Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[xlboergoats]

Hi,

I'm new to the site, but I've been reading through this thread and am impressed with all the info (I haven't had time to read through all of it though). I have some Marans and have been impressed with their egg laying (good frequency, good color, and start to lay around 18 weeks), but have not been impressed with the size of the birds.

Does anyone weigh their birds? What weights are they?

I read that French Marans should weigh 8.5 lbs, but none of my roosters have been that big.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Marc
http://soliving.weebly.com

Marc,

We do not weigh our birds either, but they should be pretty big. Not the largest birds in the show barn, but surely large enough to be dual purpose. We do not try to breed the largest birds, but like for them to be ballanced. I am sure that all of our grown cocks will weigh 8+ pounds. If you like the "type" or build of your females, look for males that are larger. You can select and keep your largest cockerels to grow out. You could also check with breeders in your area and search for a male to add size to your next generation. If there are shows in your area, you could attend a show and see if any breeders there have something that would be an asset to your program.

I have had and seen judges write "size" or "small" on the coop cards. At the begining of the show season, we usually haul a few juveniles that are too young to be competitive. We do this to get experience for the chicken. Hauling and being shown is stressful on chickens. Sometimes the stress of hauling can make a nice looking bird look like the third day of a three day garage sale. By hauling them before they are old enough to be competitive, they are used to traveling and crowds by the time they hit their prime. I try to make sure that we have birds in the same class that are in their prime. I don't mind having a few on the bottom of the class when I have a set of birds in the same class that are ready to show. We found that the birds that were doing very well at the begining of the show season start to look tired by the end of the show season. From the end of September until the end of March, we go to one or two shows a month. I get to looking pretty tired by the time show season is over.

Here are the weights that are in the APA approved Standards;

Standard Weights (approved 6/11/10)
Cock….…..8 lbs Hen……6 1/2 lbs
Cockerel….7lbs Pullet…..5 1/2 lbs

Happy New Year,
Ernie Haire
Arp, Texas
www.Marans2XL.com

 

[soliving]

Thanks for the quick replies. My birds look big (I get comments as well about how big they are), but the roosters rarely weigh 8 lbs and I notice they are much slower to reach their full size than the other breed I raise (Light Sussex).

I was just wondering if this is a common Marans characteristic. Any thoughts? Comments?

If anyone does weigh their birds, I'd be really interested to hear.

And, Happy New Year everyone.

 

[ashandvine]

Birds with white ear lobes or white ear covert feathers?
Photos? Do you have any of the white ears?
And are asking about over melanized pullets? As in, not enough or very little color in the hackle?

Sorry, I was absent... catching up. I was asking about the earlobe, not being enameled but white. I was reading before about wheaten in here and find I am still not quite sure how to address this one little pullet I have. And my reservation in using and S or a Z in Melani()e is because there was also an explanation of which word was right and I am admitting I still don't know which is which here. The pullet I have is a lovely little thing with the best foot feathering of all of the gals BUT she is black. Occassionally you can see the copper in her hackles in the sun but not otherwise, so she has too much melanin. BUT I have a large boy with hackles that are too light and I was going to cross them to try to fix these issues in the next gen.... but her ear is white. IDK what that means about her underwear and socks genes. Just trying to be responsible. I might her in the egger pen and not breed her.

XLBOER... thank you for those pics. They are nice. Is it common or expected that the bottom of the hackles on your blue would be black? Very handsome. I didn't think blue was recognized. Nice to read you in here.

 

[xlboergoats]

XLBOER... thank you for those pics. They are nice. Is it common or expected that the bottom of the hackles on your blue would be black? Very handsome. I didn't think blue was recognized. Nice to read you in here.

The bottom of Louie's hackles are dark blue. They may appear to be black in the picture, but his blue feathers are laced with dark blue. The only two varieties of Marans that are fully recognized by the APA are the Black Coppers and the Wheatens.

We, the Marans Chicken Club U.S.A., are having a pre-qualifying meet for the Cuckoos at Newnan, Georgia in February. We hope that everyone who can will bring their Cuckoos to that show. The idea of this meet is to see where we are on Cuckoos and having a Qualifying Meet for them later this year. The best way to get an overall idea of where we are with a variety is to try to bring as many together as possible and look them over.

