Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Turkeytruff]

They're from my flock. I am breeding only from my darkest egg layers.

 

[MeatTheFlockers]

Trying a bit of experiment: I will be raising three small groups of "non USA" French import bloodlines from: Heaven Sent Ranch LP chicks hatched from eggs purchased, Little Peddler direct stock and a box of chicks from the advertised 2014 France imports at Greenfire Farms I will post pics from the three as they grow. So that they will not be mixed, I suppose I have more pens to build . Right now they are all babies, but their numbers are really too few for a strong eval. Anyone else trying these lines with older birds want to join me in comparisons? I am hoping to try my hand at showing a few in the spring. Thanks, Christine

How exciting Christine. I will be following this project with great anticipation. I bought 2 laying hens from you a week ago with my daughter, BCM and BLR Wyandotte. Both are doing wonderful and continuing to lay. They seem very well adjusted with very sweet dispositions. If these new Marans lines become available in the future I hope to be one of the first in line!

 

[marchick]

They're from my flock. I am breeding only from my darkest egg layers.

Very nice eggs! Are they black copper marrans?

 

[KernH]

Trying a bit of experiment: I will be raising three small groups of "non USA" French import bloodlines from:
Heaven Sent Ranch LP chicks hatched from eggs purchased,
Little Peddler direct stock
and a box of chicks from the advertised 2014 France imports at Greenfire Farms

I will post pics from the three as they grow.

So that they will not be mixed, I suppose I have more pens to build

.

Right now they are all babies, but their numbers are really too few for a strong eval. Anyone else trying these lines with older birds want to join me in comparisons? I am hoping to try my hand at showing a few in the spring.




Thanks,

Christine

Beautiful Chick! Kern

 

[Turkeytruff]

yes BCMS. Lots of stuff to sort out like confirmation, some non feathered legs, and so on; but slowly, slowly I hope to get a better SOP.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Trying a bit of experiment: I will be raising three small groups of "non USA" French import bloodlines from:
Heaven Sent Ranch LP chicks hatched from eggs purchased,
Little Peddler direct stock
and a box of chicks from the advertised 2014 France imports at Greenfire Farms

I will post pics from the three as they grow.

So that they will not be mixed, I suppose I have more pens to build

.

Right now they are all babies, but their numbers are really too few for a strong eval. Anyone else trying these lines with older birds want to join me in comparisons? I am hoping to try my hand at showing a few in the spring.




Thanks,

Christine

You can tell the LP birds like this chick from the lack of markings on the head. In my experience the pullet chicks grow out with little to no copper on the hackles, maybe 10% will have *some* copper hackles (this is a small sample size, so don't take that as a rule of any sort). My LP line pullets are laying solid #7 on the Marans scale. The year old LP hens started as #7 but have (disappointingly) lightened to 4.5-6 depending on how often they lay. The birds and their eggs are smaller than the other lines of BCM we have. The LP cockerels were all sold to the meat man due to excessive copper leakage on the chest (and I don't mean a few feathers, but nearly solid copper chests).

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

OK... I now have a complex.


My Marans rooster.... for no visible reason, was found dead this morning.

The Marans rooster I had before (totally unrelated) also was found dead one morning.

I have never had any other breed of rooster just up and die on me for no reason whatsoever.

Me......sad.

I'm so sorry. This just happened to our BCM flock as well. We lost our direct Bev Davis cock at just over a year. I had just picked him up the day before...he was in great weight, fertile, active. I did notice some swelling in his legs but no mites or other apparent parasites. I found him face down in the coop. He had five hens with him. It's just heartbreaking, and in this case devastating as we had not yet found a backup cock/erel. It took me a long time to find this guy. I'm wondering if some lines have heart conditions? With the slight swelling in his legs, I'm thinking a congestive heart condition like we see in humans and dogs BUT...I wouldn't expect him to be so healthy and active otherwise. He was a very substantial bird, not fat but LARGE. It's a mystery, and again I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[desertmarcy]

You can tell the LP birds like this chick from the lack of markings on the head. In my experience the pullet chicks grow out with little to no copper on the hackles, maybe 10% will have *some* copper hackles (this is a small sample size, so don't take that as a rule of any sort). My LP line pullets are laying solid #7 on the Marans scale. The year old LP hens started as #7 but have (disappointingly) lightened to 4.5-6 depending on how often they lay. The birds and their eggs are smaller than the other lines of BCM we have. The LP cockerels were all sold to the meat man due to excessive copper leakage on the chest (and I don't mean a few feathers, but nearly solid copper chests).

I think this is quite common in a lot of lines, I won't go so far as to say ALL lines, but seen it a lot in my own birds plus have some Bev Davis cockerels growing out now that are like this also. And plenty of photos people post showing too much copper. I have heard over and over to use these overcolored males to put color on your females, but I have not tried that, have you? Sounds like you always just cull them, as I have done, but I'm considering keeping an overcolored Davis cockerel to try that, and he should help with egg color and size at the same time since her birds are great for color and size of egg.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

I think this is quite common in a lot of lines, I won't go so far as to say ALL lines, but seen it a lot in my own birds plus have some Bev Davis cockerels growing out now that are like this also. And plenty of photos people post showing too much copper. I have heard over and over to use these overcolored males to put color on your females, but I have not tried that, have you? Sounds like you always just cull them, as I have done, but I'm considering keeping an overcolored Davis cockerel to try that, and he should help with egg color and size at the same time since her birds are great for color and size of egg.

To be clear for everyone else reading the thread, we are talking about the copper leakage on the chest, NOT overmelanized (too dark) birds. I have also heard using a cock/erel with excessive leakage in this way, but we have not tested the theory here.

We were pleased to see that outcrossing the Davis cock on our old line of BCM improved egg color in one of our pullets. I have heard that outcrossing lines in this way often leads to a washing out of egg color for a couple of generations. Again though, a very small sample size so maybe we just got lucky.

 

[snowbird]

Quote:

Quote:
I have a little experience with breeding the heavy marked males to get a better colored female Hackle. Yes this will help with the female hackle but in my experience the Males from this will have too much Copper on the breast. Myself I would rather use a male that had just a few Copper feathers in the breast area.

We have Nine BC females from the experiment with buying eggs from ebay last year and they show no Copper at all. This egg experiment was a total disaster as for Color. These came from the supposed best breeders in the country. We culled all the males at an early age. I just do not believe in keeping anything if I do not have a purpose for it in the future. Don