Creating the MF Pattern

[amazondoc]

Quote:
Do you have any pics of those?

 

[tadkerson]

I thought the birds were wild type but I see that the birds are wheaten.
In order to get the orange/gold color on a millie fluer feather the female must be columbian restricted. Without the columbian, the feathers will be a brown salmon color with the black chevron and a white tip.

If the bird was wild type, then the columbian would not clear the stippling from the female feathers. The pheomelanin pigment in the tri color would not be clean but heavily stippled. The females would also have a salmon colored breast and not the orange gold (ginger) breast associated with the columbian gene.

Either way you do not have a millie fleur because the colors are not correct.

I should have added more details to my explanation and not used the word pattern but color pattern.

Tim

 

[Krys109uk]

Do you have any pics of those?

I put mottling from exchequer leghorns onto e+ brown leghorns back in Britain. I thought it rather interesting. I have photos of some of those bird on a disc somewhere.....I've moved house three times. I've been looking for the disc for a while.

I hadn't taken any photos of the mottled wheatens. I've given all but one moth eaten looking hen away. They were supposed to be being Marans but the egg colour would take too long. I've got more than enough projects, & not enough space.

I have one 8 week old mottled silver/gold wheaten male (very attractive, but got to go) & possibly some youngsters just feathering up. I can get a photo of him. I haven't looked to see whether any of the younger chicks are mottled & wheaten yet. If they are I'll get pics.

 

[Henk69]

"moth eaten", that is a funny abbreviation of "mottled wheaten"...

 

[Krys109uk]

LOL.....the moth had the colour from the mottles?

She's free range during the day & seems pretty popular with the boys.

 

[cochinman2005]

I've been reading this thread with great interest. I thought I would add a couple photos of some of what I've experienced crossing a Mottled male X Buff Columbian female. The first 2 photos below are f1 male and female from this cross. While they look nothing like a Mille Fleur, I am trusting in the genetics. This spring I crossed the male with the Buff Columbian female in the third photo, and have several variations from that cross. I also crossed a Buff Columbian male to the f1 female in the photo. The youngsters are all over the map as far as color as you can see in a couple of the last photos.

Hopefully I uploaded the photos correctly.

 

[Krys109uk]

Cochinman, how very interesting. Thank you.

The mottling in some of your birds looks quite extreme. Was the mottling in your original mottled male extreme?

They're not a bit as I'd have expected. First it looks as if your mottled male carried silver instead of gold....which wouldn't be helpful & it looks as if he was not extended black.

When I've crossed mottled birds to other colours the offspring have been black, some with leakage. From looking at your F1s I'd guess that your mottled male was birchen, maybe?

 

[cochinman2005]

Tom Roebuck here.
Nope, mottling on the original male was pretty sparse actually. I didn't want to have an overmarked male to start out with so chose an undermarked ckl. I had another pullet that would have passed for a Columbian that was a full sister to the female in the second photo. The female in the second photo actually has a salmon colored breast with some mottling. Realistically, I would need to hatch a couple hundred of these things in order to get a good idea of the pattern results, but since I already hatch around 500 chicks (550 this year), I didn't bother hatching a ton of this little project. What you can't tell from the young bird photos is that they are starting to come in with a few Mille Fleur looking feathers here and there. The ckl with all the white will actually be much darker. His adolescent feathers are coming in more Buff Columbian looking. As the birds mature I'll update the photos.

 

[La Unica Farms]

Thank you to whoever started this post!!

I purchased some MF bantam cochin eggs from the wonderful Lynne and I hatched out 5 beautiful chicks. These chicks are growing nicely and are already displaying some really nice colors. At this point though I am fairly certain that I have ended up with 3 Roos and 2 hens. I plan to rotate the Roos and to get offspring that I can cross back to the unrelated Roo but I was also considering the idea of crossing them on some of my extra bantam cochin hens to bring in fresh blood. I was wondering which hens would be the best candidates for preserving the MF coloring. Here is what I have
1 black hen
1 mottled hen ( avatar )
1 buff hen
3 partridge hens

I can post pictures of each ( as well as my MF ) if needed.

 

[wwmicasa1]

Quote:
Tom,

I am "thrilled" (even beyond thrilled) that you have joined BYC. We NEED your knowledge & experience!!!

Here is a pic of one of my F2 pullets that started from your beautiful Buff Columbian hens. I cannot tell you how enthralled I am not only with this breed but the personality traits that must have come from your girls.

My F3's are in the grow-out pen & of the 100 or so that I have hatched in the last 3 months, I have 4 pullets & 2 cockerels that look worthy as far as color. There is nothing out there that can compare to the "type" you have produced. Hopefully mines will measure up someday.