So how do you get a Birchen? Do they crop up in blue/black/splash breeding programs?

[snoozing chick]

Good luck, BreanneRN! I hope your Birchen couple find you. Do you have a local chicken FB page? I’ve seen on ours that sometimes just putting out the word locally brings people the birds they are looking for.

 

[BreanneRN]

Good luck, BreanneRN! I hope your Birchen couple find you. Do you have a local chicken FB page? I’ve seen on ours that sometimes just putting out the word locally brings people the birds they are looking for.

Thank-you so much, I will try that!

 

[nicalandia]

The best book on poultry color genetics of Genetics of the Fowl by F.B. Hutt.

Very good book too, I have the book Poultry Breeding and Genetics,Developments in Animal and Veterinary Sciences by R.D Crawford.

If anyone would like me to lend them the book just P.M me

 

[The Moonshiner]

Birchen is NOT a down pattern. It is a description of the adult plumage color/pattern. Down color is NOT what colors/patterns are built on. It sounds like you had cochins with leakage, not the birchen allele. Ask questions, don't make statements.

I'll stick with my statements.
You can disagree if you'd like.
A lot of breeders look at E locus as down color/pattern.
Its also seen as a primary pattern which secondary patterns are sometimes added so it can be seen as what the pattern started with or was built upon.
I was trying to help the OP wrap their head around what they were trying to learn. I just like to put things in a way that may make sense to them instead of quoting things out of a genetics book.
If you have a better way of going about that then share it and your opinions and let the OPs decide for themselves what they want to do with all the information.

 

[Bo Garrett]

Columbian cock over black hens = birchen project. Will take a few generations to get the lacing in the breast right but it will work.
Also go to the Cochins International website and look up the breeders or become and member and receive the breeders directory which will have the contact information of birchen cochin breeders across the country.

Blessings,

Bo Garrett

 

[nicalandia]

Columbian cock over black hens = birchen project. Will take a few generations to get the lacing in the breast right but it will work.
Also go to the Cochins International website and look up the breeders or become and member and receive the breeders directory which will have the contact information of birchen cochin breeders across the country.

Blessings,

Bo Garrett

That will only work on the first cross and if you base your "Birchen" Phenotype on that genetic background you will need to keep breeding heterozygous birds to maintain the Pseudo Birchen phenotype.

You can see how the cross looks if you look at the "Black Sex Link" cross you just need to mentally remove the gold tone on black sex link females with silver and those hens would look very much Birchen, on the cockerels you would need to remove the sex linked barring but the cross is essentially the same a columbian based rooster(in this case RIR instead of silver columbian) and an Extended Black hen(Barred Rock hen in this case instead of a Black hen) the cross you suggest will produce E/eb C/co+ birds that thanks to the combined effect of columbian restriction(Co/co+) and heterozygous Extended Black(E/eb) will produce a Pseudo Birchen phenotype that many times will be indistinguishable from the true Birchen based birds(ER/ER) but will not breed true because if you cross these birds they will segregate independently into 25% E/E(Solid Black) 50% E/eb(Leaky Blacks) 25% eb/eb(Partridge)

 

[Mistarzanasa]

I am just wondering, they are really pretty and would like to have that color in my Cochin chickens.

I think i have 4 roos with the coloring you are looking for if you are still looking lol. Was asking on another site what their coloring was called and was told birchen. They are very pretty. I'm in so cal.