Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Searsmom]

I noticed - skimming through - that the bottle green color on hens isn't desirable. I just brought home some blue/black chicks - 1 blue, 3 black, but while I was picking them up, I took a look at the mother hens. They were all extremely iridescent at 8 months old, some had marked copper, one had none - but beautifully green in the sunlight. The rooster in with these hens was a blue. One of the chicks has great leg feathering, one has none, two are slight. Just me meandering.

I'm terribly excited about these little peeps, but is the bottle green an issue? I was thinking of letting my 5-year old raise one and maybe go to the local fair with it. We're not so much into it as far as breeding, mostly for the egg color, but I'd hate for her to be incredibly disappointed by a judge pointing out that it shouldn't even be there.

 

[chicken pickin]

The beetle green color is fine. Its the purple sheen that is undesirable.

 

[DMRippy]

I noticed - skimming through - that the bottle green color on hens isn't desirable. I just brought home some blue/black chicks - 1 blue, 3 black, but while I was picking them up, I took a look at the mother hens. They were all extremely iridescent at 8 months old, some had marked copper, one had none - but beautifully green in the sunlight. The rooster in with these hens was a blue. One of the chicks has great leg feathering, one has none, two are slight. Just me meandering.

I'm terribly excited about these little peeps, but is the bottle green an issue? I was thinking of letting my 5-year old raise one and maybe go to the local fair with it. We're not so much into it as far as breeding, mostly for the egg color, but I'd hate for her to be incredibly disappointed by a judge pointing out that it shouldn't even be there.

Beetle green sheen is a good thing.

 

[GaryDean26]

Black plumage on a gold based birds SHOULD show green sheen. Black plumage where Green Sheen is NOT desirable are silver based birds.

The verbiage on Green Sheen that I remember from early on was that Green Sheen was not "required" on the BCM. A breeder in Germany that has been working with the breed for over a decade mentioned that there standard didn't allow green sheen, but that the only birds that he ever got with out the green sheen were terrible examples of the breed so he (and others) just ignored that all together. He said that later their standard was revised to allow green sheen and after than Marans started to win shows.

The Silver version of Crow Wing Marans is the Silver Birchen Variety. The Gold version of the crow wing Marans is the Black Copper variety, so ... yes green sheen is what you would expect. I don't recall what the accepted APA standard say (Hmm...I might want to read that again at some point in time), but gold based birds are going to have green sheen unless you have some type of diluter of gold, and if you did that would do things to you copper that you might not like.

 

[chickenaddict99]

I love my Black Copper Marans! Such beautiful birds!

 

[SIMZ]

I woke up to find my first BCM hatched from my flock!

The rest of the 25 eggs all finished hatching yesterday afternoon. I left the 3 non-pipped in there, but didn't think they were going to hatch. Sure enough, 2 chicks awaited me this morning on day 22. I am THRILLED that one was the BCM egg I stuck in at the last minute.

 

[Runawaylobster]

Quote:
Very Interesting , Thanks !!

 

[Searsmom]

It is very interesting. I'm glad when people who know start talking and give whys and wherefores.

 

[Pozees]

Greetings Sorry to barge in, but I had a BCM egg hatch amid several barnyard mixes of similar color with feathered legs, some lots of feathers and some very sparse, some with dark legs and some with yellow/light, some with head spots versus none, some with dark versus light beaks - so I was wondering whether someone here could tell me which of these characteristics, or combination thereof, would distinguish a chick as a BCM?

 

[Zanna]

Greetings Sorry to barge in, but I had a BCM egg hatch amid several barnyard mixes of similar color with feathered legs, some lots of feathers and some very sparse, some with dark legs and some with yellow/light, some with head spots versus none, some with dark versus light beaks - so I was wondering whether someone here could tell me which of these characteristics, or combination thereof, would distinguish a chick as a BCM?

Newly hatched BCM chicks from a couple of years ago. They can hatch with a brown spot on head but I have never seen that in my breedings. Hope this helps!