Mille Cochin Info

[wwmicasa1]

Lynne...Domingo makes great babies! These are his girls from the first hatch...

Gail

Gail,

I'm so glad you gave him a good home. It was hard letting him go. Do you plan on putting him with the pullets from Manolete? I bet that breeding would give you some great type.

 

[georgiagail]

One of Manoletes' pullets is in with him. The rest are in with his sons. Everyone seems content and look forward to their breakfasts of warm scrambled eggs and soaked seed.

Gail

 

[wwmicasa1]

One of Manoletes' pullets is in with him. The rest are in with his sons. Everyone seems content and look forward to their breakfasts of warm scrambled eggs and soaked seed.

Gail

Gail,

So not ignoring you~! I have not had any email notifications for about 10 days. I finally changed my email addy & today received my "first" notification of the threads I'm subscribed to. This new format will just take time.....

Glad you put one of "Man's" girls in with Domingo. I think you will have spectacular babies

 

[WestKnollAmy]

If you wanted to start from scratch you would breed a Mottled to a buff Columbian. It would take quite a few generations to work out the black hackle color and too much white or too much black but eventually you would get the white tips from the Mottled, the black chevrons from the Mottleds and the base color on the shaft of the feather in a gold or vermillion color. I do not think girls will have as much vermillion as the boys but there are happy mediums in each gender.
It takes a while still to get the right about white on the tip of the feathers and the correct size and shape of the black chevron but that is still miles down the road as I am not sure any of us have gotten to that detailed point yet. We are still working on the basics. Unless no one has let us know how far along they are.

I know for me, that is years away as I am trying to get my color and pattern to stick while keeping in the type. Every year I cull as best I can and work with what I have left. And sometimes I have taken grand- or great grand kids back to the foundation stock to work on some other improvements.
I think I am one of the few that started with very little and have bred as much as possible so I can select the very best to keep.

It is going to be a long slow road but to see so many out there selling eggs and calling them just Mille Fleur when this is a real project is troubling. The pattern may be there on some but the type would not be worth putting before a judge. There are a few great breeders on this thread that I have seen some fantastic birds from them and they are making huge strides but those are ones that are truly dedicated and probably horde the best eggs for themselves so they can improve what they have. I personally have one pen I have not sold out of because that is my best hope so far and the kids are looking awesome. Still project birds though. All 7 breeding pens are project birds for me and I always get "keepers" out of all of them but there is one pen that I absolutely have to keep every egg laid and hope it will benefit me.

Buff Columbians and Mottleds are very typy from the right breeders. That is a great place to start. Good luck!

 

[fairwindminishetland]

Thanks for your insights, I am just beginning but love people that are dedicated to doing it right! Will do all I can to learn this and improve with what I have, especially what I am getting from you Amy!

 

[pinetown]

I would appreciate your opinions. I started with these two pictured above. But, after only seven chicks I lost both of them to a Goshawk. I have two what I'd call Calico hens pictured below, one barred rooster (which is from the above rooster and a barred Cochin hen) and four buff Columbian's that I have not been able to sex yet (I have pictured two below). If one of the buff Columbia's is a rooster, can I breed him to the Calico hens and expect Calico or Mille offspring? What if I breed two of the buff Columbian's together? If none of the buff Columbian's are roosters, can I use the barred rooster or will this not give me a Calico or Mille? I'm just a backyard chicken gal and am not looking for SQ chickens.

Thanks for Looking,
Janice in the Sierra

 

[ki4got]

I would appreciate your opinions. I started with these two pictured above. But, after only seven chicks I lost both of them to a Goshawk. I have two what I'd call Calico hens pictured below, one barred rooster (which is from the above rooster and a barred Cochin hen) and four buff Columbian's that I have not been able to sex yet (I have pictured two below). If one of the buff Columbia's is a rooster, can I breed him to the Calico hens and expect Calico or Mille offspring? What if I breed two of the buff Columbian's together? If none of the buff Columbian's are roosters, can I use the barred rooster or will this not give me a Calico or Mille? I'm just a backyard chicken gal and am not looking for SQ chickens.

Thanks for Looking,
Janice in the Sierra

the 2 i quoted above, are they the same age? if so, the first pic looks like a cockerel and second like a pullet... i'd pair those 2 together IMO... I really like the cockerel. can't really see much of the pullet but she's cute too.

 

[pinetown]

The two light ones are different ages. One was hatched in June and is laying the other was hatched the first of October. She's the only hen that I'm sure about so far from the October hatch.

Janice
in the Sierra

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Thanks for your insights, I am just beginning but love people that are dedicated to doing it right! Will do all I can to learn this and improve with what I have, especially what I am getting from you Amy!

Thank you. It is a long process and so many folks just want to buy something already made, not understanding that we have yet to perfect them to breed correctly. This is a project for now and dedication is what it will take to make them acceptable. We do not have perfect ones to sell and seldom will we just sell hens.

Lynne has some of the most perfect ones I have seen so far and I am working hard to try and catch up with her. But looking at hers inspires me to try more for pattern as I have been breeding in a lot of the Mottleds to try and keep my type from being lost. I think I have one close to perfect on every hundred I hatch. Those and more wind up staying.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I would appreciate your opinions. I started with these two pictured above. But, after only seven chicks I lost both of them to a Goshawk. I have two what I'd call Calico hens pictured below, one barred rooster (which is from the above rooster and a barred Cochin hen) and four buff Columbian's that I have not been able to sex yet (I have pictured two below). If one of the buff Columbia's is a rooster, can I breed him to the Calico hens and expect Calico or Mille offspring? What if I breed two of the buff Columbian's together? If none of the buff Columbian's are roosters, can I use the barred rooster or will this not give me a Calico or Mille? I'm just a backyard chicken gal and am not looking for SQ chickens.

Thanks for Looking,
Janice in the Sierra

If you are going to continue to breed MF or calicos then do not breed in barred. You will get barred. As I guess you have already seen.
Are you sure that bottom barred bird is a roo? Sure looks like a girl to me.
All those above look like girls to me. But it could be age and angle of photos that say that to me.

If you breed the buff Columbian to your calico you will most likely get a buff Columbian with a bit of white on it when it is about 4 months old. Your calicos above may even darken a bit and lose some of that white. Mine usually do.
If you want calicos or MF do not breed your Columbians together. they seem to be more dominant and will give you more Columbians.
If one of your Colimbians turns out to be a roo then use that over the MF/Calico. Do not use the barred at all and only keep the lightest colored birds. Sell all other Columbians and breed brother and sisters together with the best pattern and a really nice roo back to his mom and the others. It may take a few generations but you can get them built up. You may never get close to the true MF pattern but you may make some pretty backyard birds and cool looking calicos.