Today was the end of the breeding pens. I pulled a fresh egg right out from under my white hen and set the last chicken eggs for the year. I'm ready for it to be done.
I started separating out grow outs according to groups. All the polled pullets got a pen. And I only got to taking out the silver laced grow outs. These two are a couple of the oldest.
The silver laced pullet pictured is easily the best silver laced cochin that I hatched this year. Her tail is soft enough to be rounded, even if he cushion doesn't fill in down to her wings. She has soft feathering with no signs of vulture hocks. The amount of foot feathering is pretty good for this variety, too. Very nice lacing overall, even if her chest lacing could be bolder; it's still better than her mother's lacing. Her wing carriage is really nice. She's the type of offspring where you know the planets aligned just right, because she far surpasses both her parents. This is the best silver laced cochin I've ever seen. She's still young in her development at only about four months old, but I'm serious: she's the best silver laced cochin I've ever seen. My cockerels are looking to be growing in some pretty decently soft tails, too, so that's pretty exciting. Getting the tails under control and the foot feathering on all the correct toes was the goal this year. It would be nice to eliminate stiff shank feathers, too. Pretty sad place to start, but nice silver laced cochin just plain do not exist. This is only my second year into working on them, so it's going well. Better than last year when I was just trying to keep them alive. I guess I bred for hardiness last year, inadvertently.
The second picture is a blue, but she's out of a silver laced. She's probably a gold based bird, though, at her age. I didn't differentiate between eggs out of the silver laced hens and a blue cock and then the eggs out of the blue hens and a silver laced cock. Makes a big difference. Considering her dark shanks, the blue cock is most likely, though I swore he had yellow shanks. Anyway. She's significantly younger than the silver laced. Very, very nice blue color, though her type will not compare to my blues. And she's going to have amount of fluff to her benefit. The silver laced need a lot more feathers overall, which is why I crossed in some of my best birds. She's already heavier and more massive through the chest. Her bone is thicker. The quality of feather is just a touch better, too. I'm a little afraid to see how messy these solid split birds make the silver laced next year, but this is necessary for improvement.
I have so many more splits growing up. They're still in the brooders. Unfortunately, I'm not really getting any to hatch out of my white cock. I don't like that. The embryos are growing, but there's no sign of pipping after lock down.