Large Fowl Cochin Thread

[NanaKat]

Here are the pictures as promised.
These fellas will be a year old in April so they still have 8 months to a year to be fully grown. They are awesome cockerels. When you pick them up they are solid. The Big Blue boy in the back has already been in a breeding pen with 57 chicks hatched. The lighter Blue is shorter and more stocky. His light blue almost looks white in this picture.


Big Blue's backside with nice clear contrast in each tail feather.


Another view of Big Blue. He has great lacing on his chest feathers. His comb is nicely serrated. Feet and legs are a nice creamy yellow.


A side view of the light blue Cockerel...he is pale with a tannish blue hue to his hackle, wings and saddle and his tail is three colors. His comb is shorter but nicely serrated. In the next pictures you can see how full his tail is.



Third cockerel is also short and broad. He has a great temperament and coos all the time to the hens. His tail lacing is not as defined as Big Blue but has some nice contrast. His comb has serations with a deeper separation toward the back.

Big Blue on the left and a back side view of the 3rd cockerel

The contrast in his tail shows better here. He is nick-named High Stepper because he lifts each foot when he walks.

The black cockerel is still holding a few white feathers on his wing tips and feet. He is really tall and is nicknamed the Gentle Giant.

He has a really broad head

and a broad back. you can just see the white feathers on his foot.

and a nice full tail and rear


The babies from Big Blue are robust and colorful. They practically jumped out of their shells at hatch and were eatting and drinking in the hatcher on their own.

 

[joea]

What color should a red cochin chick look like I have one that's black with red on its head

 

[joea]

my reds Cochins

 

[dracoe19]

Wow Nanakat they look fantastic! Hopefully my boy will look at least close to your boys! If I am even in need of a new cockerel/rooster I know who to call . I want that black cockerel!

 

[tdhenson86]

WOW!!! Gorgeous!

 

[SoftBoiled]

This is a picture of BeauG - he is my first (and only one so far) Cochin. I named him after Bo Garrett from this forum. Bo, if he's a bad-looking rooster, my apologies, but he's beautiful to me. I'm told he's about 30 weeks old and hasn't crowed yet, so it's assumed he'll improve once the "baby fat" goes away. I am told he is a Black Birchen, but Bo you didn't list Birchen as an accepted colour, however you said you'd tried it as a project, so I don't know where Birchen sits in reference to the standard.

Anyway, since almost all of my knowledge of the Cochin breed comes from this forum, your comments (good or bad) would be most welcome. I wanted a Cochin more because of their reputed disposition and sweet nature, so I hope BeauG doesn't disappoint in that regard. Thanks in advance!

 

[Bo Garrett]

He is a birchen colored male and birchen large cochins are few and far between. I am honored that you would name him after me. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if he pleases you then he has pleased the most important person in his world. Cochins are very slow maturing and will not reach full size until around 22 months so give him time. His shape is more along the type of a Brahma but that may be due to the fact that Brahmas may be used to make this variety of LF Cochin. He may be your first Cochin but I assure you he'll not be your last, they very quickly capture a place in your heart.

Blessings to you,

Bo

 

[SoftBoiled]

Thanks for that Bo. I can see he is too long in the back for starters, he's not very round. If I look at some Brahma pictures side by side with Cochins I will understand your assessment better. I can also start looking for birchen hens that have better confirmation if I want to improve the type. One of the things I would like to do is pull out of this forum all of the "good bits" advice that you and other experts persons have offered to those of us who don't know enough to even know what we don't know, if that makes any sense, and put it all together in one place.

The first task for me with BeauG the rooster, however, is dodging the chicken police until I can move into a rooster-friendly neighborhood.
My very, very next door neighbor is a country boy and won't dob me in, but there are anti-rooster ears everywhere

I did think about naming him Desperado or Outlaw, but he just doesn't look the criminal type.

 

[SonRise Silkies]

Softboiled, you took the words right out of my mouth, I want to just "lurk" here and gather all the info I can.
I am a new convert to the LF Cochins. Just fell instantly in love with them.
I just got my hands on some this Thursday and they are all I expected and much more. So very, very sweet natured and beautiful.
I kind of got acquainted with Nanakat from a Bantam thread and I had not seen her Cochins, till I visited her place, and WOW talk about eye popping!
I am tickled to death now for finding this thread and seeing the pictures that she posted three days ago, when I was there I had taken my camera but was so absorbed in gawking at the birds I neglected to take pics and kicked myself ever since.
Now I find the pics here.....I wanted really bad to take home one of the gorgeous roosters but since I only have baby Cochins I didn't want to make the poor guy live alone for so long.
The big black Gentle Giant could be an ambassador for the bread, in fact so could Nanakat!!!
Thanks everyone for the great information and pictures.

 

[SoftBoiled]

Oh Sonrise! Lucky you, but I know what you mean to forget to take pictures.

I've been studying Nanakat's pictures as well, and the career of Chicken Rustler may experience a revival! [thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's Cochin's]

I started to do what I said about pasting "good bits" together, and made it up to page 8. So far the "good bits" fall into 3 main categories:

• Breeding / Genetics
• Gender clues
• Confirmation / Type

I think it will also require a glossary for some of the terms and abbreviations used: [what is a lethal allele, or is that just the title of a new action movie?]. Anyway, it will take a week or so to get it all pasted together. After that I suppose someone will need to review it for inaccuracies or gaps and hopefully post it as an article (or articles) somewhere.

I think some of the really knowledgeable people here would find it helpful to just be able to post a link to an article when they get questions like "is this a hen or a roo?" - there are things that can be watched for, and to have a list of indicators ready to hand (or ready to link) might save some repetitive answering. Plus, I think most people learn better when they take an active part in the learning process.

SoftB