Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[geebs]

This is a thread dedicated to the much loved and nearly APA recognized breed/color of Marans. Here we can discuss the difficulties in balancing the copper and the melanisers as well as the overall best presentation of the bird. All Black Copper lovers are welcome here. Please post pictures and be kind to one another as I hope this is a learning thread and a collaberative "classroom" where we can all benefit. There is so many colors in the marans that I though we could "fastrack" our information onto a more condensed thread. POST AWAY!!!

Okay BYC... lets see what you got for birdies!!! Let the chick flick begin!!!!

Before we go into specifics on color I would like to say that the number one priority for showing is good overall form and health of the bird. He should fit into the diagram like this one here:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...a=X&ei=gkZATdn3KomesQP1ke3gCA&ved=0CBYQ9QEwAA

Thank you Littlepeddler for putting this in cyberspace for us.


When we talk about color balance we are talking about how the copper colors the back. It is our striving to get a uniform copper color across the back with some mahogany but basically a uniform appearance..not too much red and not too much black. With this there are markers such as leg color and eye color that keep us on track.

When we talk about the melanisers we are talking about how much black... The black covers the red/copper and it "blooms" on the bird.. Sometimes (a lot of the time) the bird grows too fast for the color to catch up and we may see a mossy appearance or a white feather appearance. This is a culling point on an adult bird.

When you have both ends of the spectrum both too much black and too much color in opposite sexes there is a chance to do some crossing for improvement... test mating.

Here is the link to the marans website for the standard: http://www.maransusa.org/standards.html
Also the clubs associated with the breed. I encourage you to visit these websites however.... be careful that you don't have something on the stove... you will burn it. There is hours of information that has been collected and is a wonderful works of art that has been put together by some of the best ppl in the marans world. Lots of information to be had.... Enjoy yourself!!!! Thanks to the great group of folks that have made these sites available.

http://maransofamericaclub.com/breederslist.php

http://www.maransusa.org/

http://marans.eu/varieang.htm#varietes Here is the French website that has good strategies for breeding this color. Since there is currently no APA in place it is a good place to jump off. It is probably a good strategy for linebreeding till you get to the near end of the product and then can balance accordingly for the show pen.

ENJOY!!! (note: on this site the Black-Copper are referred to as Brown-Red)

 

[bwalden]

 

[DeltaBluezTess]

If you want to bred top quality Marans, get show quality and cull heavily. My first BCM was decent, then I ran into a great breeder (Cindy) who taught me tons....based on what I learned from her, I sold most of my first flock. She gave me a screaming deal on top hens and roo to get me started. Then she taught me some more.

Out of 40 or so chicks hatched this year, about half went as pets (sold them as crossbreeds so people would not use them as breeders)

Then I grew out the hopefuls and about 10 made the grade. Sold most to people for their first flock, thus doing the same as Cindy had done for me. Kept one hen and she turned out to be outstanding.

Now I have a super nice roo that I just bought, two hens still left from Cindy, three from LP lines and my one that I bred. Running into Cindy who spent time educating me was a wonderful and best advice I ever got.

Get a mentor. It is the best you can do for your program. Cindy doesn't know this yet but she is getting some Legbars, Rhodebar, Isbars or Spitz pair as a gift for her kindness...her choice. She didn't have to help me but I sure appreciate that she did. I learned a lot and still learning lots.

The hardest part was looking at my flock with a tough eye on culling. If I wanted a flock just for eggs, I would have kept more. But I wanted a flock to bred for the standard as well as egg color of 4 or more. Right now I am at 4-7 range. I also bought eggs from top breeders to add to the flock.

Find a mentor and ask question. Be sure to thank the mentor as well. Be tough on your breeding. Be open for suggestions. Don't take offense if the mentor says your hen/roo doesn't make the grade. Pay the price for top quality stock. Start small. Pick one or two type to go for (I chose BCM and Wheaten) but no more as then it can get too confusing.

You will find there is NOT a perfect hen or roo so you need to find what fault you can live with and hopefully bred out.

 

[One Chick Two]

Hi. I just found this thread, and after about 20 pages I started going into overload, so I'm jumping in and posting. I picked up some straight run FBCMs a few weeks ago. I don't have any pics of the chicks yet, but I did take a pic of the eggs while I was at the breeder's

I'm not going for show quality birds, I just want the dark eggs, and these were beautiful. This picture was taken under white light. The man said they were Wade Jean line, but I'm a novice with Marans and have no way of proving this. The chicks are beautiful, with nice feathering on the legs and outside toes. The part that is baffling me, though, is sexing them. On my cuckoo marans, I can usually tell within a week. These are 8 weeks old, and I'm still not sure. Two definitely have the combs and wattles to make me think they are roosters, but the coloring is what is throwing me. They are all molting out the few white feathers they had, but two are staying almost solid black, two have slight copper feathering coming into their necks, and 4 have a good bit of copper in their necks, almost like black sexlinks. A couple of them are starting to get a little copper coloring in their backs, too. Is there a lot of color variation from bird to bird, or is coloring at 8 weeks indicative of what they are growing into? I will post pics as soon as I can get some good ones.
The parent stock looked very good, though I'm certainly not a show judge. The coloring on all of his birds looked typical to what I researched online before I went, but like I said, I mainly went after the eggs. I will keep one rooster so I can raise my own, though. I have had many people that buy my cuckoos ask when the black coppers will be available. I'm looking forward to raising these

We have a Wade Jeanne also, and found them to be slower maturing at first than other lines. I photograph all chicks every week so I can see changes and have them to refer back to when needed.

