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My birds are from Cedar Shade who also got her foundation birds from Green Grable so this was a great read for me as well!@kurby22
I would not use any birds missing all their spikes if I had any other choice. That includes females. But that is me. I am one of the creators of the American Watermaal. I have been working with them a long time. I know that the short spike problem is a difficult issue to get away from and one that nearly every breeder who has acquired stock from descendants of my birds has struggled with even after selecting against shorter spikes for several generations. This includes me. Pictures of birds with long spikes, even if the overall comb shape is not otherwise great, is a significant achievement in a bird (with a low texture comb especially). High texture combs usually are a factor that increases the length of the spikes, but it makes the shape of the base of the comb highly irregular. If you have high texture and short spikes, that’s not much better than nonexistent spikes.
Sounds like your birds came from Green Grable. Or at least are related to them. The black watermaal that she initially used was my line. And they were very good blacks - though they carried recessive white. And sometimes struggled with spike length. She used those to create Mottled by breeding mottled d’Anvers in. But then, when she out crossed to Ameraucana to get self blue and lavender mottled, she introduced the pea comb gene. This causes a second set of issues getting the proper length, and number of spikes, or even the simple presence of spikes. Given the nature of this pernicious fault, I wouldn’t touch any birds that have short or absent spikes. I would use a D’Anvers in preference to that. Otherwise you’re gonna be culling up to 90% of your hatch every year. For years! That is what I had to do with my watermaals to get the spike length back.
A D’Anvers with a double spike comb is an interesting characteristic. This bird would probably not contribute a lot, since his comb spike genes are likely to be linked to the same chromosome as his non-tassel genes. That said, it’s not an issue to have that double spike in a Watermaal breeding pen. Should crossover occur, he probably would give you better luck with the proper spike number in your tasseled birds. and certainly this may be a better option than using birds with no spikes.
The wrong number of spikes is of lesser consequence. I believe double spikes by hens breed similarly to triple spiked hens. In the overseas standards for watermaals, anything between two and four spikes is acceptable for show. I have a little doubt that those birds are also used in breeding. However, like I said, before, triple spiked females are your most potent breeding assets. If you must breed to a single spikes bird, let it be a triple spiked female to an inferior spiked male. And when you get your lines up to snuff, don’t tolerate anything less than a triple in your boys.
Start where you are with what you have. Anything I say is simply a guideline. My standards are going to be different from yours because my birds have a different level of quality and they have different types of faults that I am focusing on.so go with what suites your population and preferences. Just remember that any fault you permit, you have to ask yourself if you’re OK dealing with large numbers of chicks that sport it down the line. Choose the faults of birds that you are most ok dealing with. Overtime you will learn which characters are the hardest to get rid of in your line. A smart breeder will cull harder against the more stubborn faults. And remember, when you’re just starting, you have a very small pool of birds. While you will get a lot of variation in the young, it is the average qualities of young that is the most difficult to change. The particular birds you choose to use at the very first pairing have a profound impact on the direction and potential of your line. If you choose to use certain types of faulty birds now, they will haunt you for years. Even when you hatch chicks that have the proper length and number of spikes, you’ll continue to hatch similar proportions of the original faults for some time (as long as 5-10 years, or more!) due to the complex number of genes involved.
In general principle, you should want to call hardest against the faults that are most predominant. And against the ones that are the most difficult to eliminate. Number of spikes, easy to moderately difficult to correct. Presence or absence of a tassel, very easy. Size of tassel, easy to moderate. Length of spikes and absence of spikes, difficult!
Hope this helps.
My best and closest to pure Watermaal, Alfredo, is going thru a stage that is not quite as sophisticated as yours 
Sort of looks like he’s been on a bender 
love it!! 
