Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Debbi]

Barngoddess ~ I love his coloring! So many of the Blue Coppers don't have the balance of hackle and saddle coloring, or no saddle color at all. He is lovely! To fault him, his clean shanks/toes, and does he have a sprig on the side of his comb in the first pic, or is it just my monitor? New monitor and still can't get it adjusted to my liking

 

[snowbird]

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Hi, Do you have a splash female that has good shank and toe feathering that you could put with the Blue copper. The Blue Coppers are one of the easier colors to breed if you go about it the right way. I would not put this male over Black female though. For a blue copper except for the shank and toe feathering he looks real nice.

I don't have any splash females.

I do have a blue female. I would describe her as dark blue and she has the least amount of copper of any of my females.

Why wouldn't you put him with blacks?

From past experience it is just that I think you would get better offspring, at least better colored blues.

 

[marquisella]

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I think this is a very good example of a blue copper Marans. Yes, he has clean legs, but his lacing & color is great. I don't think he has too much copper color. Clean legs are easy to fix...I'd use him in a heartbeat!

 

[BarnGoddess01]

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Thanks for the comments, Debbi!!

Yes, those clean legs are frustrating.

I don't believe he has a sprig. (I actually think he has a pretty decent comb. Upright, smooth, relatively balanced.) He does have a couple of "scabs" from where my black boy zinged him. I think the remnants of a scab may be what you are seeing.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

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I think this is a very good example of a blue copper Marans. Yes, he has clean legs, but his lacing & color is great. I don't think he has too much copper color. Clean legs are easy to fix...I'd use him in a heartbeat!

Thank you!! Very encouraging!! (Funny, the ladies love him too. Several of my pullets actually chase him.

)

 

[Debbi]

Good deal! I've gotten very paranoid about sprigs and othe stupid combs around here, and lately, it's the first thing I look at after the whole picture. I think he is lovely.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

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VERY encouraging comments about "Jack". And he's a nice boy too. A bit of an hysteric but that's a good thing with all the hawks around here. He "eyeballs" some of my egg customers but he's a perfect gentleman with me and he is good with the ladies as well.

 

[Lotsapaints]

BarnGoddess I love the type on this guy and his color very nice he's much better than your other guy. What Don is getting at is for the correct color of blue for showing and from my limited experience is that the best lacing comes from a splash to black copper then would be blue to blue then blue to black. I'm learning that single mating is the best way also to see what you get....so you can clone some more

 

[Noymira]

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I agree the blue leaves much out as far as SOP but I eat my chickens and I liked his size for the DP flock.

But I thank you for your critique of the bcm roo as I am trying to put together a small BCM flock for breeding for next spring. I need to know what I can do with what I got! When my 2 mature hens are out of molt and my other roo matures I will post again but with the whole flock. For BCMs I have 2 roos and 6 hens at the moment. I gave chicks of the same breeding to several people this spring and hope I can call on them for eggs, next spring, if I need to hatch something other than what I have.

By the way what is up with the brown fluff and what should I expect from it down the line... does it sit "gene" tight with any other undesirable traits?

I'd be happy to give you some eggs anytime you'd like, but I know my hens were not from your lines, so I won't be offended if you don't want them.

I only plan on putting my dark eggs under a broody or two in the spring, unless I want to hatch some other layers for my friend who wants to get into chickens next year. Although if they'd rather have eggs right away maybe I'll give them a few of my young hens so I can get some more chickens, you got me thinking about some other DP birds when I was last up your way. And I kind of want some blue egg layers, but I'm not sure where they'd fit into the scheme of things.

 

[Noymira]

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I think his coloring is beautiful! No advice on SOP, but I think he's lovely!