Problems with rose combs

Alaskan

The Frosted Flake
Premium Feather Member
15 Years
Jul 26, 2008
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Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
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I have been trying to breed dark brown rose comb Leghorns. My original stock is very nice, and has many good points. The problem was that this spring I found myself without a cock.

I ordered in a set of eggs and hatched them out, and MUCH to my enormous disappointment I actually hatched out one male rose comb dark brown Leghorn.

The order of eggs came with a number of extra other colors of Leghorns.


The one and only male RC dark brown Leghorn has the most horrid rose comb I have ever seen... It has a hollow in the front, and the points on the comb are giant fingers. His legs have a LARGE amount of dusky color over the yellow. His shape/form etc. Are OK but not great.. Tail might end up a bit high... His color looks good.

OK.... If I use him to breed, just how dominant is the comb hollow, and just how dominant are the excessively developed comb points/fingers? Using him on females with good combs, what percentage of the chicks will have 1. The deep comb hollow and 2. The large comb fingers?


My other breeding options are:

A RC black Leghorn that also has a number of faults (a bit too small, dusky legs, large meaty RC)

A SC white Leghorn that actually looks pretty good

A couple SC dark brown Leghorn that are good... Not great.... A bit too young still to know for sure

A RC Ancona


My thoughts... I REALLY wanted a rose comb cock so that I can have him over all of my hens (some of which are heterozygous for RC and a few are single comb) and ALL chicks produced will be RC. RC chicks sell MUCH better here in Alaska due to frost bite.

I am so upset with the RC dark brown Leghorn cockerel that I am wondering if I should give up on raising pure breed chicks... The RC Ancona should help with the yellow legs (really the main fault of my dark brown hens is that their legs are not bright yellow), and the RC Ancona has a much better comb.

So..... Should I use the horrid RC dark brown Leghorn? Or the much better RC Ancona? Or something else entirely?
 
My experience with Rosecomb comes from breeding Wyandotte.
The comb with a hollow and spikes is a definite disqualification for show.
Worse, The big ugly comb means the chicks will have single combs from hens with sc and could have spikes, inverted combs, extra leaders, or a nice comb from the RC hens. The negative issues you will spend several seasons correcting is not worth it.
You should be able to see the comb issues by 8 weeks. Cull hard.
 

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