Ernie Haire
Arp, Texas
www.Marans2XL.com

 

[DreamCatcherNC]

hey Ernie. Just checked out The Marans Chicken Club U.S.A. Love it. Will be joining soon. Thanks for all your post and information Bruce

 

[xlboergoats]

hey Ernie. Just checked out The Marans Chicken Club U.S.A. Love it. Will be joining soon. Thanks for all your post and information Bruce

I am a member of several different clubs as well as the APA. The Marans Chicken Club U.S.A. was very instrumental in getting the Black Coppers and Wheatens accepted by the APA. Now they are working on getting the Cuckoos accepted by the APA. We were at the Qualifying Meet for the Black Coppers. It was a great show with lots of nice Black Coppers. Thankfully, we had a great show, the judge recommended them for acceptance, and the rest is history. Now it is time to work on getting some of our other varieties accepted.

As with anything else where there are two or more people or clubs involved, you have two or more opinions. I realize that is a fact of life that we must all deal with. I always say that no matter how flat you smash a pancake, it still has two sides. I think that you will be pleased with the club if you should decide to join. They also have a Yahoo Group that is pretty active. Everyone that I have met in any of the Marans clubs have always been very nice and helpful.

Regards,
Ernie Haire
Arp, Texas
www.Marans2XL.com

 

[xlboergoats]

We are getting things lined out to head to the Bluebonnet Classic Poultry Show in College Station, Texas this weekend. We will be leaving here tomorrow afternoon. If anyone is planning to be there, please look us up. We only show Marans, but we will have six or seven varieties at the show. We hope that the weather is good and pray that everyone has a great show and safe travel.

Hope To Meet You,
Ernie Haire
Arp, Texas
www.Marans2XL.com

 

[pinkchick]

Sorry, I was absent... catching up.  I was asking about the earlobe, not being enameled but white.  I was reading before about wheaten in here and find I am still not quite sure how to address this one little pullet I have.  And my reservation in using and S or a Z in Melani()e is because there was also an explanation of which word was right and I am admitting I still don't know which is which here.  The pullet I have is a lovely little thing with the best foot feathering of all of the gals BUT she is black.  Occassionally you can see the copper in her hackles in the sun but not otherwise, so she has too much melanin.  BUT I have a large boy with hackles that are too light and I was going to cross them to try to fix these issues in the next gen.... but her ear is white.  IDK what that means about her underwear and socks genes.  Just trying to be responsible.  I might her in the egger pen and not breed her.

XLBOER... thank you for those pics.  They are nice.  Is it common or expected that the bottom of the hackles on your blue would be black?  Very handsome.  I didn't think blue was recognized.  Nice to read you in here.

About the S or the Z.......I have only read or seen the Z used when talking about melanizers & over melanized birds. On some of the other chicken sites I belong to and read I only see the Z used. I do know the word Melanism (Melanism= an increased amount black or nearly black pigmentation.) is the only word I have seen used with an S., but have not seen it used too often.

You can still use a a pullet that is over melanized in the hackle.......the trick is getting the correct male to use over her to see the results that you want to see in the offspring.

Do you have a photo of the bird with the white ear?

 

[pinkchick]

I take some of that back about the S and Z..................been sitting here thinkin about it..........didn't Geebs wrote something up about it some time ago?

 

[xlboergoats]

Definition of MELANIZE. 1. : to convert into or infiltrate with melanin. 2. : to make dark or black. — mel·a·ni·za·tion \ˌme-lə-nə-ˈzā-shən\ ...

Actually after doing some research on the word Melanize, I think that we may be grammatically incorrect by saying that something is "over" melanized. By definition if something is melanized, it is melanized. I find that when we are discussing poultry, many of us refer to chickens with this issue as being "over melanized". The "S" or the "Z" has been the topic of many converstations.

Regardless to how we spell it, it can be a problem when breeding birds. I agree that it is a problem that can be worked with and corrected. We used females with beautiful breed character, but were melanized. We were very selective about the males that we used when breeding them. We have been successful with correcting problem in our Black Coppers and working on it in the Blue Coppers. I am sure that people who have been breeding Black Coppers for a few years remember when it was difficult to find Black Copper females with nicely colored hackles.

I wonder why we see the Melanization issue more in females than males. Do other people see this problem with females who have male hatch mates with perfect color??

Ernie Haire
Arp, Texas
www.Marans2XL.com