BCM

[Chicken__Tender]

At the risk of sounding dumb... does a black copper maran bred with a black copper maran equal a black copper maran? Or what breeds are used to make a BCM?

 

[nuthatched]

Marans is the breed, Black copper is the color. They aren't hybrids, they're their own breed.:]

 

[Chicken__Tender]

Marans is the breed, Black copper is the color. They aren't hybrids, they're their own breed.:]

So they aren't like the barred rock chickens where If you breed one with the other you end up with black chickens? Sorry I'm new to this part of things lol

 

[FunClucks]

So they aren't like the barred rock chickens where If you breed one with the other you end up with black chickens? Sorry I'm new to this part of things lol

If you have two barred rock chickens that are pure, they should hatch barred rock chickens that look just like their parents. If you breed barred rock to some other type of chicken, or your barred rock isn't pure, you could end up with black chicks. Depends on the genetics of the other chicken.

Breeds make more of themselves aka breed true.

Mixing different breeds gives you random things based on the genetics involved.

There are a lot of hybrid or designer (mixed breed) chickens out there, created for a purpose. These are not designed to give repeatable results when bred to the same type bird as themselves. When you breed hybrids or mixed breed chickens to themselves, you can get a lot of variability in the traits of the offspring.

Commercial corporations/owners often keep multiple flocks from which they breed one type of hybrid chicken. The hybrid is sold, and is valuable because of its desired traits. Cornish Cross is one example. The ultimate meat chicken hybrid - this a terminal cross. If you breed them to themselves (if you can get them to breed, the males can get so big they have trouble impregnating the females), you will get a variety of traits in the offspring, not the uniform growth habit and size of the chicks you bought from the hatchery. So you buy more hatchery chicks because of the repeatability in the chick size and growth rate. This is the business model for commercial hatchery hybrid chickens.

 

[nuthatched]

So they aren't like the barred rock chickens where If you breed one with the other you end up with black chickens? Sorry I'm new to this part of things lol

Plymouth Barred Rocks should also breed pure, if you're getting black chicks, your barred rocks aren't pure.
They also aren't hybrids or sex-linked. :]