Laced Brahma's (Selecting for best offspring)

[Brahma13]

I have recently got back into chickens after being away for 20 years and my favorite breed was Brahma's. Back then there were either Dark or light and to my surprise there are all kinds of colors out there. My wife really liked the Buff laced and we needed to have gold laced to make better buff laced.
So we ordered 24 fertile eggs to hatch out with our kids and ended up with 8 buff laced and 4 gold laced. We actually like the gold laced more than we thought.
I have attatched pics of our birds and right now they are 5 months old and I am getting ready to select the ones we will keep and the ones that will go. (Atleast not be bred, kids like the ones I would get rid of) No, Not eat, just find new homes for.

As you can see below I ended up with 5 buff laced roosters and 1 gold laced rooster and this is where I want to make sure I keep the better genetic roosters instead of the ones we like. Would you select for best lacing or best color ?
For those who have been breeding these birds, please let me know what ones you would chose to pass on genetics and why ?


This Roo is the most Personable but is very read and has minor splashes of Black

Second of the Red Colored Roo's, keeps his wings down a lot but has nice chest lacing

Almost the same Roo as above but keeps his wings up and more streamlined

I think this is my best overall roo other than the first Red one above

Single Comb nice soft(Best) buff color and lots of black splashing (Think this ones gotta go ?)

The one and Only Gold laced roo to hatch and he is Awesome

Now for the Ladies

This hen started off almost all white and has slowly been getting better and better lacing as new feathers come in.

Very Happy with this Hen (Little black specks here and there but hope they will molt out)

Another Nice hen with almost no black (She is best hen)

Love our Gold Laced hens, by far have the best lacing, this one is a real light coler compared to the 2 below

Real good lacing and rich color, full body

Our Best Gold Laced Hen, She is a wonderful girl (So friendly)

 

[big medicine]

You're not going to like this, but the first thing that catches my eye is/are wing issues.

The male with the droopy wing obviously, as well as several others who's primaries do not lay properly. The second last gold laced pullet appears to be the only female(and possibly the very light pullet) who's wings lay properly. I had simliar problems with my original silver laced Cochins many years ago. All you can do is avoid using breeders that show it, and cull hard for it, eventually, over time, you should be able to breed away from it.

 

[Brahma13]

No problem. I always wondered why some of themwhen I fan the wings out looks different and they are tending to fill in better as they molt. However the roosters show it the most and some of the pics they are scratching around. I always thought the females had the best form. Do you feel that any of the roosters are worthy ? I was hoping to have a decent start to a flock and will probably keep them more as pets for the kids as they love them, but do wan tto get some high quality birds in there. Thank you for the honest criticism

 

[Brahma13]

What is the root cause of the drooping wing. It is not a development thing that will go away. So what you are saying is to scrap them all except possibly 2 of them.