Mille Cochin Info

[miohippus]

Finally! Pics! I put a 3rd light in the shed, so I got pics while I was out there doing that and chores.
The shed is almost done. Almost...


Left side from the front. The 2x4's and windows were supposed to go in the south facing wall before it got cold. Ooops.
There are 2 totes under the first set of cages holding a lot of dishes, waters, feeders, the new vents (ooops again), meds that don't freeze, ect. My cages are under the 2nd one.


Right side - the south facing wall. Outdoor cats' feeder & waterer, cat/chicken carriers and misc stuff under these cages.
The cans are my chicken feed. There is grit and oyster shell in the buckets. Look! The timer for the lights is on the wall, too! It's working. I collected 5 eggs today!


Down the aisle. Three pens on the right (5x5, 4.5x5, 3.5x5) and 2 on the left (both are 6.5x5). The aisle needs finished (that 1' open section and the 5' solid plywood bottom will be pine tongue and groove and enclosed so I can use the aisle for a pen, too. It's 4'4"x13" and I am going to squeeze my 19 Ameraucanas in there. They are housed in a smaller area now... I just hope they don't realize they can get over the walls into the other pens. If so, they will go back out to the big 10x10 shed. I was trying to get everyone consolidated into one building for winter. Other than the geese and turkeys, I think I may be able to pull it off!


View from the back in the aisle out to the front of the shed. I wish I had used the pine tongue and groove on both sides now.

I did sweep it, but the birds made a mess already. I still have some molting and they really enjoyed dust bathing in the new shavings. And the dust! I didn't get the new vents in in time so the back window is cracked and I will have to be very vigilante on the condition of the pens now. I bought myself a new shop vac just for the shed for the winter to help with cleaning pens and clean up the dust.



These are the 2 cockerels I still have left from my hatching this year. Still recovering for the tail eater/s.


I love looking at these guys. These are my BC looking MFCs from Byron (BC x MFC) and Bridgette (BC x MFC?). Yeah, they are brothers and sisters. Yes, I am going to hatch out babies from them once I make my final cut. I am still waiting on tails to regrow here, too.


I am hoping Erin (MsBear) sees this one. My first official chocolate MFC pen. The MFCs are Millie and Mildred - my soon to be 4yr old girls I first got from Erin in June 2010. They still lay every other day in the "on" season. Considering they didn't start laying until they were a year old and they are broody 3 months a year, they better still be laying! The girls' first chocolate MFC daughter from this year is in the background of the picture in a separate pen.

More pics to come tomorrow the camera was being stupid and only these pics came out clear. I took over 50 pics tonight. Oh well. Camera is reset and ready to go again tomorrow!

love it

wish i could have a set up like that.

 

[wendychicklawyr]

ok my question is if i breed a mille fleur bantam to a standard white cochin will i get a standard mille fleur cochin? can i keep a couple bantams with about 40 standards and a couple standard roos?

 

[ki4got]

ok my question is if i breed a mille fleur bantam to a standard white cochin will i get a standard mille fleur cochin? can i keep a couple bantams with about 40 standards and a couple standard roos?

breeding white with anything, the results are not likely to be predictable. you might get back there after a number of generations, but it would take a lot of breeding and culling to do so... plus you'd have to weed out whatever mutations the white is hiding that you do NOT want in the mix, while ensuring that you do have the right ones... primarily buff Columbian and mottled.

as for standard to bantam breeding, I have no idea what size you'd be likely to get, nor how the type varies between the two.

 

[wendychicklawyr]

Ohhhh it's not that simple then huh lol

 

[ki4got]

Quote:
Ohhhh it's not that simple then huh lol

LOL nope not at all... chicken mutations can affect color (red or black pigments), the intensity of the pigment (making it lighter or darker), the pattern on the feather itself (solid, barred, penciled, etc) and the overall pattern on the bird (wild type, birchen, wheaten etc). black is able to override all of the color, intensity and body patterns, but some feather patterns are able to show through, such as barred or mottled. white, however, overrides ALL mutations, since it's simply a removal of all pigment from the feathers. so you could potentially have 8 or 10 different mutations going on within one white bird... some patterns like the laced varieties, require multiple mutations to cause just the single effect, plus the added color genes to give the layers of color desired.

so yeah there's a lot that goes on in chicken genetics. LOL

 

[wendychicklawyr]

Oh and the blue Gene is even more complicated ..I want to make blue wheatens but idk ..maybe I'll stick to cool looking eggs lol

 

[ki4got]

Oh and the blue Gene is even more complicated ..I want to make blue wheatens but idk ..maybe I'll stick to cool looking eggs lol

blue is easy. 1 copy is blue 2 copies is splash, none is black.

but if you want blue wheaten... what, cochins?

buff is on wheaten base. but you'd have to combine that with something that doesn't carry the blacktail gene to break up the lack of pattern. my choice would be a buff to a brown-red and second generation keep any cockerels that show the wing triangle and NOT the dilute gene (you might have mahogany but that's easy to eliminate later), then once you have a normal wheaten pattern, cross back to a lemon blue to incorporate the blue, and again probably second generation keep only birds with the correct color pattern and cockerels that DO have the wing triangle. brown-red and lemon blue don't, but wheaten does.

bypassing the first step and going straight to the lemon blue, you've got dilute in both birds, so you wouldn't be able to eliminate that.

 

[wendychicklawyr]

I want to get a blue wheaten americauna, so i was going to breed a blue americauna to a wheaten, but from what i understand i would have to breed back to a wheaten after the first generation, but then i read some where that wouldnt work either lol

 

[ki4got]

I want to get a blue wheaten americauna, so i was going to breed a blue americauna to a wheaten, but from what i understand i would have to breed back to a wheaten after the first generation, but then i read some where that wouldnt work either lol

blue wheaten Ameraucana already exist, so just breed blue wheaten to regular wheaten... that'll give you 50/50 no need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[wendychicklawyr]

I can't find bw local so I want to make them lol