Silver Laced Cornish Bantam Project

[budsbirds]

Thought I would post a picture of a Silver Laced Cornish Bantam cockerel. The birds in my avatar are his parents. Coming along, but he holds his wings too low. I think in 4-5 more years I may have some really nice birds!

 

[spangledcornish]

looking good. Glad to see people committed to such long term projects.

 

[budsbirds]

Yes, definitely a long term project, buts its been fun. My plan is to have showable birds by the time I retire!

 

[spangledcornish]

how is the silver laced project going?

 

[budsbirds]

Well, they started laying very late this year, but I have about 30 chicks coming up form three hatches, oldest ones are about 5 months old. I have selected two cockerels and two pullets from that group that I will use. I have about 10 more that are 3.5 months old and about 10 more that are still under lights. The chicks are not at all uniform, I have silver laced, incomplete silver laced, single laced darks, smutty columbians and even a few solid blacks.I will be using the smutty columbians as they look like they have the best legs and heads, on some silver laced that have decent width. I have been told that in a couple of generations I should see much more uniformity in the chicks. I need to go out and start taking some pictures. Last year I had five single mating pens and one pen with a male and five hens, probably will do thge same thing for 2017.

 

[spangledcornish]

glad to hear you are having some success, I think our columbian project took a step back this year. getting a little better color but lost some type.

 

[budsbirds]

yes, my best colored birds are the worst type and vice versa. But, its fun. I expect to have some pictures of this generation in a few weeks, they are starting to fill out. had one get loose the other day and I was surprised when I caught it that it felt like a cornish! a lot heavier than it looked.

 

[budsbirds]

Here is a picture of a decently laced pullet at 12 weeks. I have a cockerel that isn't as well laced but has a classic cornish head and heavy bone that I will be breeding to this one. I am really looking forward to the F5 offspring

 

[spangledcornish]

looking good

 

[budsbirds]

This photo shows the lacing I get on some of my cockerels. The next picture will show pretty much the exact opposite ! Cockerel is 20 weeks old