Let's Talk Mille Fleur Cochin Bantams

[crazy4ChickensNducks]

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):View attachment 2686996
Initial pair, see how far along the birds are. Yet both still have tiny tails and are a bit long.
View attachment 2686997View attachment 2686998View attachment 2686999same 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.
View attachment 2687001

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
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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

View attachment 2687008View attachment 2687009
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.

i would bring in some better heavily patterned mille's to use, it appears that the birds you have now are just progressively turning away from mille fleur. they are loosing their patetrn quite rapidly.

 

[Birdie2019]

i would bring in some better heavily patterned mille's to use, it appears that the birds you have now are just progressively turning away from mille fleur. they are loosing their patetrn quite rapidly.

It may have been a little confusing. I showed the two birds I got a pair from. They weren’t that good. They hatched Chase and Chloe, who of which lived to be one and two years old. From there, they hatched the last two birds, Cashew and Casey. I think you may have confused Chase and Cashew as the same bird, and Chloe and Casey as the same bird. The current generation is only just getting their flowering in. They will be fully feathered around two years, and probably gain all their flowering in at around three years. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[crazy4ChickensNducks]

It may have been a little confusing. I showed the two birds I got a pair from. They weren’t that good. They hatched Chase and Chloe, who of which lived to be one and two years old. From there, they hatched the last two birds, Cashew and Casey. I think you may have confused Chase and Cashew as the same bird, and Chloe and Casey as the same bird. The current generation is only just getting their flowering in. They will be fully feathered around two years, and probably gain all their flowering in at around three years. Sorry for the confusion.

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.