The males (we have at least) normally have a slightly pinker comb than the females, with a wider nose bridge at birth. Pullets had a darker comb at first. (The yellow on white pinfeathers was food color.)

Two days old:
Cockerel

Pullet


Cockerel (a few weeks later.)


Pullet (a few weeks later.)


Cockerel 1 month -Notice how pink his wattles are becoming

Pullet 1month Smaller, lighter comb and wattles

 

[Red Banks]

I found this egg half buried in the coop sand. I had to scrub it to get the sand off. I was shocked when I saw how dark it is. It was such a nice surprise.

 

[DeltaBluezTess]

I punched a hole in each of the eggs in my egg chart...that way I can put the egg behind the egg and it can match to the real color when it blends in! Before I did this, I was guessing at least one number above and when I did this, it showed that I had overjudged.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Typed words on a screen are a pale shadow of a face to face conversation. We interpret these electronic words through our own filters and experiences. More often than not, our translation is not what was intended by the writer. To those of us to whom words and meaning matter, we ask honest questions in our efforts to come as close to understanding the original writer's true meaning. In the process we can be judged or misinterpreted ourselves, even belittled or wrongly accused. Those feeling the need to constantly defend themselves or convince others that they are the experts are often the quickest to judge. Many are here to learn and ask questions toward that end.

Be Kind.

 

[Sylvester017]

Can anyone tell me if eye color changes from chicks to adulthood? From olive/greenish to the proper orange. I have some 6 week old BCM chicks with green eyes. They were purchased from a breeder not hatchery. I can't remember if my adult BCM looked like this at their age.

I think it must be normal for juvenile chickens of any breed to have the bluish eyes -- my Dominique babies had dark eyes that turned a pretty blue at 2 and 3 month olds but by the time they were close to POL they had the proper reddish bay color eyes.

 

[gilavina]

Look around at the Marans posted on BYC and you will see very few with the right body structure and overall type. It is a must for anyone looking to study type of poultry to have a copy of the SOP.

The only real good body and type Marans I have seen on BYC belong to Vicki and she has a long history of being around Show Poultry. I also like the Black Marans male belonging to Kim.

Once you see a good Marans if you keep an open mind you will know what to look for in the future.

Thanks for the kind words Don. I think it was you that talked about the first 30 to 40 pages of the SOP and their value. Once those pages are studied and are put into practice alongside an individual breed's Standard it makes all the difference in pretty much every way to raising poultry. It will take time, but the best way to learn type is from picking up your own stock as often as possible and selecting for the best back and breast width, and there are also these sketches I've posted on the regular marans thread that are outlines for the type on birds, especially for tail angle and back length and etc. I have these printed out on cards that I've laminated and take them down to the pens with me when I'm observing different birds. After a while, the process of knowing your own stock and how they are built really will start to click, especially as offspring begin to develop and can feel what certain matings are giving you in terms of body type and can help when making decisions on who worked as a pairing and who didn't. I know I've said it a ton, but my dad is the one I give all the credit for, when it comes to how I breed birds.

 

[Runawaylobster]

I am probably preaching to the choir here, but just in case I'd like to mention that Relative humidity at room temperature is not
the same as Relative Humidity in your incubator.

Humidity is the effect of the water vapour that exists in the air. The method of expressing this is most commonly Relative Humidity.
What this means is that the number you see as a percentage is the actual water vapour that is present expressed as a percentage
of the total possible water vapour that the air can hold. so if for example the air is 50% full (so to speak) you report it as 50%
RH.

Now the problem is that the hotter the air the more water vapour it can hold so for example, if the air is 50% full at room temperature
it may only be 25% full at incubator temperature because the hotter air in the incubator has the capability of holding more water vapour
than the cooler room temp air.

For this reason even if you have 80% RH in your room at say 72 degrees when it gets sucked into the incubator and heated up
to 100 degrees the RH readout will be much lower. This is why you see that number fall when you close up the incubator
after opening it. The temp of the air is increasing so the RH is decreasing.

The term Absolute Humidity simply refers to the amount of water vapour in the air and does not change with temperature.

sorry if I am boring you guys but I do think many have a misconception that the high RH at room temp is thwarting their incubator
control when really it has less influence than you might think.

i got this image from the wiki page but it kind of shows what i mean.