Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Metella]

I have an interesting egg color question ....

I assume many of you have had barred rocks - and you know how some of their eggs can have an almost pinky-light brown color ? Matted and not shiny.

So I have a mixed flock - and have been getting such an egg - which also seems to be lightly (very lightly) coated with chalky stuff .... Fine big egg. Pretty consistent.

I don't wash my eggs. But recently I had one city girl want eggs - so I was washing away for her .... and washed off the coating of said regular egg ... and found a deep brown!!! It was a Marans egg (cukoo so lighter brown than copper). Humph.

Have any of you had coated Marans eggs before ? I washed a few others just to check - and yep - Miss Steady Layer had a nice deep brown egg under all that chalky pink !!!

 

[desertmarcy]

I'm in need of a little help. Every year I buy chicks from people in Michigan who all have claimed their flock has Davis line or Jean line in them. Once the chicks grow up and start laying I can tell I was taken for a fool again. The eggs they lay are too light and I end up culling the flock. This is my 4th year of trying to find Marans that are actually Marans and not someone's poor excuse of the breed (meaning their eggs end up under a 4 on the color chart). I even ask for pictures of the flock and of the eggs they are hatching. The pictures the seller emails me are of really dark eggs. However, once the chicks I purchase from them start laying they are no where near the color in the pictures they sent me back in spring.

I am posting a picture of some eggs hoping someone could tell me where they stand on the color chart. I am hoping a couple of these hens are worth breeding because I am tired of the heartbreak of spending so much money on raising a bad flock. The top row are from my black sex link. The middle row are the Marans eggs the bottom are Easter Eggers. The 4th from the left is the egg color of past flocks that have all been culled but one hen. She is kept in with my Easter Eggers to create Olive Eggers each spring. Could someone tell me where each of these eggs are on the color chart numbering them from left to right? I need to know if its okay to breed this flock or if I should keep trying. I'm really hoping these are acceptable. Would you use them for breeding?

I forgot to add: These eggs were collected after the hens have been laying for 3 months.

It is difficult to match colors since everybody's computer monitors are a bit different. That said, I would say 6, 5, 5, 2, 6. They all look dark enough except the 4th from the left.
I have the official color chart from Marans of America Club, and I can't tell much difference between a 3 and 4 or between 5, 6 and 7. Maybe it's my eyes, but I was always good at discerning color subtleties.

Remember egg color is only one part of what you should be looking at when deciding if your birds are breed worthy. That is, if you want to breed to SOP. If you are just breeding for egg color, then you were wise to discard birds that were laying like that 4th from the left. It looks like you have a good start now.

 

[One Chick Two]

Yes that would be more like shafting. Took me a bit to remember where that was a problem on my threads. The BLRW have that issue more than anything I have seen. Might be a gold gene thing since you are seeing it only on the copper feathers. I personally would not worry about that issue on coppers unless it was in the black feathers..... I don't know if I have ever seen that on black feathers.

If I were you I would worry more about the big picture and when those things are fixed if the shafting shows up still work on it. In the BLRW the missing key to feather shafting is the mahogany gene and in coppers NO mahogany gene is a good thing so maybe the bigger thing you would work on is breeding them with a black breast more than the shafting issue????????? Just guessing here.

Thanks so much!
Just trying to figure if birds with any shafting can be folded into our existing flock, hopefully, without adding additional huge color issues down the road.

All the males came from two separate, different lines of shipped eggs. (Our own main rooster not shown is from a different line.) Although we have four nice daughters for our main rooster, the daughters still seem a bit darkish in their hackles (from their black hen mother, who was the best hen we had available at the time...) still feel there still should be a few better colored hens for him, hence bringing in other hens.

Some of the cockerels from the line with the shafting have had chest color, but others have none- or hardly coppered. This male is one of the two we're keeping from this line. He has a small amount of shafting, but it's minimal compared to the others photos I showed- less intense. I think this line has nice attributes... lovely type, weight and width, with nice egg color. They just mature SLOWLY! lol This male is 6 months old.



