Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[geebs]

This is copied from the French website as I found it nearly impossible to link to the exact page and navigation of the material would be difficult.


General appearance:
Cock:
Body : strong, fairly long and wide especially near the shoulders which are held high.
Neck : long, fairly strong, tending to curve in on top towards the skull; the hackles are made of many long and abundant feathers covering the shoulders well
Back : long, flat, slightly concave towards the rear
Saddle : large, slightly raised but not rounded, covered with many lancets

Breast : strong and large

Abdomen : well developed

Wings : short , kept close to the body

Tail : strong at its base, quite short, fairly up without going over 45 °

Head : average size, slightly flat and long

Comb : simple, of an average size, with a fairly rough texture. Sharp edges. The lobe not touching the nape

Wattles : average size, red with a fine texture

Ear-lobes : average size, red and long

Face : red coloured with or without down

Eyes : bright, with a orangey-red iris

Beak : Quite strong, slightly hooked and horn-coloured

Shanks : big, without vulture hocks

Tarsi : average size, with some feathers white or lightly pink coloured for all the varieties except for the BLACK, BROWN-RED and BIRCHEN Marans
were grey or dark grey is permitted, although not preferred, for both sexes. Four long and well separated toes with the outer one sparsely feathered.
The claws are white or horn- coloured


I have highlighted the exerpt about the head... Any pictures guys or does this bore you??? We can do something different...you choose...

 

[VillageChicken]

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Overthinking?? You geebs? never!

I think that any standard that promotes separate genotypes for Roosters and Hens is a recipe for disaster.

I don't have a lot of experience with the ID gene. I know my bresse are id/id that's why their legs are blue even though they are recessive white. id/id means dermal melanin is present. ID/+ or ID/ID means melanin is inhibited or blocked to a certain degree depending on other factors.

The jury is not in as to how much the Birchen allele affects shank color when combined with melanizers like melanotic. I don't know if a properly "dark slate" shanked rooster will be heterozygous ID/id to match the dark slate of the hen. I think most of U.S. hens are ID/+ and are actually dark slate shanked. An ID/id roosters will have the same level of dermal melanin inhibitors as an ID/+ hen, so I'm assuming that this configuration will give the closest approximation of dark slate on a rooster. Therein lies the nightmare. This combination of an ID/id roo over an ID/+ hen will bring us back to the ID/ID roos we have today, and a split of ID/+ and id/+ hens. So we will have to maintain a pen of id/+ hens with an ID/ID roo, just to get the shank color right on our roos. This would however also produce correct ID/+ hens at the same time. If you could even discern which of your hens are id/+, no one wants to maintain incorrect birds just to breed correct ones.

You saw on Peachick's black roo that it's not easy to melanize an ID/ID shaft. That guy's blacker than black and his shanks are still dermally inhibited. Extra melanizers on our current roos is not the answer.

This is all theory, but seems the logical conclusion to me. I don't know what an id/+ BC marans hen looks like next to an ID/+. The difference may be obvious, it most likely will not be. I don't see a big difference between ID/+ hens and the Australorp roosters I have that are id/id.

Maybe the elimination of the ID gene entirely from every line of U.S. Marans will produce birds with shanks that approximate the notion of dark slate. If that were even possible, then they would breed true. Do you see that really happening? I still don't know why they would change it. Every variety of Marans is supposed to have lighter shanks. Just like Leghorns are supposed to have yellow shanks, bright clear yellow shanks, even on the black leghorns. It's not like the U.S. developed the Black Copper variety and is writing the standard for the first time.

Here in Europe you don't see them changing the standard on Plymouth Rocks or Wyandottes. Why do we think it's okay to change their standard and still call them Marans? No wonder Europe thinks we're a bunch of snobs! I don't think the folks who are in the darkshank camp are snobs, it just seems they have a disregard for the history and heritage of this breed in Europe where it originated. I don't know too many folks who think it was a good idea for the British to eliminate shank feathering! How is this any different?

I hope that it IS just a clerical error.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. I mean we're talking about chicken legs here, not world peace.

 

[VillageChicken]

Pink, those shanks do look dark slate to me, at least compared to the other shanks I've seen. It's hard to tell on a Blue though because the blue gene affects melanization in the whole bird. Looks like his son's shanks are darker. What about hens? ID is sex linked, so Bill's son got half his shank genes from mom. What do Bills female progeny look like? Dark slate or closer to black? Here we are talking various shades of gray. Are we gonna need a shank color chart to file next to our egg charts?

 

[geebs]

villagechicken
okay busted as charged.. but the feathering on the legs isn't the greatest issue here.

I think you are right about the jury being out on the birchen/leg thing... The standard is supposed to be written in such a fashion to allow both camps and also there is great fear about the light leg and the genetics of the pure copper genes.. I believe this is where the problem lies.. We DONT have a complete understanding but we are striving to.. And you are right.. We cannot ignore the history and still maintain that we have french birds. I wholeheartedly agree... I do firmly agree that the marans club ppl that are working on the standard are doing a very good job and working hard to understand all the details. This isn't a simple thing... It isn't a matter of just culling only... It is about repairing the damage of the crossbreds that are here as well... That is the genetic soup..

There is always a place in my heart for the dark egg... she is doing right by breeding the best traits forward.... Pink is a good steward!!!

 

[ADozenGirlz]

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6littlechicks also sells her Black Copper Marans eggs. I just hatched out 8 of the 12 she shipped me this week!

 

[pinkchick]

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The one and only Black Copper dtr that I kept from Bill was the product of the same dark legged Black Copper pullet used to produce Bill's son Junior (yes, JR's legs were darker than his dads) Phat Sassy (whom I just rehomed) had dark legs as well, but not as dark as JR's.
Let me see if I can find a picture of her legs.

Sassy. She was the hardest bird to photo.

 

[geebs]

thanks for reposting... Everbody say AAAAAHHHHHH!!!! geez Nice hatch... Good uniform tuxedos on them all!!!!

 

[geebs]

You will just need to find over colored hens to cross him on... No prob there.. Did it fix the leg feathering?

 

[pinkchick]

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Too CUTE!!!!!!! Congratulations on your hatch! Beautiful eggs!
I hope to have some little Black Copper babies running around on Thursday.

 

[ADozenGirlz]

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Thanks geebs. I kept a blog from egg delivery to hatch here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=43104-diary-of-the-egglets

I set 17 shipped eggs from 6littlechicks, 12 of which were BCMs. 8 of those hatched.

Three out of four shipped Ameraucana eggs hatched. One other that hatched was from my own flock a blue Ameraucana over a Silver Spangled Hamburg. She should be interesting!

I have two blue splash Marans now from Gabbard Farms.

I know very little about the standards for the BCMs, but I'm interested in learning.

@geebs: I LOVE my Briseas, I just got a second last month for this BSM hatch. They are both Mini Advance models. It could not be any more user-friendly unless it automatically filled the water reservoir and removed the chicks to the brooder!

The chicks that have yellow down in my pictures are the Ameraucanas and the one that is all black is the Am X SSH. While they were all shipped together, I set the Ameraucanas and one BSM a week later b/c I was waiting for my new bator to arrive. Oh, and my broody hatched one BSM. That's why eight of them look much larger than the other four.

While we're in the process of actively building our second coop for the BSMs in the garage, you can see it'll be a while until we can actually put it in place. <sigh>