Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[sewandgrow]

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Sorry for the late response. I have been mostly absent from the boards lately except for a very local new thread. I have been so busy hatching (I am more than a little compulsive/impulsive) that I have been caught up in that.
The breeder that sent the "off" color eggs said she printed a color chart off the Marans site & went from that. I told her that her printer must be out & she can purchase a color chart very inexpensively to honestly go by. I really didn't even know if I wanted to incubate the eggs but they came from a really good source so I did, thinking they may turn out to be "good" birds. I didn't get a refund but she did ask "what kind of refund are you looking for"? In the end the eggs hatched extremely well for shipped eggs. My luck with shipped eggs has been poor except this batch & the batch I got from Pinkchick. I have about given up on shipped eggs & what you get from them & have been asking the sellers if they ship chicks instead.
I have amassed a large collection to choose from & will have an experienced breeder friend help me cull & keep my best. I gave up trying to do it all in one line & so have layers for dark eggs & others for aiming at SOP. It has been as a whole a very rewarding journey that continues to entertain me......LOL I have learned to roll with the disappointments & keep trying, readjusting my goals as I go.
Thanks for your interest.
Karen in California

 

[geebs]

sounds like a great attitude... sad that all the threads are so into the SOP that ppl can't just talk about the birds....I put the Black Copper thread up for breeding strategy not for just SOP stuff... sorry about that... I just like the birds for both the dark eggs and the temperment as well....... Keep up the good work on them an enjoy the ride.. thanks for getting back on my question...Love seeing you on here Sew!!!

 

[math ace]

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I had a 66% hatch rate on shipped Marans eggs using the Dry Incubation method.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/LC-DryIncubation.html

Thanks!! That's what I'm trying this time. I have no water in either incubator and the humidity is staying between 45 & 50%.

I love running my humidty during the first 18 days between 45 - 50%. Then on day 19, I boost to 65 - 70%.
I have had issues when my humidity goes lower than 40% for a long time during the first 18 days. You can check the air sac growth to figure out if the humidty is appropriate.

 

[sewandgrow]

Quote:
I believe you, but I can't yet bring myself to kill and eat something I hovered over and, frankly, prayed for while it was hatching. I'm going to feel bad enough about handing three culls over to be eaten. I've got a Jeane C1 cockerel and pullet that both have orange breasts, they gotta go.
(And yes, he loves the tails, but he calls them the "Pope's Nose". I guess that's the Protestant version. LOL)

By the way, is there anyone here who did not grow up doing their own butchering who does it now? How hard is it to get over the citified repulsion to it? Does it get easier after the first one? The first two?

I did not grow up with the butchering. . . . I just had a friend come over with 6 extra roosters. She did not grow up with butchering either.

We had another friend that was raised butchering animals come over to mentor us through the process. Having the whole "group" experience really made a difference.

What turns one person's stomach doesn't turn another. .. . For example, I just can not kill an animal - - Just can't do it!
Dh can do that part. I can do the cleaning out of the animal with NO PROBLEM, Dh can't stomach the guts and stuff.
We skinned our birds. . . . and my friend had a real hard time skinning her roos because she just didn't have the hand strength for it.

When you work in a group, you can divide the tasks up so that each person is doing what they don't mind doing and keep each other company while doing this. We had a guy over who only felt comfortable spraying the work tables clean and holding the hose for us as we washed up. . . This was still a "needed" and appreciated contribution to the whole process!

At the end of the day, everyone went home with a "job well done" feeling.

Hey Lisa,
I totally agree with the group butchering method. I took a butchering class offered from Jules, a 4H leader a ways down the freeway from me & had a ball............ I came home so ready to go & got busy on the internet ordering everything I needed to do it myself. She used a construction cone clamped into a workmate as a killing cone & it worked great so my husband rounded one up for me. She uses a Havalon knife with replacable scalpel blades for all the knife work so I ordered on online. I have a turkey fryer to use as my scalding pot & a 5gal propane tank for it for outside work. I ordered a turkey fryer therometer on Ebay to test the water. She kept a sprayer nozzle on her hose ready to use & it worked great. I am eager to try my first time alone. Soon I hope

 

[Nikki1976]

Quote:
Thanks!! That's what I'm trying this time. I have no water in either incubator and the humidity is staying between 45 & 50%.

