Hey Kelly, you're off to an excellent start with the pair and eggs from Tate. I REALLY like that cockerel and I think I've already voiced that when seeing his pic a week or so ago on another thread. Nice job scoring him
I think the biggest issues we are all having is, of course, type. My birds are from Lynne and she bred Tom's buff columbians into the mix and, fortunately, that has created super nice type in the hen dept... for some reason, it isn't creating that great type with the roos.. they are too narrow (all of them, not just Lynne's) , stand too high and lack feathering in the cushion.
As far as color, we are all all over the map. Like the pic you showed of the two hens.. very different. Just be selective when culling but wait til they are fully mature to make those decisions as the mille color really changes as they grow out. Look for hens with good background color as well as black chevrons equally proportioned on the body. A "chevron" is the black stripe before the white tip on the feather. The columbian gene restricts this pattern so it is important to get away from that a bit before you start seeing nice mille pattern.
For the roos, many are turning out too dark and I believe this will cause problems further down the line... try to keep your nice red/mahogany ones with lots of white tips.
Good Luck and have fun.... and, if anyone would like to further this info, be my guest!!
