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Now on to the lavender Ameraucanas and bantam lavendern Cochins
I'd love to see some great lookin lavender cochins. I've only seen a handful though. They seem to look small and slim, not at all like a bowling ball like they should. I've seen picture's of Tom's and those are looking pretty good, but really...I haven't seen anyone else's that come close and Tom isn't the "sharing" type. (not to be mean, they are his birds...but, you would think he would be looking for more people to help along the progress.)
I think Tom would rather cut off his hands than let inferior an Cochin off his property. He is truly interested in improvement of the breed and has spent a considerable amout of time and knowledge mentoring my dumb newbie self. That said his birds aren't cheap, but if you show a willingness to obtain quality and work toward improvement, he will help. The f4 lavender bantams will be hatching this spring. He has already said he will cull every black chick hatched from his split x split matings. How many people on the Cochin thread are willing to do that? IFFF the lavs meet his expectations, I imagine he will let a few go this fall (just a guess). If not, I would think he will cross to black again. Which means 2 more years of waiting.
With his supervision, I plan to cross my GLCs from Mr. Doerr to my blacks from either Tom or Bo Garrett. These splits will be breed back together. LONG odds. Only 1 in 256 chicks will be homozygous for gold/Pg/Ml/Co. I must be crazy, but that's the plan. It will be at least 3 years before I can look forward to A GLC with correct color/ lacing and improved type.
Nat, I do have lavender Ameraucanas. I have a pullet and cockerel from Jean Ribbeck, and 6 pullets and a cockerel from Harry Shaffer. I also have a huge (by Ameraucana standards) black split to lavender cockerel that I plan to put in with the lav pullets. I hatched a lav chick from him to the lav Ribbeck pullet last night. I hope to improve size and feather quality with him. The resulting black chicks will go to a local friend for layers. I will keep the lavs.
Sorry for being long winded. These are the things spinning around in my head keeping me from sleeping at night.
I also made my decision on a new incubator. I ordered a
Brinsea 190 with humidity pump last night. Hubby is thrilled he doesn't have to chose a Christmas present for me.
