I love the roosters and they are so friendly that I could never see them go, so they have their own little bachelor pad) I could probably find a forth kennel, or divide one if they should be improved separately. I'm extremely excited to start this breeding project and have been doing research daily. Thanks everybody for all of the help! I think I will go ahead and order a few more eggs from Lucky Pickens so that hopefully I will have a couple roosters and hens to choose from for my starting breeding flock.

No! The conversation has gone back and forth between Silver Penciled and Silver Laced for the past few days.. Double breeding would be used on Silver Penciled if you could get them good enough to justify the effort. Silver laced don't need to be double bred to my knowledge.
Craig

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Quote: For most patterned Varieties, breeding the best marked male to the best marked female does NOT produce well-marked offspring. The best marked females are produced when males possess certain characteristics, and vice versa - the best males are produced only when the females possess certain markings. So separate pens are set up - one designed to produce well-marked females, and one to produce well-marked males.

There are a few good articles on the Education tab on the Cochins International website. www.cochinsint.com

 

[Mr. Ree]

For most patterned Varieties, breeding the best marked male to the best marked female does NOT produce well-marked offspring. The best marked females are produced when males possess certain characteristics, and vice versa - the best males are produced only when the females possess certain markings. So separate pens are set up - one designed to produce well-marked females, and one to produce well-marked males.

There are a few good articles on the Education tab on the Cochins International website. www.cochinsint.com

This, for me, is when it gets ridiculous. The point of breeding these colors, any color for that matter, the point is to breed two birds of one color and get the same. For me, if you cant breed a correct SL to a correct SL and not get the same, then somewhere something has gone terribly wrong. There should be no reason in any breed of poultry in any variety where two lines should or have to be bred to create this or that. IMHO the reason that is such a good practice is because someone many years ago figured it out that it would be easier and less time consuming to do it this way (doing this for good females and this for good males), then to breed for a flock where you can breed two of correct pattern and get the same. This is also one VERY big reason I choose to steer clear of patterned birds. It seems to me that so much out crossing has been done to these varieties to improve type, that the variety itself has suffered a little and thats why breeding two correctly patterned birds together dont give you the same. Just a bit redundant to me. And I hope this didnt offend anyone, just wanted to give another POV.

~Casey

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Quote:
Sorry Casey et al, I certainly wasn't advocating one way or the other. I was merely trying to answer the OP's question regarding what was meant by double breeding.

 

[Scifisarah]

This double breeding isn't something that has to be done in raising well patterned mottled cochins, is it? I am just starting (eggs arriving in two days) and certainly don't want to be keeping two separate flocks eventually.