Cross Breeding Bantam Cochins of different Colors

[twothingfarm]

Hi all - I hope I am not repeating this question but I can't seem to find the answer in other posts.

I have a variety of Bantam Cochins from a hatchery and am trying to understand what is a seperate breed vs a variation in color in the same breed. Basically I only want to keep one rooster and can't seem to figure out which one to keep. To get a White Bantam Cochin must two white bantam cochins's breed ...etc....

What happens if the colors start to interbreed...for example a Partridge Cochin and a White Cochin or a Blue Cochin and a Red Frizzle Cochin? Is there any consistent pattern the way it works with the Blue, black and splash true ameraucanas?

Thanks for help sorting this out or any links to articles about it...I have been putting different things in the search bar for a couple hours and am coming up empty!

Alyson

 

[lilcrow]

To get white you must breed white to white, and I would say after reading some of the more advanced breeding threads, for us beginners it's best to breed color to color, i.e., partridge to partridge, birchen to birchen. Things do get a little fuzzy with the black, blue, splash thing and if you understand it in ameraucanas then you understand it. It holds true in all breeds. A partridge to a white?, I haven't a clue, the blue to the red you start getting into a sort of muddling that has it's own problems. There are so many people working on projects, but they know a lot more than you or I do. I'm leaving it up to the other folks with more experience and room than I have. It sounds like you may have a partridge roo and a blue roo. If that is what you have, you might think about keeping the blue roo as I think he gives you more options than the partridge. I happen to have a soft spot for partridge, but there's just nothing else you can breed them to but a partridge hen.

 

[twothingfarm]

Thanks for the reply - is your forum pic partridge cochin? I ordered both golden laced and partridge so I am not sure which is which (but I can google it when hey get a little bigger!) - I did find an excellant wed site that clarified the blue/splash/black genetics really well...followed a link from this site I think. Anyway - thanks for sharing your knowledge and I really enjoyed your dog heart quote on your signature also.

Happy Chicken Watching,
Alyson

 

[lilcrow]

Hi Alyson, the avatar picture is actually my birchen pullet. That's a "not white, black, or buff cochin. Actually the very best types are always black and white. It's almost impossible to beat them at shows, but I figure if we keep working at it and are very, very selective, eventually we'll get some patterned cochins that can hold their own. I love the birchen and partridge colors myself. I also go weak in the knees over a good blue. The best examples I saw of partridge cochins in the beginning were Jamie Matts http://jamiescochincollection.cochinsrule.com/ That is not to say that they are the best or only, they are just what I found first. He also raises a number of other varieties and that is where I got my birchen. I also got a pair of columbians, but I've not been as thrilled with them as I thought I would be. I guess I'm just not a white bird person. I love the richness of the colors, probably why I love the patterns so much; there's a lot going on there. The partridge is a mahogany, plus other gorgeous shades and colors in patterns of the roo. The hen is very different, she looks like she's wearing a herringbone dress. Hard to imagine isn't it.

but believe me, they are beautiful and the better they are the more beautiful. The gold laced has a very uniform color pattern but certainly not less striking; their base color is mahogany, I think, and each and every feather is (or should be) perfectly edged in gold. If the lacing is correct they are jaw dropping. Unfortunately, the gold lace suffers terribly from poor type and it is even harder to find a good gold laced. Frankly, I've not seen one yet, but I do know that there are folks in the cochin club that are breeding them, so they will be getting better. Thank God for people who fall in love with a color and take it on to restore it, if not for them, they would be lost, or at the very least extremely difficult to recreate.
Everything that I have told you is strictly from a novice level. I am just getting started and have ordered some books on poultry genetics in the hopes of trying to catch up or follow a little closer with some of the incredible discussions that take place on here about the topic. When I told you that gold laced is a mahogany based bird, I'm simply saying the appearance of the bird is that it looks like that color, I think. If a genetics person saw that, they would be able to explain to you in much more depth about what is actually going on genetically with the bird to create that color.
About my signature, serendipitously I found that shortly after I had to have my 17 yr old blue heeler old lady put down. I thought for a while I might die and even now I'm tearing up..that was 5 yrs ago. She was my heart. I've only had to say good bye to a few best friends of the furry four leggeds, but they all had a piece of me with them when they left; they had given me so much of themselves when they were here. Dogs just don't live long enough.....mine generally make into their teens, but I'm 61. Do the math, it's a few broken hearths. Over the years, I've cried on a lot of shoulders, but they were usually furry, hairy ones.

