Unfortunately, that actually sounds like a pretty fair deal. :( Have you tried eggbid.com? The big hatcheries like McMurray, Ideal and Cackle?

feathersite.com has a list of people on their Cochins page, who have cochins, clubs and breeders--they might know of or be a good source for eggs.

Bantams:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/Cochins/BRKCochinBty.html

Standards:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/Cochins/BRKCochinStd.html

Good luck! :)

Velvet ~:>

Lemon blue is not a standard variety so you will probably have limited resources. Somebody playing with colors might have them.

the shipping is $11 for 6 eggs so basically you are paying $2.33 per egg for a rare breed. Does not sound that bad if you *have* to have them.

I'm not at all familar with genetics. Does anyone know what the recipe is to get the lemon blue coloring in Cochins?

Its NOT a rare breed, it is NOT a standard Cochin variety, its just a color some one is playing with. I know how to breed blues but cant help ya on lemon blue. you mioight find a game breeder who works with it. You could try "The Classroom at The Coop". there are some genetic whiz bangs there, or at least there used to be.

I just asked a friend how to breed the lemon blue.Cross a brown red with a blue or a splash, lemon blue is the blue version of brown red. To begin developing the lb try crossing a partridge Cochin cock over a blue or a splash Cochin hen. that sounds right to me. it will take some work to get good color, a lot of culling. Any new color takesa a lot of work and most beginners dont follow uo for very long but give it a whirl.

okay rare color then..

If someone is selling hatching eggs as "lemon blue", be aware that all the chicks will not be lemon blue.

If the color comes from a cross, the hatchlings won't necessarily be true to color.

If you want the color, I suggest that you purchase young birds that are already showing their adult color. Or else learn how to do the cross and breed your own chicks.

I bought some Giant Cochin eggs off a breeder on ebay this year. I got an assortment of Lemon Blue and Golden Laced Giant Cochins. The eggs were shipped via the USPS, and shipped eggs have a notoriously iffy hatch rate due to USPS handling.

Out of about 16 eggs, 5 hatched (out of the others, some were duds, others developed and then quit): two Golden Laced and 1 gray which are beautiful and healthy, and two Lemon Blue, BOTH of which have crippling left leg problems--one has a leg that is twisted upside-down at the knee (hock) and the other which has a splayed left leg that points backwards from the hip.

I tried to split and correct both chicks with lousy results. They are both still alive but are cooped together, and cannot be let out with the rest of the flock. I'm currently saving money to see if they can be surgically corrected, although the chick with the upside-down leg have have to have an amputation and get along on a stump.

The chick with the upside-down leg was a day late hatching and has always been small and weak, lagging behind in development and slow to feather. All of the chicks hatched February 25 of this year.

All seem OK otherwise (health-wise) right now, so time will tell. I emailed the breeder about the leg problems with the Lemon Blues and she told me that she had also had a Lemon Blue chick hatch with a bad leg, and thanked me for reporting it to her. She thinks that the condition could be due to the extremely small size of the gene pool for Lemon Blues here in the US.

Regardless, the Giant Cochins are a complete joy and SO beautiful! Very sweet, calm, friendly birds. I have one Golden Laced roo for sure and the two with the bad legs are also likely roos, but none of them have crowed yet.

Velvet ~:>

Do you ship eggs?

Nm your a bit far lol