Here's one of his pullet sisters. (Please ignore the mud on her. lol) You can see the slight, shiny feather centers on some of her feathers as well, but they aren't that intense or whitish as the males from her hatch.


Clyde... although I believe he has the ability to one day possibly be shown, he and his remaining sisters from that line even though they look correct on the surface, they will never be folded in. One brother expressed yellow legs, and other siblings expressed Brachydactyly trait, among other things... Even though you ask questions when purchasing eggs, sometimes surprises show up.

Quote:
Isn't this from too much (mucus?) outside coating from the hen building up on eggs, thus, becoming chalky? Not sure that anything can be done though. Sometimes the eggs finish will change over time... We have RIR that have changed their egg coatings from time to time.

 

[DMRippy]

I have an interesting egg color question ....

I assume many of you have had barred rocks - and you know how some of their eggs can have an almost pinky-light brown color ?   Matted and not shiny.

So I have a mixed flock - and have been getting such an egg - which also seems to be lightly (very lightly) coated with chalky stuff ....  Fine big egg.   Pretty consistent.

I don't wash my eggs.    But recently I had one city girl want eggs - so I was washing away for her .... and washed off the coating of said regular egg ... and found a deep brown!!!  It was a Marans egg  (cukoo so lighter brown than copper).   Humph.   

Have any of you had coated Marans eggs before ?   I washed a few others just to check - and yep - Miss Steady Layer had a nice deep brown egg under all that chalky pink !!!

Some marans eggs will get too much bloom on the shell and I have seen it get the same look when they lay on the floor in the poop. Usually those eggs will not hatch.

 

[Metella]

Hum - good to know it may be an issue for hatching ... but she is not going to be one of my "mammas" so no problem for this hen's eggs.

Now that you mention it - when I do find an errant egg on the floor - some tend to look this pinky-brown color .... but that is not what is happening to this particular girl's eggs - as I am getting them "pink" right from the next box.

At any rate - they are nice sized for eating and selling !!!

She just had me fooled for the longest time and I was so happy with how the "barred rock" was laying!

 

[Wickischickies]

It is difficult to match colors since everybody's computer monitors are a bit different. That said, I would say 6, 5, 5, 2, 6. They all look dark enough except the 4th from the left.
I have the official color chart from Marans of America Club, and I can't tell much difference between a 3 and 4 or between 5, 6 and 7. Maybe it's my eyes, but I was always good at discerning color subtleties.

Remember egg color is only one part of what you should be looking at when deciding if your birds are breed worthy. That is, if you want to breed to SOP. If you are just breeding for egg color, then you were wise to discard birds that were laying like that 4th from the left. It looks like you have a good start now.

Thank you for replying Desertmarcy. Now that I have hens who lay the right egg color

I can start breeding and culling for eye color and such. I did have two chicks hatch on Christmas, but culled one because it had feathers on the second toe. None of my hens or the rooster have that problem, so hopefully I don't get too many chicks like that. I had someone on this site help me with feet/leg color and eye color over the summer. I know a couple of my hens has light eye color, but my rooster has dark orange eyes. I'm hoping that breeding them will clear up the light eye color.

 

[doubleleft]

I'm in need of a little help. Every year I buy chicks from people in Michigan who all have claimed their flock has Davis line or Jean line in them. Once the chicks grow up and start laying I can tell I was taken for a fool again. The eggs they lay are too light and I end up culling the flock. This is my 4th year of trying to find Marans that are actually Marans and not someone's poor excuse of the breed (meaning their eggs end up under a 4 on the color chart). I even ask for pictures of the flock and of the eggs they are hatching. The pictures the seller emails me are of really dark eggs. However, once the chicks I purchase from them start laying they are no where near the color in the pictures they sent me back in spring.