I love running my humidty during the first 18 days between 45 - 50%. Then on day 19, I boost to 65 - 70%.
I have had issues when my humidity goes lower than 40% for a long time during the first 18 days. You can check the air sac growth to figure out if the humidty is appropriate.

Thanks! I had several people tell me the same thing! My last hatch ran 35-40% humidity for the first 18 days and I only got 2 of them to hatch. When I candled around day 14, some of the air sacs looked too big. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be looking for so I just left them alone and followed the instructions that came with the bators. A lot of the chicks were fully formed, but never pipped their shells. However, all of the Cochin eggs that I had in the same bator did hatch. So....I didn't know if Marans required something "special" for incubation. I'm definitely going to keep a better eye on the air cells this time!!

 

[cmfarm]

So why is it so hard to get chickens that meet the showing standards but don't give a very dark egg (I'm sure this is not true for everyone, but I seem to here about this alot)?

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
I did not grow up with the butchering. . . . I just had a friend come over with 6 extra roosters. She did not grow up with butchering either.

We had another friend that was raised butchering animals come over to mentor us through the process. Having the whole "group" experience really made a difference.

What turns one person's stomach doesn't turn another. .. . For example, I just can not kill an animal - - Just can't do it!
Dh can do that part. I can do the cleaning out of the animal with NO PROBLEM, Dh can't stomach the guts and stuff.
We skinned our birds. . . . and my friend had a real hard time skinning her roos because she just didn't have the hand strength for it.

When you work in a group, you can divide the tasks up so that each person is doing what they don't mind doing and keep each other company while doing this. We had a guy over who only felt comfortable spraying the work tables clean and holding the hose for us as we washed up. . . This was still a "needed" and appreciated contribution to the whole process!

At the end of the day, everyone went home with a "job well done" feeling.

Hey Lisa,
I totally agree with the group butchering method. I took a butchering class offered from Jules, a 4H leader a ways down the freeway from me & had a ball............ I came home so ready to go & got busy on the internet ordering everything I needed to do it myself. She used a construction cone clamped into a workmate as a killing cone & it worked great so my husband rounded one up for me. She uses a Havalon knife with replacable scalpel blades for all the knife work so I ordered on online. I have a turkey fryer to use as my scalding pot & a 5gal propane tank for it for outside work. I ordered a turkey fryer therometer on Ebay to test the water. She kept a sprayer nozzle on her hose ready to use & it worked great. I am eager to try my first time alone. Soon I hope

I grew up in the big city. Don't know where I got the country bug from. Must be a recessive gene or something. I know my family thinks so!!

I definitely did not grow up butchering. I had a neighbour come and mentor me through the process but I really prefer not to do it. I find the killing VERY difficult (even though I prefer to take responsibility for it if I make the decision to cull a bird) and it's actually a lot of work to prepare a bird for the table - time I would rather spend with the live birds. I'm glad I've learned how to do it but I will likely continue to pass the task on to someone else whenever I can.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

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Interesting. I had exactly the same problem hatching my own light brown eggs (although I didn't candle so I don't actually know how big the air sacs were.) 7 out of 8 of my BCMs hatched, 7 out of 8 shipped Ameraucanas, 9 out of 11 EEs hatched and only 2 out of 9 of my light brown eggs hatched (from 4 different 2 year old hens). The unhatched BCM egg turned out to be clear, the Ameraucana egg died first week, but my light brown eggs were all fully formed chicks that simply didn't pip. In my case, humidity ran high throughout. Very near to 50% at the beginning, up around 70% and even higher after lockdown.

 

[snowbird]

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Jan, Sure wish I had of known all this before I spent a lot of valuable time answering breeding questions for all looking to breed to the SOP. Anyone with SOP or breed questions post them on the Marans thread and will try and answer them there.

 

[geebs]