Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[johnderosa1]

I am posting some pics of a cockeral I hatched out about 7 mos ago. I culled the father but want to know if he would be worth holding on to. Mothers egg was a 5 but the two pullets I kept out of this hatch are laying a solid 7 and both are decent from a type standpoint and have excellent color. his guy does have a white feather tip on one of his toe feathers. His comb was frostbitten a little this winter. Please note that he blinked as I took the closeup of his face. His eye is no cloudy. Any comments good or bad will be appreciated...

 

[snowbird]

I am posting some pics of a cockeral I hatched out about 7 mos ago. I culled the father but want to know if he would be worth holding on to. Mothers egg was a 5 but the two pullets I kept out of this hatch are laying a solid 7 and both are decent from a type standpoint and have excellent color. his guy does have a white feather tip on one of his toe feathers. His comb was frostbitten a little this winter. Please note that he blinked as I took the closeup of his face. His eye is no cloudy. Any comments good or bad will be appreciated...

The white feather tip at this point in the game I would not worry about. I would like to see darker soft feathers under and below the vent. Overall this male seems to be going in the right direction and with the sisters laying a #7 eggs . I would not breed this male back to his sisters though. Nothing good can come from brother sister matings in the long run.

 

[johnderosa1]

Don, thanks for the comments. Much appreciated. I have 2 hens I can use him with. One is totally black and lays a pretty dark egg (darkest of my original birds). The other is pretty good from a color and type perspective and could be his mother. Size of both hens is excellent. None of my birds have super dark soft feathers under and below the vent. I have ordered some new eggs to hatch out this spring and hope I can get a good cockerel from this hatch to use over my two pullets. Worse case I might be able to get some additional hens to put under this cockerel.

john

 

[chickegirl]

I have some bcms hatching right now ill post pics when they hatch

 

[maryhysong]

I'm not sure as far as breeding wise but I can tell you there are plenty of people who would want them for an egg flock and are those zip ties?

Thanks Bama; I might offer them over on the AZ thread; I just refuse to put them out to the general public to have someone down the road selling their chicks as BCM and adding to the type and color problem. I figure most of the folks on the AZ thread would understand that they are not SOP and would use them to breed pretty EE and OE.

Yes, those are zip ties. I got chicks from three different breeders and assigned a color to each batch plus I used a yellow one on the chicks that didn't have any white in their tails & wings. I did have a time for a few weeks when they were growing really fast to keep them changed, but it's worked out pretty well. I just sit in the coop for a bit at least once a week and watch them and check that the zip ties aren't getting too tight. I have now ordered a toe punch to go along with zip ties for my own hatching.

 

[ashandvine]

I use zip ties until I know more about what I am doing and what to breed/cull for.

Are the black bars down the middle of the hackle on the cockerel above acceptable?

 

[warmheart]

Is there a more appropriate thread for newbies to ask questions on BCMs? I am wondering what the differences are between Wade Jeane, Bev Davis, and Cottage Hill lines. Pardon me if this basic question doesn't belong here.

 

[Zanna]

Is there a more appropriate thread for newbies to ask questions on BCMs? I am wondering what the differences are between Wade Jeane, Bev Davis, and Cottage Hill lines. Pardon me if this basic question doesn't belong here.

I think you are on the right thread I have Bev Davis (supposedly), and Wade Jean (supposedly) birds and am in the process of crossing the two lines. I say supposedly as I did not buy the birds directly from the "source" so really don't know for sure. What I will tell you though is that my two lines have very different type. My Davis Birds are very big, chunky and "low rider" type. My Jean Birds are smaller, longer backed, more gravy bowl shaped. I think you will find varying opinons of egg colour from each line, my Davis girls lay a darker egg than the Jean birds but I have heard the Jean birds are supposed to lay very dark eggs. Cottage hill is a line I know nothing about, maybe someone else will chime in. A few pages back I posted a pic of one of my pullets from each of the two lines, you could take a look if you wanted to see the difference in my flock. The cockeral I posted last page is offspring of my Davis line. Many pages back is a post somewhere of my 2 Jean cocks. These are just observations and pictures from my own flock, don't take them as gospel truth, I really don't know for sure. Hopefully someone else will add their two cents!

 

[Ray from PA]

haha, my dad didn't have a good technical response, but talked about his experiences with breeding purple sheened birds. He said he did notice that he had more color issues when breeding with the purple sheen, so ran green and purples separate for an experiment and said that he decided after doing both for a couple generations, he would never use purples again. I've noticed on birds, both ones I've grown out here from shipped eggs, that those with the purple sheen in the marans have a stronger likelyhood of having brown underfluff. When I first started in the Marans, I noticed that those in the following generation with the purple sheen did not have a true deep black, and still had the brown undertone. Mostly it was a curiosity thing, but once I saw that, every last birds was sold off as layers, and the males processed.
I just stay away from them. I believe that's one of the factors in my being able to make good advancements on my stock from year to year.

Does anyone have a photo they could post of the "purple sheen" that is being discussed here ???
Is there NO green sheen in these birds, or do they present BOTH,,,, Green and Purple when in the sunlight ???
This a discussion I haven't seen before and was hoping someone could elaborate a bit on it please.

DON,,,,, any comments here ???

 

[Zanna]

Does anyone have a photo they could post of the "purple sheen" that is being discussed here ???
Is there NO green sheen in these birds, or do they present BOTH,,,, Green and Purple when in the sunlight ???
This a discussion I haven't seen before and was hoping someone could elaborate a bit on it please.

DON,,,,, any comments here ???

I will see if the sheens will show up with a flash while the birds are on the roost tonight...... I have a youngster with strictly purple sheen right now and one with both green and purple. Don says do not cull for this until the juvie molt, the purple may go away, time will tell.