Mille Cochin Info

[wwmicasa1]

Quote:
Erin, they look terrific~! I'm so impressed with everyone's efforts this past year. We are heading in the right direction. As soon as it cools (gosh what a Summer & still going strong) I will start setting up breeding pens. I'm pleased with my progress this year. I have about 11 pullets that look really good & about 2-3 cockerels......and "the beat goes on"....

 

[Reyvaughn]

Erin, they are really nice!



... I know where you live... Mwhahahahaaa!

j/k!

 

[Msbear]

Hey Bobbie, I wish I had a little something special for you at the swap. As you can see I only wound up with a very few decent birds. I swapped out my only decent mille roo with the partridge cross too early. I wound up losing a bunch of those chicks and, by the time, I realized I should've kept him.. it was way too late. I have two males on their way from NY right now. fingers crossed they make it here ok. I am hoping they save me in my boy dept. next year. Lessen learned... again. I think I already learned that lesson a few times

I'll post pics when I get them, E

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I am really sorry to flood you with pictures again, but I am really loving these two...

Amy, I named her after you because... Well, it was easier than "Pullet from Amy's Eggs". Her sister is Amilia. Hahahaaa!
I am loving her type. She is by far the nicest pullet I have had at this age so far. I will let Byron or Junior cover her when she's old enough.





Again, I fail at names, so this is Junior - Byron's son. OMG, look at his shape! He has his dad's attitude, but with type like that, I can ignore it like I do his dad's temper. Um, the first picture is not the best of him, but he would not calm down and stand in a natural position long enough for me to get a good picture.
I will let him have the girls I have from Katelyn that have breast flowers and the sole partridge girl from Luckypicken's eggs.





I am very excited that I started my breeding pens today, too. They will be 2'x4' wall mount pens so I can house at least trios (maybe a quad if I get desperate) together in less space. They are supposed to be furnished with nipple waterers, roll-out nests and 4" PVC gravity feeders. Hopefully I can set up the water like I want w/ a rain barrel, in barrel heater and heated water lines so I don't have to defrost during the winter. I am trying to cut down from 14 feeders and waterers spread out all over an acre to 2 large coops and all the bantam Cochins in the breeder pens. I will keep the Cochin Condo I built for a grow-out pen/back-up.

Yes, I am way behind! So sorry to just now be able to try and catch up.

Love the sound of your breeding pens! I so wish I had time and energy for more! I would like to build like yours sound! Super! I want to see photos!

LOL I name my birds after people I get them from, too. That is one way to keep up with them. They have leg tags but I like to name my roos so I can write on the eggs from their pens. Some girls have names, too.
You can see how the Mottled adds so much type to the MF breeding. The offspring from these girls will give you some really super MF like what Nancy has gotten from her MF/Mot girl from me. Super type and great color.

I seriously need to cut back on my MFs but they are so pretty! I can't do it! I have about 28 pullets that I should probably sell but I love them all so much. I have way too many favorites and they are really much too nice to let go. I know I should let some of my inbred girls go with some MF roos so I don't keep breeding them into my same lines but then I pick them up and look them over and they coo at me. Can't do it! Can't let go!
And this is how the crazy chicken lady gets over 100 MF and MF/Mottled bantam Cochins.
And I am still waiting on a photo from Mike with another young lady! I just know I will love her! But at least that is breeding outside my bloodlines.
BTW, I need to PM Mike and let him know I hatched a chipmunk striped MF chick from his eggs. My first! Most of my chicks hatch yellow or black, depending on parents.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I got out and took some pics of next year's breeders today. I also outcrossed to blue mottled this year for a bit extra fun. Here are some blue pullets that are a result of that breeding mixed in with two pullets from a partridge/mille cross roo x mille hens and two pullets I kept from mille x mille.


Here is the only roo I kept from the blue mottled crosses


Here is my best "mille" pullet I hatched this year in the middle. Her type is pretty good and I like her head. She has lots of chevrons coming in on her breast but not so much in her cushion.






Here is one of the partridge F2's and I do love her color but, it needs to be lighter and her type wasn't greatly improved on at all.

Here's another nice mille girl I got this year. She's washed out in her base color but her type and markings I am very happy with. In the rear view you can see the teardrop white points on every wing feather edge.



I kept a handful of the blue mottled cross girls. I plan to put them to my ONLY orange vermillion boy I have. I had two others that were much better typed but, were culled due to sickness



Here's one of the partridge F2 boys. His color is vibrant though too dark. I may put him over my older mille breeders next year and see what I get. His type is mediocre at best and he has split breast.




