need to breed to keep lacing....

o.k how to i explain this...i have my silver laced cochins who need improving on body style they have to much vulture hawk "sp?", now what can i breed them to like what colour of cochin in order to keep the lacing as the lacing is beautiful on them i dont want to lose that?? show i try a white roo? white hen? black? help!!!!!!!!

Youd need another laced bird.. Breeding solid colored to laced doesnt really work out that well.

DoubleSSRanch wrote:Youd need another laced bird.. Breeding solid colored to laced doesnt really work out that well.

ehhh problem being.....there isnt many others around!

triplejfarms wrote:

DoubleSSRanch wrote:Youd need another laced bird.. Breeding solid colored to laced doesnt really work out that well.

ehhh problem being.....there isnt many others around!

lol ya. Just have to find some good silver laced cochins In my experience, when I breed a laced to a solid, I almost always get solid colored birds. Or I get blue birds, with blue lacing, missing the middle color, be ir red, white or whatever

I was testing out the options on the chicken genetics calculator. If you were to use either a black or white rooster over the silver laced hens = all solid coloured chicks, but take one of the best solid coloured chicks with good strong leg feathering breed back to the silver laced hens and you will get some laced chicks. Breed the laced chicks back to silver laced adults. So it would take three years to really improve them as far as I can tell.

I may be unpopular to say so, but if you want to improve a breed with poor lacing and the disqualifying fault of 'vulture hocks' and you are passionate about the breed, why don't you look into finding someone who has show quality birds to start with? You might be saving yourself an uphill battle.

Sue

Schipperkesue wrote:I may be unpopular to say so, but if you want to improve a breed with poor lacing and the disqualifying fault of 'vulture hocks' and you are passionate about the breed, why don't you look into finding someone who has show quality birds to start with? You might be saving yourself an uphill battle.

Sue

the lacing is perfect sue if it was poor lacing and vulture hock i wouldnt even try...but it just the vulture hock...
even krl said these girls have almost prefect lacing.... "disqualifying volture hock eh...........ehhhh...........i guess i better withdraw my 2 enteries in the dec show

I would still try to get some other line of SLW... lol it takes a lot of work, breeding, culling and fiddling around with another color. If you do that you are looking at a 2 year project (ish) just to get back to having something that looks like a SLC again. Plus you would have to find really good quality cochins to use. You would need to hatch a millionty and grow them out at least for a few months before you can cull.

color is always the last thing you try to fix. Generally the easist to fix.

triplejfarms wrote:

Schipperkesue wrote:I may be unpopular to say so, but if you want to improve a breed with poor lacing and the disqualifying fault of 'vulture hocks' and you are passionate about the breed, why don't you look into finding someone who has show quality birds to start with? You might be saving yourself an uphill battle.

Sue

the lacing is perfect sue if it was poor lacing and vulture hock i wouldnt even try...but it just the vulture hock...
even krl said these girls have almost prefect lacing.... "disqualifying volture hock eh...........ehhhh...........i guess i better withdraw my 2 enteries in the dec show

Oops! Sorry, I misread! But I will still stick by my advice. You are unhappy with the body and the vulture hocks. Already two strikes against. I'll bet Ricoseb or Vizcoe could point you in the right direction to finding a breeder you could work with.

Sue

DoubleSSRanch wrote:color is always the last thing you try to fix. Generally the easist to fix.

That's the "First build the barn and then paint it" advice!

Sue

triplejfarms I think you really have something with those Silver Laced Cochins. They are stunning.

They are very nice quailty but just need some small improvements as do all breeds. They are a Rare variety as far as I understand so often you have to work with less than ideal stock.

Here's a great link to genetics of Vulture Hocks:
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/147.extract

Vulture Hocks is a recessive, but keep in mind, that if two birds are mated and they are both recessive (one gene), some of the offspring will carry two genes, and the vulture hocks will show up in some. You don't want to breed siblings if they are both carring the recessive trait.

Also if you want to invest the time into this variety then as your working on removing the vulture hocks you will/can also improve the body type at the same time.

thank you all, i will try to find myself another line to work with if anyone has suggestions it be great i dont know where to start, as they are very hard to come by anyways thanks! and i will take 1 pullet to the show to see what the judge has to say about everything else about them...it be a waste of 3 dollars but i have wasted way more than 3 dollars before...LOL
but i am gonna take a couple marans as well and maybe my silkie cockerel...LOl