Cochin Thread!!!

[jossanne]

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Both Casey and Coopa are correct about wing "snap." It's about muscle development in the wing. In an Old English Game you want the wing to snap back into place when you let it go after you open it from the body. Cochin bantams don't tend to have that kind of snap to their wings but you don't want them to be sloppy either. A sloppy wing when you open it will most assuredly be carried low. Birds that are accustomed to sleeping on the floors of their pens can be taught to roost. You just have to be willing to go out every night after dark and put them up on the roost until they figure it out. Some figure it out on their own, others need some lessons.

The large fowl don't tend to have as many issues with low wing carriage as the bantams. My large males have very good wing carriage angles. The females in both sizes usually don't have an issue with sloppy wings, and if they do, I'd certainly have to have a real good reason to use them in the breeding pen.

Thanks,Tom

Thanks Tom!

 

[cochinman2005]

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I'll take a couple photos over the holiday break. I am behind in painting a couple of the buildings and I am still not totally done getting everything moved to its final location. I still have one of the 4X8 coops I brought down from my Dad's place to move into place and then add on a run. I was hoping to get to that by Christmas but we've had some pretty cold weather. Not sure I can get holes dug for the posts that will hold up the frame for it. I also added another 12X24 building this summer, and will be building large fowl breeding pens in there next week. "The compound" (that's a good way of describing it actually) totals 19 buildings and 20 if you count the one that is still sitting on my trailer. I picked up two nice pens this summer that a fellow about an hour from me had constructed for some OEG's. I've added an elevated run to one of them, but still need to do the same to the other. They make nice Rock or Dotte accomodations (they have fairly high roosts).

Culling Large Cochins is trial of patience. Most of my 2010 birds are about 10 months old now. I've culled along the way for obvious stuff like crooked toes, or poor wings, but I'd say you really can't tell what you have until they are at least 10 months old and they have their main tails and all of their wing feathers. The big Cochins take forever to fill out and the long hot weather this summer/fall made it even worse this year. If you've hatched later in the year (June and beyond) you really won't know their true size until they have molted once as adults. It's actually a good practice to use hens for breeding if you can. That way you really know what you have to work with. A nice pullet can turn into a dud as a hen.

I realize I am delinquent with photos and will get some taken over the holidays.

 

[dak]

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What! You have other obligations that just entertaining us?

 

[cochinman2005]

Sadly yes!

I believe I also owe some updated photos of the f3 Self Blue splits. I washed one of the f2 Self-Blue hens that I kept when I was prepping some other birds for a show a couple weeks ago to see how she fluffed up. Aside from the stringy tail feathers and the fact that she has blue legs and white foot bottoms, she's pretty nice looking type wise. I kept a male and 3 females because I like looking at them. I'll get a group shot of them. I am thinking about crossing one of the f3 yellow legged males on this f2 hen to see what the ratio of yellow legged f4's will be. 50% of the chicks should be Self-Blue and her type is comparable to some of the f3 splits. It's worth the experiment.

 

[dak]

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It's easy to like looking at the Self-blues. Imagine then in LF.

 

[Majestic Lane Poultry]

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What! You have other obligations that just entertaining us?

Yay! New pictures from Tom. I haven't had Cochins very long (less than a year) but I have looked at pictures of his compound for a lot longer than that

And updated pictures of your self-blues

 

[The Turken Lady]

I have an updated pic of C.C.
Hope no-one minds

She's a little dirty in the picture,it was took near when we first got her. She was really dirty because it was a 2 hour drive from where the person who sold her came from,so we cleaned her up a bit,but she was still a little dirty or it might be her color?

 

[TinyBirds]

What color is this? The reason I ask is I'd like more of these. I don't know where/how I got her, but she's very lovely

 

[Mr. Ree]

From the picture she looks to be a Blue Buff Columbian.


~Casey

 

[cochinman2005]

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Not a recognized color that much I can tell you. I would also venture a guess that she's not pure Cochin either based upon her blue shanks. Any chance their's some Ameraucana mixed in there? What color eggs does she lay? I'd say she's at least mixed with something with blue shanks. If she were crossed to a yellow pigmented bird (which Cochins are), she'd have yellow shanks and feet.