Thanks for your comment Alyson, I'm just grateful that I found it when I did. God/Universe does provide.
Wow, I had to edit this. Original said that my avatar was a cockerel, George, WRONG! It's my pullet Emma, sorry. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Twothingfarm, this is my partridge cochin roo, so yours will look somewhat like him, hopefully with better leg feathering. It is also the base color for gold-laced though I don't know what you'd breed to get that. There's a thread on here somewhere. Just search "Gold-laced cochin"

Enjoy

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

This will help simplify your answers. It's the genetics chicken calculator.
Click on the select colors section by the roo and hens pic, set you color for both. On the right margin up top, click to calculator.
This will give you the genetic codes for the colors you selected (way over most peoples heads) but under all that stuff you'll see calculate crossing, vlick that. It will then show you what your color crosses will generate, you can then select any of the offspring and cross them to each other or back to an original parent, click calculate crossing again....so forth and so on.
Once you do it a time or two, you'll see there's nothing to it really just follow the on screen instuctions mentioned.
Also, most any white bird crossed to any other color will always give you white F1 birds in most any case. There are just a handful of exceptions to that, very few.
If they are dominate whites, f2 crosses can give you stuff like red pyle (white to b.b. red)and goldnecks. The white will basically replace any black coloration in wild colored birds. If they are recessive white, all offspring will always be white or black.

Blues and splash over color will always give blue F1 offspring, when crossed back to the wild color one more time, you will get a "blue" color phase of the original wild color, example, millie fluer to blue = blue
This new blue back to millies again= blue millie fluers again the blue will just replace all the black feathers in the pattern
(you will get about 50% blues, 25% original black, and 25% sport/splash when you continue to breed the new blue patterned birds together)
Maybe that helped a bit. Play with the calculator, it's fun!
Aubrey

 

[catwalk]

Quote:
I read that Cochins are usually recessive white, so a white cross will not likely result in a white chick. I have a black roo over a white hen, and all her chicks are black. They have a lot of white down on them, so they're easy to tell from my black over buff chicks. Those are solid black.

 

[lilcrow]

Ummmm........if black dom, white res, works the same as black dom, red res in horses, than breeding white to white should produce LOTS of white chicks and only a few black chicks if she is a black dom carrier bred to a roo that only carries the white gene, (no black genes) If she is bred to a white roo that carries black(???not sure she can do that, I think dominant is always expressed) anyway, and he is a carrier than bingo, you get the checkerboard, maybe as much as 50% white chicks and 50% black. This may actually work in the reverse. I think it's more with black, bred to black, carrying the white recessive gene. This is why IF I was a breeder of white or black cochins (which I'm not, I like to complicate things with patterns), I would only breed my whites to whites and blacks to blacks. EVENTUALLY you would have a homozygous bird for each color and you would be able to predict what you are going to get. There are some absolute genetic geniuses here on BYC that would know about breeding for a homozygous bird, s.o.o..o. this makes me think that what I am saying must not be the answer, or folks wouldn't be crossing colors and wondering how to get this or that, i.e. black or white. predictably.
I've got the color genetics book ordered from Amazon, but even after I get it, MAN! what a jungle.

 

[nzpouter]

for dominant white.... one parent have to be white.

for reccessive white both bird don't have to be white but they do need to carry the rec gene.... for cochin, my bet it will be rec white.... an epistatic gene.

 

[lilcrow]

Jen, I was also on Craig's List, looking for out buildings for my new home and found this: http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/grd/1530654210.html I don't know who it is, or anything about them, but they look like nice enough birds. You might want to give Mandy a call, they is someone around that she can give you some info on.