Let's talk Cuckoo and WHITE marans... breeding strategies...

[Chickielady]

Thanks guys !
I have been so busy building our house that I have not had anytime to read up on discussions as I would love to be doing.
Hope you all are doing well...take care!
Spring is on it's way !!

 

[Chickielady]

One thing I am dealing with this year to improve type, is the high tail set my birds have.
Notice this in the last pic of the hen~



These birds are beefy, heavy, broad, and overall more than enough to fill a pot LOL
But the high tail set can make a cock bird have a short back and "squirrel tail" which is what I need to work on breeding OUT of my flock.
Tell me what you think about her tail set, as compared to other Marans.
My Blue Coppers do not have such a high tail set...so it is work to be done for sure.

 

[snowbird]

One thing I am dealing with this year to improve type, is the high tail set my birds have.
Notice this in the last pic of the hen~



These birds are beefy, heavy, broad, and overall more than enough to fill a pot LOL
But the high tail set can make a cock bird have a short back and "squirrel tail" which is what I need to work on breeding OUT of my flock.
Tell me what you think about her tail set, as compared to other Marans.
My Blue Coppers do not have such a high tail set...so it is work to be done for sure.

If you are breeding for the APA SOP you will want to drop the tail down. Since you have these good looking females you would need to find a male with much lower tail set. And in no way would you want to breed a hatch mate back to them because it will only make the problem worse.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

or just hatch a ton of birds and keep the roosters and hens that have a lower set tail... im sure u could sell a ton of these as young layers... so hatch allot and cull hard...

 

[Blarneyeggs]

One thing I am dealing with this year to improve type, is the high tail set my birds have.
Notice this in the last pic of the hen~



These birds are beefy, heavy, broad, and overall more than enough to fill a pot LOL
But the high tail set can make a cock bird have a short back and "squirrel tail" which is what I need to work on breeding OUT of my flock.
Tell me what you think about her tail set, as compared to other Marans.
My Blue Coppers do not have such a high tail set...so it is work to be done for sure.

Sounds like you're headed the right way, getting beefy birds and working on your tail set. I wish my Marans had more size. Congratulations, AND my condolences on the house building. It really can suck the life out of you. Hope you're hanging strong and not sweating the small stuff.

 

[flgardengirl]

Hi Chickielady, The pullets that I got from you do not have as high of a tail as the girl in your photo. So you must be doing something right! Maybe try and figure out which hens you got the eggs from that you sent me and who the roo/roos were that might have been the father and maybe hatch some more chicks from them? One of the cuckoo cockerals that I have, has a particularly low tail set so I am going to use him over my pullets. Boy, those boys are getting monsterous!
I think with the next batch of chicks I get from these cuckoos. I am going to switch them to a gamebird feed with higher protein when they start on their growth spurt. The young cockerals really are huge compared to my other varieties.

 

[DMRippy]

Same here, my cuckoos are BIGGER than my coppers too. Bigger eggs too.

 

[SixHix]

I have a question for all you genetics buffs out there- and I am sorry if it has been covered already- I couldn't read all 117 pages of this forum topic.

Why doesn't a golden cuckoo crossed with a black copper marans yield true forms of the bird in the pullets?

What I mean by this is why is it not that if the hen was a golden cuckoo and the roo a BCM that the female offspring would basically be BCMs (no barring gene)- now the males would be heterozygotes so not really either. and if you crossed it the other way (BCM hen with golden cuckoo roo) I would think the pullets from that crossing would basically be golden cuckoos (they would carry the barring gene) and again the cockerels would be kind of weird crosses (B/b+)

If this wouldn't work there must be some alleles that are present in one but not the other that I am forgetting- what are they??? or would this work?

thanks in advance to the chicken nerd who can answer my question!

 

[DMRippy]

I have a question for all you genetics buffs out there- and I am sorry if it has been covered already- I couldn't read all 117 pages of this forum topic.

Why doesn't a golden cuckoo crossed with a black copper marans yield true forms of the bird in the pullets?

What I mean by this is why is it not that if the hen was a golden cuckoo and the roo a BCM that the female offspring would basically be BCMs (no barring gene)- now the males would be heterozygotes so not really either. and if you crossed it the other way (BCM hen with golden cuckoo roo) I would think the pullets from that crossing would basically be golden cuckoos (they would carry the barring gene) and again the cockerels would be kind of weird crosses (B/b+)

If this wouldn't work there must be some alleles that are present in one but not the other that I am forgetting- what are they??? or would this work?

thanks in advance to the chicken nerd who can answer my question!

Barring is a Sex Linked trait and hens can only give the barring to the roos. That trait is how everyone make sex linked chickens. All the roos from barred hens and solid males will hatch with a spot. I make SL EE and Black SL and a few others too.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

A barred hen has only 1 copy of the barred gene that is y they are darker than the barred roosters... if bred to a none barred rooster all hens will not be barred and all roosters will have 1 copy of the gene and will be a darker color like there mom...

a barred rooster that has 2 copies of the barred gene is a lighter color... if bred to none barred hens all hens will have 1 copy of the barred gene and will be "pure" for barring as they can only have 1 copy... the roosters will be none barred...

if u use a rooster that has one barring gene over a none barred hen u will get 50% barred hens and 50% none barred hens and none barred males...

if u breed a single barred rooster to a barred hen all the hens will be barred and 50% of the roosters will be single barred and 50% will be double barred...

so yes assuming your GC are based on BC if u use a BC hen under a GC rooster there daughters would be "pure" GC...

I have a question for all you genetics buffs out there- and I am sorry if it has been covered already- I couldn't read all 117 pages of this forum topic.

Why doesn't a golden cuckoo crossed with a black copper marans yield true forms of the bird in the pullets?

What I mean by this is why is it not that if the hen was a golden cuckoo and the roo a BCM that the female offspring would basically be BCMs (no barring gene)- now the males would be heterozygotes so not really either. and if you crossed it the other way (BCM hen with golden cuckoo roo) I would think the pullets from that crossing would basically be golden cuckoos (they would carry the barring gene) and again the cockerels would be kind of weird crosses (B/b+)

If this wouldn't work there must be some alleles that are present in one but not the other that I am forgetting- what are they??? or would this work?

thanks in advance to the chicken nerd who can answer my question!