Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[DMRippy]

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I may be late on this or repeating something already said.... but see how nice and open the tail is????? The narrow hips makes for pinched tails. Open tails make for better layers too. They just look better.... healthier too.

 

[DMRippy]

I see what you mean about the narrow rear...

Here is my Halo guy at 7 months...


...and from the side, sorry about the weeds and wire.


Mr. white in the tailfeathers...


... and #3 - low man on the totem pole.


Fourth guy has yellow feet, so I'm not fooling with him. Going to have enough problems with hidden yellows...

Color wise #3 is the best. I like him. His tail is a little too high but pair him with a hen with too low of a tail set and cull for the best.

 

[Runawaylobster]

Really good questions - in all honesty, we really can't know the 100% definite answer, as we don't know for certain what was bred into the Marans prior to importing to the U.S. - and given that they are so new to the U.S., we really haven't had enough time to breed enough generations to be able to tell via breeding, either (my opinion). I posed these questions to a good friend who breeds several Marans varieties and has a really good genetics handle on things - with her permission to repost here, this is her reply:

It does come from both hens. After breeding and test mating with wheatens I do not believe that it is coming from wheaten.

I believe that it came from someone breeding in Welsummer. They are Golden salmon. They carry the e that causes the white in the fluff when crossed with certain black melanizers. It was also bred into the wheaten. I have crossed wheaten with duckwing and made more duckwing I have crossed BC with duckwing and made more duckwing. I crossed a line of GC made from BC and made golden crele....

Mossy hens that have an actual pattern. Are carriers. BC roos that show any cinnamon on the primaries.

In the absence of the white fluff the cause for a halo could be that they were confused about the copper color and culled too hard against mahogany.

I know that the BBR old English breeders battle the same thing.

I hate to sound like a broken record but the only way to fix it is to cull it out. Chick down can reflect some of the issues. I haven't managed to make an exact conclusion but ones with too much cream are culprits. Watch for the color around the eyes, butt and wings. People need to start recording color traits of chicks vs. Juvie vs. Adult plumage. To better understand.

It is possible to breed it out, but the hens have to be culled, too. You can't cover it. That is what caused this mess. Someone tried to cover what they did by breeding in black.

I'm not sure that I agree with all that's said above, as I still hold my belief that wheaten bred into black copper is the culprit of many of the issues we see. But, it's food for thought, and always good to have MORE feedback rather than less. And - my friend and I can certainly agree to disagree on some things. Who knows - maybe she's right.

Tomorrow i am going to go out and inspect everybody. for white fluff and for mossiness with a pattern.. thanks for posting this, I will photo all the chicks on the next hatch of keepers..

interestingly my first group of BCM had several all blacks in there but i never kept them or bred them.

 

[DMRippy]

With over 860 posts and impossible to find if someone has said something about my questions, I thought the best thing to was to ask again...

BCM genetics 101:

1) Who's responsible for the copper color (roo, hen or both), if I want to bring it back on the hen's neck or take it away from the roo's chest?
2) I got some hens that are laying 7s and 8s, but very little copper. The breeder said that it is to keep the eggs darker. Is that true?
3) Is a bit of copper on the roo's chest a fault? If so, how big?
4) Who determines the color of the eggs: the roo, the hen or both?
5) Who determines the feathered shanks: roo, hen, both?
6) How big, or small, should the comb be on a hen?
7) Who determines the color of the legs, roo, hen our both?
8) I have a blue marans with tons of shank feathers, egg color on the 8s, but yellow ish legs (so sad...). Can I breed it out of her?

Thanks all in advance!

Well that is a lot of questions.... most of them have been addressed here at one time or another. The feathered legs has been gone over several time in great detail. I am going to give you the SHORT answer to most of your questions.

AS WITH ANY GENETIC MIXING OF OFFSPRING.... GENES COME FROM BOTH PARENTS ALWAYS. Parents contribute half the genes. It takes 2 sets to make things work. So that answers questions 1, 4, 5, 7.

1) Cull for it.
2) Don't know.... I can't really see that dark hens=dark eggs. Eggs are genetic make up different than coloring.... I think anyway.
3) Read the SOP for Copper Marans
4) see above
5) see above
6) I prefer a smaller comb. They should not look like a Leghorn... maybe more like a rock. That maybe in the SOP too... not sure.
7) see above
8) I would breed any birds that had yellow legs or were hatched from the same pen. VERY hard to get rid of yellow legs... they will keep popping up down the road.

As for the Leg feathering.... there were some very good posts put up here from Village????? Anybody have the link? I would look but can't think of the user name....

 

[DMRippy]

I am trying to select chicks with WHITE white markings and black. No cream. Just a gut feeling.... Interesting about the eye color down. Wynette can you get more info on that?

