BR23 Blog

I've got a weak spot for dark factor birds. Preferably in combination with cinnamon. So I'm trying to breed a few double dark factor birds (mauve/olive) during the summer season with some left over birds.

2009

Last year I was trying to breed mauves by pairing a mauve cinnamon cock to a cobalt opaline-cinnamon hen. From the 9 chicks only 2 where mauve. So that was even less then 1 in 4, while in theory the chance is 1 in 2. So it wasn't a big success, even more so since the mauves weren't of good quality.

2009 end result: 2 mauves, not good

2010:

This year I had the intention of using two pairs for breeding mauves:

• a young cobalt cinnamon cock x an older mauve cinnamon hen (nephew x aunt)
• an older mauve cinnamon cock x a young pied cobalt cinnamon hen (half brother x half sister)

The older mauve cinnamon hen had a bad leg, so I was hoping for fertile eggs, but was expecting nothing. I got one fertile egg in the first round and that looks like a useful cobalt opaline-cinnamon hen. She hasn't laid since.

Both pairs are in the same flight and the old mauve cinnamon cock didn't seem very eager, so his son (the cobalt cinnamon cock) took over for him. Cobalt x cobalt should only yield 1 in 4 mauves. I would have liked better odds, certainly knowing how difficult it was last year to get mauves.

The first round only produced one chick: a pied cobalt cinnamon (not a very good one, but it still has to go through first moult). Now they have 4 chicks in the box (there were two more, but these were much younger so they didn't survive): a pied cobalt cinnamon, two mauve cinnamons and a sky cinnamon. Now it's waiting to see what the quality will be (but they show some promise).

But those are not he only double dark factor chick for the moment. I had put a young dark green cinnamon hen in the flight as well. She wasn't supposed to breed yet, but produced 4 chicks with the cobalt cinnamon cock. All but one chick died one by one (maybe it was her young age). The survivor was fostered out en turned out to be an olive cinnamon! It just spent its second day outside of the box. It was heavily plucked by the foster parents, so I didn't get to see its colour until the body feathers started regrowing. From what I can see from its regrowing head feathers it shows promise!

I'm not expecting any double factors any more, so
2010 end result: 2 mauves & 1 olive, with the hope of some better quality than last year.

I'll keep you posted