If his tail fills out well he could have some potential. It's always so hard to tell from a photo, but in the situation you describe I would base it on how you want to breed next year. If you want to go White to White and he's your best White cockerel then keep him. If you don't necessarily care if you go all White breeding for next year, as Mikaela said a few posts ago, just keep the best male. We are lucky as Langshan breeders with the line up of genetics and varieties that we have that it is entirely possible to just breed for type and let the colors fall out how they will unless you specifically need and are shooting for one specific color. The worst problems I've ever heard of from mixing Langshan colors is occasionally whites will have lighter eyes and pass them on to other colored offspring and supposedly blacks from a blue breeding can have less sheen and slightly lighter under color. In my younger days I found that that rarely was an issue and all three varieties from all sorts of color pairings showed just fine.Any thoughts on the quality of this white cockerel? He's about 24 weeks old and I am trying to decide if I should re-home him in favor of the three black cockerels that we have...but he seems to have a nice shape and the white langshan pullet that we have is nicer than the black langshan pullets. So hard to decide... I should also say that he isn't nearly as nice as the blacks. Much more aggressive, but beautiful just the same.
(Will that make their meat taste gamey?)
Thought I'd share a picture of one of my White pullets. Somewhere around 10-12 weeks old
The two black pullets I'm keeping, roughly four months (Bit long in back but deep chest, they'll go nicely with my White cock bird that doesn't have much of a chest), as you can see I feed them OEGB culls. The Blue trying to sneak into the picture is about 8 or 9 months now I think, don't have any recent photos of her solo.
Thanks for the pictures BGMatt and barkersbirds. I don't know enough to critique but I'm following along. I had no idea about breeding recessive white. I've not been a big fan of white chickens in general, but these are winning me over. Good information to tuck away.
Any thoughts on the quality of this white cockerel? He's about 24 weeks old and I am trying to decide if I should re-home him in favor of the three black cockerels that we have...but he seems to have a nice shape and the white langshan pullet that we have is nicer than the black langshan pullets. So hard to decide...
I should also say that he isn't nearly as nice as the blacks. Much more aggressive, but beautiful just the same.
Interesting! My splash are the ones with lighter eyes.
This is my huge 25 week old blue cockerel! My head hen hatched him along with 2 pullets and he is happily roaming my backyard with the girls. He has yet to crow so I get to keep him in town for a while yet. He is not a perfect example but I am still hoping that he will fill out more and grow into his long legs. His back is long, his chest is not deep enough, and his tail spread is more narrow than I would like. But he is huge! Half of my hens could walk underneath his body! He was not sure what I was up to with the camera so he has his neck stretched out more than usual. He keeps his eyes on everything happening in the backyard and lets the others know when there is danger near by.
This is one of his hatchmates. She was also leery of the camera so she would not put her tail up. I do like her dark color.
