Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Zanna]

Gosh, I cannot believe how much I have missed my Marans friends since the mountain lion came through and wiped me out! I cannot believe how much I have forgotten!


Zanna!!!!!!!!! I see you lurking my friend! Hi, I hope you and your birds are doing fabulous! It's been soooooo hot over here! Can you believe it????

Whatcha working on now a days?

Hey Kim!!! Good to see you back on here! Yes it has been killer hot, not fun working outside all day long and living in an apartment in the top of a metal roofed horse barn!!!!

Still working with my BCM, Delawares and New Hampshires. The progress with the BCM has been slow, spent the last 3 years first introducing a new lovely Cock who introduced a recessive white gene in my flock and spent the last year breeding it out of my flock. Have my first recessive white gene free youngsters on the ground now and just watching them grow out, hoping for great things

 

[Sylvester017]

I got it @pinkchick and snowbird!
Green is good!
Purple/blue is pretty but definitely NOT desirable! Thanks guy!

 

[Alaskan]

@pinkchick if your hens are solid black.... Couldn't you just decide that you had Black
Marans, not Black Copper Marans.. And get a black cock?


Is there some reason to not do that?

Working with a solid color would be LOADS easier than trying to get everything correct with a Black Copper, especially since you have solid black hens.

 

[blackbirds13]

@pinkchick if your hens are solid black.... Couldn't you just decide that you had Black
Marans, not Black Copper Marans.. And get a black cock?


Is there some reason to not do that?

Working with a solid color would be LOADS easier than trying to get everything correct with a Black Copper, especially since you have solid black hens.

The genetics for Black and Black Copper are not the same. Black Coppers are based on ER allele- birchen, and blacks are E allele- extended black.

 

[pinkchick]

@pinkchick if your hens are solid black.... Couldn't you just decide that you had Black
Marans, not Black Copper Marans.. And get a black cock?


Is there some reason to not do that?

Working with a solid color would be LOADS easier than trying to get everything correct with a Black Copper, especially since you have solid black hens.

The genetics for Black and Black Copper are not the same. Black Coppers are based on ER allele- birchen, and blacks are E allele- extended black.

Alaskan~ yes that would be a lot to easier to decide to just say they were black, but Blackbirds13 is spot on with the fact that genetics for a solid pure black Marans and a Black Copper Marans are 2 different things. There are folks out there that say their birds are pure black, but then they also state that they started them from their Black Coppers and "bred" out the copper. Well that is not exactly how that works, the copper is always there even if a person cannot see it. Genetically speaking, the Copper and copper genetics will pass along to all offspring, there is no way to avoid it. Melanizers, and perhaps some other modifying genes are the culprits for hiding the copper. Melanizers can allow some color to leak through and be seen, or they mask it completely. Eventually, breeding these "solid black" birds over generations will still produce a bird, or a few, with copper coloring be it a slight glint of it, or actual copper. Somewhere in my massive collection of photos I have a great picture of one of my pullets from over the years that illustrates what I am talking about perfectly. I will do some looking for it over the next couple of days and post it.
I started out working with mostly all melanized birds, especially my original, very dark Blue Copper male, who looked to be a Black Copper. Breeding the melanized birds created some good birds, but also created a whole passel more melanized birds. One of the very reasons that I struggled in the past, and still struggle today with copper on my females.
Thanks to good friends and mentors like Snowbird and Gilavina, I have heeded their advice and made some changes with how I was breeding the birds and finally got males that produce male birds that have and show good copper, but still working on the female side of things.

 

[sideWing]

Hi, anyway to see a picture and that way might have a better understanding. Most males with a pinched tail is caused by the back narrowing off a lot before the end of Back. If you have females with wider tails he would still be ok to use. If you have females with pinched tails use a wide Bushy tail male and it will correct the problem. Breeding any fowl all boils down to averages when mating them up in the breed pen. Don

Here is a picture from June 12 of this cockerels tail. It's cut off a bit, but I'm telling you the tail was open and looked very nice.



Here is a picture from this morning. He seemed to start doing this the week he started breeding. He is dropping his wings a bit too. Maybe it's the heat, but he's upsetting me a little bit with his lazy posture.

 

[magdelaine]

Looking for experienced judgement one more time. This is a BCMxWelsummer. I have this one in the boy pen because of comb development at a young age, but at twelve weeks he is looking more like a she to me. What do you think?

 

[RFR of CA]

Yes I agree, and at that age you should already find the pointy feathers along the saddle coming in for your roos

 

[magdelaine]

Yes I agree, and at that age you should already find the pointy feathers along the saddle coming in for your roos

Thank you, I'll take a closer look at it. I would hate for a girl to be stuck in there with all those boys as hormones come online...yikes

 

[Wynette]

Looks more like a pullet than a cockerel to me.