Cockerel Breeders and Pullet Breeders
An explanation of Double Mating
With many thanks to Mr James Bishop for his clear description:
In essence, double mating involves using two quite different breeding pens to produce exhibition males and females of one variety. One pen is designed to breed cockerels with the required Standard markings and is called a “Cockerel Breeding” pen. The other is mated to produce correctly marked pullets and is called a “Pullet Breeding” pen. When practised over a long period of time the end result is two entirely different bloodlines. This has occurred with the Silver Laced, Gold Laced, Silver Pencilled, Partridge and Black Wyandottes.
In the Cockerel Breeding pen for each of these varieties the male will be a bird whose colour closely resembles the Standard description. The females will be quite unlike the Standard description and are kept only for breeding in the knowledge that they will breed well-marked cockerels. In the Pullet Breeding pen the reverse is true. The females are marked according to the Standard whilst males will not be; they are breeders only.
(Courtesy of the Wyandotte Club of Victoria Inc.)
Below is an example of what you need to look for when breeding one of these colours.
An excerpt from Graeme Smith’s article on ‘Breeding Partridge Cockerels for show’ from the ‘Wyandotte Club of Australia ‘s Handbook (2002)’:
“To breed a good cockerel you must start with a quality type female, these can vary greatly in colour from a dark brown-black to a much lighter bronze colour with pencilling similar to a Pullet Breeder. If the female is dark you would mate it to a male that is a little pale in neck hackle colour and always with no black fringe. With a light coloured female you would mate it to a male that is slightly on the dark colour in the neck hackle. When a light coloured female is mated to a male with light neck hackle you end up with some white chickens.”
Lots more information on how to breed these beautiful colours in our book:
‘Wyandottes: History, Breeding and Exhibition’
Available through this website (see merchandise page)
Wyandotte Club of Australia 