The first babies of the year have started hatching! Now I just have to wait for the girls who were broody over later Winter to start laying again. I've put the birds on specialized supplement to see how that may help vigor, hatchability, and good growth rates. The healthier your breeding birds are, the healthier the chicks as well. When I have a better idea about the results, I will share more about the supplement.
I still have some chicks hatching out a partridge color. They will feather in mottled, their black being a little more matte than the others, and after the first molt, they may have just a little brownish color here and there, mainly the cushion/tail. The girl above hatched brown, and this is how she looks now at a year old.
I asked the others members on the Cochins International group if anyone had a clue about where the brown is coming from. One longtime breeder advised that he believes the original parent birds were crossed to pure black at some time, and the color is leakage from that cross.
He said it's fine to keep and breed them if they are very good quality otherwise, but to only breed them to birds that do not have the brown leakage.
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