I am posting a picture of some eggs hoping someone could tell me where they stand on the color chart. I am hoping a couple of these hens are worth breeding because I am tired of the heartbreak of spending so much money on raising a bad flock. The top row are from my black sex link. The middle row are the Marans eggs the bottom are Easter Eggers. The 4th from the left is the egg color of past flocks that have all been culled but one hen. She is kept in with my Easter Eggers to create Olive Eggers each spring. Could someone tell me where each of these eggs are on the color chart numbering them from left to right? I need to know if its okay to breed this flock or if I should keep trying. I'm really hoping these are acceptable. Would you use them for breeding?

I forgot to add: These eggs were collected after the hens have been laying for 3 months.

The ones in the middle row (from top to bottom) look pretty dog-gone good to me !!! (except for the 4th one/from right to left) . If i were you i would line breeding the ones who laid these eggs . The dark egg is very important in Marans followed by body balance and structure . Once you get that in line then start thinking about patterns , faults , colors and etc (all the stuff that is suggested and falls in line from the SOP) .

 

[doubleleft]

The ones in the middle row (from top to bottom) look pretty dog-gone good to me !!! (except for the 4th one/from right to left) . If i were you i would line breeding the ones who laid these eggs . The dark egg is very important in Marans followed by body balance and structure . Once you get that in line then start thinking about patterns , faults , colors and etc (all the stuff that is suggested and falls in line from the SOP) .

have you thought about looking into the groups on facebook such as (Black Copper Marans Fanciers) , (Marans Central buy , sell , swap) , (Marans Breeders Association) , (Breeding APA standard Marans) and (Marans Mania) ?

 

[Wickischickies]

The ones in the middle row (from top to bottom) look pretty dog-gone good to me !!! (except for the 4th one/from right to left) . If i were you i would line breeding the ones who laid these eggs . The dark egg is very important in Marans followed by body balance and structure . Once you get that in line then start thinking about patterns , faults , colors and etc (all the stuff that is suggested and falls in line from the SOP) .

Thank you Doubleleft. The hen who laid the 4th egg in is in the Easter Egger coop to make Olive Eggers. My egg customers love the dark green eggs. I am so excited to finally have a flock to work with! The others I have purchased were so light like that 4th egg I couldn't use them and call them true Marans. My hubby was getting tired of all the money I was spending only to cull everyone, but he kept letting me try again each spring. Last month I told him I thought I finally found usable birds, I thought the eggs looked to be 6 to 7, but 5 to 6 is okay with me for now. He was happy to hear what people on this site thought of the egg color. I told him the chicks I'm hatching now will be culled for eye color, feathering on the wrong toe, and comb points. This morning I casually told him I need another coop built so I can have two lines. I think that (selective) hearing problem is bad today because he didn't say anything. I was expecting to hear 3 coops isn't enough?
I haven't heard about those FB pages, I'll have to look them up Thank you. I'm finally doing the happy dance, I have 6 ladies who I can use.

 

[johnderosa1]

Thank you Doubleleft.  The hen who laid the 4th egg in is in the Easter Egger coop to make Olive Eggers.  My egg customers love the dark green eggs.  I am so excited to finally have a flock to work with!  The others I have purchased were so light like that 4th egg I couldn't use them and call them true Marans.  My hubby was getting tired of all the money I was spending only to cull everyone, but he kept letting me try again each spring.  Last month I told him I thought I finally found usable birds, I thought the eggs looked to be 6 to 7, but 5 to 6 is okay with me for now.  He was happy to hear what people on this site thought of the egg color.  I told him the chicks I'm hatching now will be culled for eye color, feathering on the wrong toe, and comb points.  This morning I casually told him I need another coop built so I can have two lines.  I think that (selective) hearing problem is bad today because he didn't say anything.  I was expecting to hear 3 coops isn't enough? 

I haven't heard about those FB pages, I'll have to look them up Thank you.  I'm finally doing the happy dance, I have 6 ladies who I can use.

This is a hard breed to work with... Lots of issues . I am going in to my 4 th year with only one bird that I consider a keeper. I have eggs hatching in the incubator right now that hold lots of promise... Not sure what your birds look like but the egg color is solid other than the one obvious cull. Good luck with your program!