Hey Patty, Gator, Mike and other mille cochin enthusiasts

[JOSHSBANTAMS]

Hey guys, here's a picture of a younger pair I'm hoping to get going with.

What do you think?

 

[tate]

Quote:
Yeah, I have one black in the back there and Im thinking that will be the case. I have another two darker ones in the front that makes me curious but Im really hoping on the two reddish buffs and the liver on the left.

Here's the pair I have... the buff columbian cross was broody so I didn't get her.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/10091_100_4281-1.jpg
I understand my roo needs some help in the type dept but Im loving his color.

ETA: I updated my post with the chicky shoot to show pics of a mille fleur d'uccle chick. The coloring of that chick is very similar to the coloring of a couple of my chicks... hence my excitement

I guess only time will tell.

the thing is everyone is breeding the roosters to dark if you put a d'uccle or old english milli next to a milli cochin you will see what i mean i have been working on this if you look at the pics i posted yesterday you will see a couple not much on taking pics one is alot better than the pic shows

 

[Krys109uk]

the females seem to be lacking the black striping and I thought this had something to do with the silver gene as it seems sex-linked.

Your bird are very unlikely to have any silver. Silver is incompletely dominant & sex linked; you would see it & you wouldn't be able to turn it gold without mahogany & probably autosomal red(s).

Like Tim (& Sigi) said it is probably more to do with the wheaten gene. It makes sense. The males wouldn't have any trouble with black as wheaten males have plenty of black pigment. The females do not.
I have been thinking about the genes. Jubilee Orps are on wheaten & have no trouble with lack of black. The main difference being they are all 'pure' for columbian & for mahogany. Also Amazondoc has many beautifully coloured birds on wheaten. I'd have thought being 'pure' for columbian would be a place to start.

I just know that mille d'uccle chicks on feathersite hatch with that darker, liver color with reddish in the face.

Quite so. They are on brown down which is usual for millie Belgians at least in EU. They're brown with lighter goldish heads, (which is due to the presence of columbian; columbian in some breeds, makes the down colour in the wing area lighter too).

I'm curious about the very dark chicks. All of the adults look a good ground colour. I couldn't see any very dark adults. Were any of the parents of the chicks very dark?

So with the vulture hocks, they diminish but don't 'go away'? That's interesting.

Afaik there have been three studies done on vulture hocks. The first & last studies concluded that they were a simple recessive gene. In other words if you see it then it is 'pure' for vulture hocks & does not have any non vulture hock genes.
The second study concluded that vulture hocks were slightly apparent in the 'split' birds. In other words it would show slightly if the bird had one gene for vulture hocks & one gene for not vulture hocks.
With those studies it would seem a good plan, if breeding from a bird which had had any sign of vulture hocks, to be certain the bird(s) with which it was being mated did not have any sign of vulture hocks.​

 

[JOSHSBANTAMS]

I've been raising a dozen D'uccles for my dad side by side with my Cochins and I've had several of my chicks colored the same as them. All of the D'uccles I had were a dirty blonde color at hatch and turned reddish as they matured. I figured I'd go with their down color in the future.

 

[amazondoc]

Quote:
Thanks.

Annoyingly, though, I do seem to have sex-linked issues going on. Although I've got several pullets with nice markings, I am having a lot of trouble coming up with a really good cockerel. Either they turn out with all the black mottling I've posted about before, or they are red mottled without the good even red/black/white patterning. Very annoying.

I think I need to look at a lot of "real" mille fleur rooster pics, to get a good idea of what they're "supposed" to look like!

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
Thanks.

Annoyingly, though, I do seem to have sex-linked issues going on. Although I've got several pullets with nice markings, I am having a lot of trouble coming up with a really good cockerel. Either they turn out with all the black mottling I've posted about before, or they are red mottled without the good even red/black/white patterning. Very annoying.

I think I need to look at a lot of "real" mille fleur rooster pics, to get a good idea of what they're "supposed" to look like!

I have three very different colored roos and only one hen...one roo is buff/white/black (with too much white), one is black headed with a buff/mottled/quasi-mille fleur breast and mottling and the other is a bright red with a little black around the edges and some white mottling on his feet. Sighs. My hen is close to the first mentioned roo. I want to have two pens going at once (I already have two different lines) but I'd like to get a third...

 

[ShysCreations]

Hard to believe these newbies lined up light, medium & dark on all their own!

But this will be a good group to track development, I am particularly interested in the 2 lighter chicks as I'm trying for a creamy base, maybe sometime even a mottled buff.

Someone earlier mentioned dark roosters and I'd agree, they seem to run dark. Though Rosemary @ Alpine farm has a lighter breasted roo so maybe that will carry on in her roos she hatches.
MSbear you can be proud.... certainly a nice MFC pair, I really like the shape of the hen.
Josh--your roo has great type! I'd like to improve my roo with a shorter back & more cushion

 

[onthespot]

I have this cockerel that I got directly from tate. I think if any of you are getting "far afield" genetics wise, it would just be quicker-faster-better-cheaper to contact him and get some stock directly from him. He has been working on them now 8-9 years and is just ahead of the rest of us in terms of knowing by eyeballing it what is keeper stock and what is a waste of time. I would just knuckle under and get from him if you want a shortcut to the good stuff.

 

[onthespot]

I saved back this guy just because of his fantastic cushion. Here is a pic of him back in February.

and here is a bad, quick shot of him today, just "BOO! Say cheese!" kind of a shot. LOL

I kept him specifically because of his fantastic, smooth, rounded tush. Plus he is sweet as pie and a very good bird. I plan to use him on my very best marked mille fleur hens and cross myfingers for something very good. His father is mille fleur cochin, his mother is black mottled cochin, no mille genetics in her background.

 

[Krys109uk]

I plan to use him on my very best marked mille fleur hens and cross myfingers for something very good. His father is mille fleur cochin, his mother is black mottled cochin, no mille genetics in her background.

He looks like he's 'split' for silver.​