Orange vermilion boy below.. very little black

another shot of my best girls



Thanks for sharing all the pics everyone. It's so nice to see how everyone else is doing too!

You have some real hum dingers! Absolutely wonderful! Love seeing how well they are all doing.

 

[Reyvaughn]

Hey Bobbie, I wish I had a little something special for you at the swap. As you can see I only wound up with a very few decent birds. I swapped out my only decent mille roo with the partridge cross too early. I wound up losing a bunch of those chicks and, by the time, I realized I should've kept him.. it was way too late. I have two males on their way from NY right now. fingers crossed they make it here ok. I am hoping they save me in my boy dept. next year. Lessen learned... again. I think I already learned that lesson a few times

I'll post pics when I get them, E

I feel your pain. I am short in the rooster department. I wish I had kept Milton now. He was so slow to develop good type, though. I didn't realize until it was to late. I do have Junior coming in nicely and another one of his brothers. Otherwise, I have Byron. Of course, the one time I hope to hatch cockerels from Amy's eggs, I get a single chick and it's a pullet. Both times.

My breeding pens have made no progress and I opted against the roll out pens. To much for me to strain my brain over. My husband has been working for my mom's boyfriend on weekends and my mom messed her back up bad and has been laid up for about a week. So, I've spent most of my time there. Maybe this week I can get something done with the pens. I need to here soon, because I want to cut my chore time/pens in half for winter.

 

[Helen in the Desert]

Why do you cross with Partrige? Doesn't that mess with the millie colour or is there a specific reason behind it?

 

[bantyman]

You cross with the partridge to throw n type Kinda like using the mottleds to put in type But the only problem with using partridge is the color tends to get a bit dark Its a beautiful mahogany red but its to dark for the millie which should be a vermillion Did this help ?

Mike

 

[Msbear]

Exactly, Mike. There are many different ways down the road to mille fleur. In the US, though, we are limited. Wheaten cochins, for example, are rather rare here. We (most on this thread) began this trip using what was available and that was buff columbian (which contains the wheaten gene) and mottled. After a few years of breeding, we realized that the columbian gene is working hard to restrict breast flowers from the MF females. Mike and I both tried adding partridge to see if this can correct it. And, it did.. right away. But, it also changed the base color of both sexes to a mahogany color rather than the rich buff we were used to. I still plan on using the partridge but am putting them back to the buff based birds to see how this helps... (all the while breeding the buff based together as well as to not set myself back). Around the world, cochins (or pekins) in mille fleur look very very different just like the belgian d'uccle does around the world. Mille Fleur is extremely complex and many agree it is the absolute toughest variety to get right. If you take a pair from one breeder of d'uccles (an established breeder and winner in the show ring) and you breed from that pair, you will continue to see success in the pattern. BUT, if you take another pair from a different show breeder and cross the two pairs, you may get a mess. That's because the genes used to make that pattern may be very different. So, whatever path you choose, it will be a very long time of hard culling to get it right.

Here's some examples in pekins around the world.

First we see how the columbian gene is working hard to restrict black on these birds. These are buff columbian based birds. I am not saying this is wrong. It CAN be improved upon... it's just one idea vs. another. I have basically two lines right now and my buff columbian based birds are looking better. I just have an ace up my sleeve if need be. I have the room and the ability to have multiple breeding pens so I can see for myself what works better.



I would say these guys are wheaten based by the black on the breast and the stippling in the female's wing feathers.



below is a french pullet. I don't really know what she's working with but, I'd sure like to. I expect eb (partridge) as her all over pattern is so striking. She is also a shade darker than our buff columbian or wheaten based hens.




Here's a fat boy from Whales. He is wheaten based as I read about him a bit.



a few fun links to mess with your mind
http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7999189

http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8013941&start=0

http://www.chickencolours.com/TollbuntWyanEng.pdf

 

[Msbear]

Well.. my boys are here!!! Yay and Im so happy with them. Time to unload my others.. shew. I was getting worried. The breeder that had these boys had been working on mille for a couple of years before me. He didn't have the room to continue and these were the last of his mille bred birds. I asked what he used and he said he started with buff columbian and mottled and NEVER introduced partridge.. well.. hum . I guess I'm ditching the partridge route because those flowers look pretty darned good.

boy #1 lighter in color and has better type






boy #2 darker and a bit younger, I believe