Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[DnDFarm]

If the weather warms up ever, we will be putting the oldest 150 young Marans out in the grow out pens. I like the type we have but the color will be dark on the females. We used the darker male from a necessity point.

Don, I keep forgetting how many birds you hatch, and I know that's much less than you used to. Do you breed only for yourself for show, do you sell adult birds, or is it a hobby for you? I average around 130 birds at any given time, but only about 40 of those are my breeders. The rest are my original hatchery quality birds that are still kept for pets and eggs. As those flocks phase out, I see myself paring down to the BCM and AMs. I'm learning this year how many pens you need to effectively breed a few flocks. At some point down the road I see myself redoing all the pens in more of a breeder setup, something more like what you have but on a smaller scale

 

[snowbird]

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SC, My son Kevin and myself breed mostly for ourselves and hope to have some fowl soon good enough to show. Our primary fowl are the Brahma and soon maybe our only Fowl. The BC Marans have to show improvement this year or they are history. When I disposed of my original Marans four year ago I sold most of the female for egg layers and most of the young fowl went to the Asian Market. The last year with the old line of Marans we hatched close to 800 Marans.

 

[DnDFarm]

SC, My son Kevin and myself breed mostly for ourselves and hope to have some fowl soon good enough to show. Our primary fowl are the Brahma and soon maybe our only Fowl. The BC Marans have to show improvement this year or they are history. When I disposed of my original Marans four year ago I sold most of the female for egg layers and most of the young fowl went to the Asian Market. The last year with the old line of Marans we hatched close to 800 Marans.

I read about so many people that close their BCM programs. Do you think it will ever get easier to breed to the standard, or do you think it's going to get harder because of people breeding just for the dark eggs?

 

[snowbird]

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SC, No for the first question and yes for the second.

 

[DnDFarm]

SC, No for the first question and yes for the second.

I thought that was what you would say

 

[snowbird]

These young male are eight weeks on the 27th. Soon as they settle down will try for some closer pictures.

 

[DnDFarm]

These young male are eight weeks on the 27th. Soon as they settle down will try for some closer pictures.

Looks like you have a good range of color there, maybe you'll get some you can work with. I did find out that BCM cockerels are fantastic when hickory smoked

 

[snowbird]

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My Son and Grandson and myself go through about 100 that we have dressed a little way from where I live. Plan on some fryers this year. All of these males will most likely go to the Butcher. We are hatching a few single mated at present that we hope to keep a few for breeding. These have the size that we are breeding for on the Marans.

 

[happyfrenchman]

Thanks for the information! I have just never seen a Marans chick with a black comb. I was suspicious that the breeder I got the eggs from was focusing more on egg color then quality Birds. Hopefully that isn't the case

Is it a big comb.... the combs are black when they are first hatched... the young cockerels develop pink combs after a week or two, but the hens combs stay black and very small until they start to reach sexual maturity. So a black comb is normal at hatching.

 

[am040608]

They are 2 1/2 weeks old now. Is it odd if it's still black? Anywho, they all seem to have rather developed combs unfortunately.