Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[RFR of CA]

Well found even darker eggs today

(The ones on the right.) These are from my Greenfire BLM group. They are about 7 months. I think three are laying now.

 

[tao chick]

I have 3 6-wk old cockerels. Are you able to tell at this age if they're breeding quality? I'll be taking them to Cobleskill, NY when they are 8-wks old if I think it's worth it to sell them. If not, they become Thanksgiving dinner. The copper is starting to come in on their necks. One looks a little blue.

 

[desertmarcy]

I have 3 6-wk old cockerels. Are you able to tell at this age if they're breeding quality? I'll be taking them to Cobleskill, NY when they are 8-wks old if I think it's worth it to sell them. If not, they become Thanksgiving dinner. The copper is starting to come in on their necks. One looks a little blue.

Would be nice if it was that easy. Unfortunately, to tell if breeder quality, you need to wait a minimum of 6 months, sometimes closer to a year. Now if they aren't breeder quality, the poor traits that tell you that may show sooner. It takes patience to wait for birds to mature.

 

[robgray]

Well found even darker eggs today (The ones on the right.) These are from my Greenfire BLM group. They are about 7 months. I think three are laying now.

What gorgeous dark eggs. Have you checked what color number they are on the chart?

 

[Sylvester017]

Well found even darker eggs today

(The ones on the right.) These are from my Greenfire BLM group. They are about 7 months. I think three are laying now.

Hi - beautiful eggs! I noticed when we had our Cuckoo that her smaller eggs were darker than her larger ones the following year- guess more surface area to pigment lightens the intensity of the color but seeing both your larger and smaller eggs I'd be happy with either ones! Our Cuckoo usually only gave #4 eggs but still darker than ordinary brown - they hit the XL range on the scale so we really needn't complain.

 

[GaryDean26]

I have 3 6-wk old cockerels. Are you able to tell at this age if they're breeding quality? I'll be taking them to Cobleskill, NY when they are 8-wks old if I think it's worth it to sell them. If not, they become Thanksgiving dinner. The copper is starting to come in on their necks. One looks a little blue.

No...you start to get a good Idea at about 10 months old which are the best breeding quality in the group, but it is still a bit of a guess until they are about 18 months old.

At 6 weeks you can cull for mossiness, comb defects, and physical defects. At 12 weeks you can cull for low body weight. At 18 weeks I usually choose four (out of about 30 that I start with) to grow on. After 18 weeks they are still changing a lot and cockerels that had low tail at 18 weeks could have those tail angles drift upward. Those that had nice combs at 18 weeks may have their combs continue to grow until they are over grown. Those that had perfect color at 18 weeks may get white tips on their wing feathers, may get white under coats, may get white streaks on their tail, may get the halo on their hackles, they may get excessive copper on their breast, their eye color may not turn to the correct color, they may get weak hocks, they may get a mean temperment, etc. 10 Months is when I usually make the final cut, but one group I grow out until 2 years old and it was very eye opening. The one I would have chose at 10 months old was not the one I chose at 2 years old.

Some also use progeny testing. For that they breed a few cockerels at 6 months old to hens with a know egg color, know production rate, known egg size. Then they grow out a few pullets from each of the cockerels. Once the pullets have been laying for a month or two they evaluate the eggs to see where the average of the group and with the know egg color/size rate of the hen can determine what the cockerels egg contributions are to the offspring. They keep the cockerel with the greatest contributions to the eggs and cull the rest. With progeny testing it would require you to hold onto multiple cockerels for at lest a year before making the final selection.

Similar to progeny test is test mating. If your line has a defect that occasionally pops out such as recessive white chick you can get a recessive white breed and hatch a clutch of eggs to see if any of the offspring come out with the defect. This is usually done to another breed. Preferably one that doesn't lay brown eggs so that their is no chance of getting the cross breeds mixed up with the pure Marans. If any chicks in the clutch come out with the defect then you know that the Marans being tested (cockerel or pullet) is a carrier of the defect and you can cull him/her so that the defect isn't passed on in the flock.

Welcome to breeding chickens. It takes about ten years of working with a mentor to become a good breeder. I am a little over half way there and learn more and more every year.

 

[RFR of CA]

I need to order a chart. I tried a few sites but could not locate one. Any leads?

 

[Sylvester017]

I need to order a chart. I tried a few sites but could not locate one. Any leads?

I hope this doesn't sound dumb but maybe the U.K. Marans Club could help?
http://www.themaransclub.co.uk/eggs-and-egg-colour-chart/4541995077

 

[snowbird]

The MCCusa club sells the charts.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Finally had the chance to get a picture of our Roo standing
Please give feed back he is around 13 weeks old

He is young, however...his eye color is not anything I've ever seen before. His chest feathers are mossy rather than copper (and you only want a few of them if they were copper instead) and his entire chest shows shafting. He is young, yet at this age I'd want to see more substance and width. The odd color of the corners of his mouth and top of the wattles is also something I've not seen before. Can't tell much else from the angle of these photos, but I would not use him in a breeding program.