Self-Blue Cochin Bantams

[cochinman2005]

With Buffs if you breed two extremes in color (light X dark) you wind up with very uneven colored birds. It will interesting to see how much variance in shades with the Self-Blue can be tolerated before it impacts the overall color quality of the Self-Blue color. With Buffs I try to match color of the female to the breast color of the male while focusing on good solid undercolor on both sides if possible. This year with my large Buff Rocks, I intentionally bred some mismatched (male to female) birds because of type and other factors. As expected I did get some birds with very uneven color. Comes with the territory if you are trying to improve type.

 

[Msbear]

I like the last pullet pictured.. very nice. And, yes.. what a difference.

 

[dak]

Is there a shade of self-blue that you are shooting for?

And, yes, type comes first.

 

[cochinman2005]

Quote:
The shade of the birds in the photos is about right for me. Certainly not lighter. The APA Standard calls for a "medium shade of clear blue, free from lacing, shaftiness, mealiness, and messiness, with nontrast in color between any of the sections, a harmonious blending of all sections being desired..."

I think if you get too dark or too light you'll inevitably rub into color issues.

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Quote:
The shade of the birds in the photos is about right for me. Certainly not lighter. The APA Standard calls for a "medium shade of clear blue, free from lacing, shaftiness, mealiness, and messiness, with nontrast in color between any of the sections, a harmonious blending of all sections being desired..."

I think if you get too dark or too light you'll inevitably rub into color issues.

Why is there a difference between the APA and ABA definitions of Self-Blue? It's not that big a difference, but it could be left open to interpretation. The ABA call for "an even shade of light slaty blue". I think I light the light slaty blue description better. But you would think the two groups could work in unison.

 

[cochinman2005]

The two standards have lots of instances where the descriptions don't match. There is an effort underway I believe to bring them more in line with each other.

 

[mjgigax]

Quote:
Bravo!

Can't wait to see them in a few more months.
Thank you for the update!

 

[mjgigax]

I'm posting to move the thread up and to ask a question.
I now have my first generation of Lav./SB crossed to SQ black. When I breed these back to the Lav./SB parent I understand there will be an average of 75% black/25% Lav./SB chicks. Will the black chicks carry the Lavender gene?

Hope everyone's birds are doing well. It has been a hard summer for birds (black esp.) here in OK.

 

[cochinman2005]

I wouldn't breed the f1's back to Lavender. you need to breed the f1's together. from and f1 x f1 mating you will get 25% SB, 50%SB split to Black, and 25% Black. Since the Blacks and the splits are identical looking I would cull all the Black chicks out of the incubator. There's no way to tell which are splits and which are pure blacks so it's a waste of time to keep them.

To answer your question though, if you were to breed the f1 splits back to the Self-Blue parents, you'd get 50% SB's and 50% splits. Bigger percentage of SB's but by breeding the f1's back to their inferior typed SB parents you are taking a step backward.

 

[mjgigax]

Quote:
Thank You.