Let's Talk Mille Fleur Cochin Bantams

[cjhilkin]

We got these 3 for my son to take to the fair. He got purples with the roo and pulley. Just started laying eggs!

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[The Moonshiner]

Our two cockerels that we"ll use in our Mille fleur/ blue mille fleur/ splash mille fleur/ naked neck/ frizzle pen this spring.
Excited to have one pen that will produce such a variety of chicks.

 

[ellymayRans]

It has taken my girls 10 months to start laying and I've been setting every egg!! Lol! I traded my first 8 chicks I hatched for a turkey hen. That was hard to do but worth it! I have hatched 6 more since and have another 18 in the incubator! Some of those are from a different line to add diversity.

I love the Cochin breed and have raised them for almost 5 years but have only added the MF pattern about 2 years ago. They are so pretty.
I will post some chick pics soon.

 

[terrim318]

You do have some beautiful birds. I just have a couple of questions. I had gotten a Mille Fleur d'Uccle and a Porcelain d'Uccle chick, but Millie didn't make it. I love the way they look, but I'm thinking they're smaller than what I want. I have a Barred Rock, a Barnevelder, and a couple of gold-laced. Are these the same as the d'Uccles or a little bigger? I'd like to get another in the spring with that coloring.

Thank you

 

[crazy4ChickensNducks]

i know this thread has been innactive for quite some time, but let me juts say i love my mille fleur and calico bantam cochins! i breed them and have about 50 chicks growing out right now! i have pictures of them on my facebook page
Feathers and Foliage Farm

 

[crazy4ChickensNducks]

I have two mille fleur cochin bantams. Their coloring isn't very good, but I'm not breeding them, so I don't really mind.

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you have 2 beautiful calicos!

 

[Birdie2019]

I'm not interested in breeding mille fleur cochins myself, but it seems like such an interesting color to get right! Is there a standard of how much black and white there is? A 'correct' shade of brown? A way that the colors/spots are supposed to be distributed? I don't know anything about the color and am super interested. @MadamPoofyBrow how is your breeding going?

Hello. Yes, you are correct. I’d done some chatting with MF breeders in the past. The correct shade of brown is an argument between breeders. Most of the breeders said that a dark Mahogany/Red color is acceptable (I will show pics for these examples). The hens should be dark like a dark buff, and roosters a deep mahogany, as stated above. Most people have too light of hens, some with too dark of roosters. The flowering itself (amount of black and white) is the hardest to get true. Each feather must have a “V” shaped black on the end of each feather, with white right beneath it. On the hackle and saddle feathers of a bird, the biggest issue I can see is too much black and/or too much white clumped up. I have some birds, and am working on them. Due to some deaths, we are left with two meh quality birds. The biggest issue is the tails aren’t as full/round as they should be. The rooster is a tad too long, and not as wide as his father was. But it’s a start. Gotta work with what I’m left with. Very small scale project. Just hoping to improve. The next issue after achieving perfect(ish) color AND type, is getting them to breed true. That’s where most are stumped. But most have wrong colors. There is another argument between starting with a “Wheaten” or “Partridge” base to get this pattern. Most birds with excessive black on hackle feathers, and with too light of hens, have been Partridge-based birds. My initial pair was Wheaten-based, and I haven’t had too much of an issue with it. However, it could be how far along the birds were developed when I got them. I hope this helped/made any sense at all to you. Took me a while to comprehend all this when I first started learning, and I’ve got a far way to go. Here are some pics for reference (not all are mine):
Initial pair, see how far along the birds are. Yet both still have tiny tails and are a bit long.
same issues with type, but his color is exactly what it should be. This is what I was told by other breeders. This rooster is no longer with us.


This is his mate, I would say she’s too light of a hen. She is a shade too light and has horrible type. However, what I had to use, as the other hen I got from the first pair was worse than her

This is Chase and Chloe’s daughter (only one I have left, sadly). I would say she is the correct color, and her type improved from her mom’s


I will pair her up with this rooster, the best type we have so far out of three remaining roosters. The hen is much better quality than he, but I hope to still get good color and typed birds from them.
I would select the chicks with the best type, as the #1 factor. But I will probably not use too light of hens, they’d most likely get culled as well. Any hen or rooster with too much black on hackle or saddle feathers will also go.
Hope this helped some. Hope you learned something.

 

[Birdie2019]

oh no i understood that, i guess what im trying to say is as your generations go on youyr hens at least dont have much black to go with the white so you keep getting a birds that almost resembles a wheaten mottled. i would bring in a heavily patterned mahogany boy or a heavily patterned hen, or use a black mottled boy over the hen to improve pattern.

Okay. Yeah I see. I agree with that as well. I plan to breed to a well typed mottled in the future because of that.
(I explain it here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/my-opinion-of-the-mf-cochin-bantam.76641/ )

 

[donrae]

You have some very pretty birds

We were at the poultry swap in Corvallis in October and my Honey fell in love with some of these birds. We came home with a dozen hatching eggs. Unfortunately, I'm down to one little pullet. I call her Paddlefoot

. Since he likes them so much, I'd like to get a little pen going come summer when we're settled at a new place and have a drier area to take care of those feathered feet.

 

[MadamPoofyBrow]

Thanks donrae!

I absolutely love these little guys! They are so sweet! Any pics of your pullet?