There was a theory about SOLID black faces should be culled for (usually those are much too dark over all too) and too much white on the face is an issue (might have been over colored when mature) but a LITTLE bit of white on the face around the eyes was a good thing.

Can you find out more PLEASE.

Here let me give you some examples if you want to ask her what she things of the coloring on the face.

This is the look I am selecting FOR. I would like less cream down.



Too much white on the face and I would not keep this chick.



This one is too dark over all too. Not much white on the face and no WHITE WHITE on the belly.

 

[Wynette]

DM, I really don't believe (personally) that we can say with certainty how much white is too much...some folks say they like a solid white belly that runs into the neck - no break in color. Others believe a break is alright, and that more white near the eyes tends to be a bird with too light of a copper shade. Here are some chicks I have hatched, and where they ended up as adults.

For me, personally, this has been the most interesting example. THis chick though not fully dried is clearly almost solid black. He is from a German line of Marans. The only light color on him as a chick was between his legs, and it was yellow, not white. He didn't have a stitch of light color on his face.



Here he is as a juvenile - EXTREMELY mossy, which doesn't seem to hold true for what most folks believe in regard to chick down.



See the chick second from the right? He had a ton of light color on him, and it was white rather than yellow:



Here he is as a juvenile adult - see how dark he is? (Neither of these males was used for breeding). Looking at the chick above, I would venture a guess that it would end up being much too light in hackle/saddle shade, I was certainly not expecting his copper to be mahogany like it ended up.



I make lots of notes on chick down color and what the adult feathering ends up like, and although my line has gotten more predictable over the years, at the beginning, I couldn't BEGIN to put my finger on what the adult feathering would look like based on the chicks.

This is why keeping lots of notes - even on things that you think may not be important at the time - is really important. I can't tell you how many times I've gone back to look at notes from 5 or 6 years before and had a "lightbulb moment"!

 

[Wynette]

Interesting thoughts on the subject Wynette! While I am sure that plenty of the problems result from wheaten's bred into to BC, I've hatched out lots of pullets from my second set of birds that grew into hens that were pretty much like... Welsummers. I've always felt that they were a direct result of such a cross. I don't know what else would explain it. Anyway, there is no shortage of things to work on with these birds and I appreciate the work that you and others have done to help unravel the mysteries and in turn improve the breed.

HUH! But okay, let's examine this. When you say "pretty much like Welsummers..." you're speaking of color/pattern, yes? The Welsummer color/pattern - is - pretty much like what we call "mossy" in Marans, yes? I'm not disputing that Wellies could have/might have/probably were bred in by someone, somewhere along the line (although I feel like Penedesenca blood may be a bit more prolific than Wellie blood in the Marans), though. And you are SO right, that there is no shortage of things to work on with this breed. That's what makes it so exciting to see that next generation, and find that you WERE able to fix whatever it was that you set out to fix. In that, there are sometimes backward steps...Lord knows I've made them, and I am no genetics expert. Truth be told, though, that for me, at least - I learn a whole lot each & every time that I make a mistake!

 

[johnderosa1]

Yes, I am referring to color/pattern.... We are not talking mossy... But basically full on welsummer patterned pullets. These were from chicks purchased from mydarkeggs... Purportedly the keepers of the original wade jeane stock.. To be fair some of the chicks grew out beautifully ( well at least one of them) but those birds only produce eggs in the 4-5 range

 

[Ranger Daryl]

The only surviving pullet from my first marans is extremely mossy. In fact, she looks just like a welsummer with black feathered legs.

 

[Runawaylobster]

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SO. assuming we have the mossy, and based on your friends' comment Wynette, we should not attempt to breed out the mossy using more melanizers to "cover it up". How then would one attempt to get it out???? I have one hen.. she was a fabulous pullet no color problems at all. Recently she has just simply turned brown.. she is about 14-15 months old. I have taken her out of the breeding pen, and looking at her in detail she has also recently developed a lighter (and weirdly patchy hackle). It makes me wonder if she was the hen that my halo roo came out of?? Unfortunately it wasn't a single mating, but it WAS one of two hens at the time. The other one (second hen) is not showing the lighter hackle. it would take quite alot of single mating to figure out if she was the source, or if they BOTH were the source. I have put the father (no halo) in the pen with his daughters (none showing lighter hackle feathers) and i will see if i get any halos. I have time to plan egg isolation strategy because it will be 2 weeks until i can be sure that the babies are his. PS: Also, up until this discussion i actually thought that it was fading of the black from the sun. After all this brown girl has been through one summer of Florida Sunshine and she had the green sheen as a pullet.???