Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Germaine_11.20]

I just saw this geebs and Thank you! There is never enough of the BCM's for me. Be back in a bit to read.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
thanks for that link-I've put it in my favorites to read as I have time!

 

[geebs]

WOW!!! HI RUSTY!!!!! Long time no see!!!! Missed ya!!!!! Well lets see some pix if ya got em to share... Oh and thanks ooodles!!!!

Pink: nice link... I had that in a file and couldn't find it... thanks for posting it. I have had both wild type presentation and brown coming off a tainted BC line....(nothing I kept but good to know for ppl that find em) Love that link!!!!!

Does anyone have rooster baby pictures and finished rooster???

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I am a confessed Farmville addict and have ditched BYC to play. Guilty. But I am getting it under control and sorry!!!!!! I miss you all.

Plus it has been a long hard nasty cold wet (shall I go on?) winter and I am just trying to survive it with my birds. I have lost alot of birds especially chicks and am learning a valuable lesson about hatching late in the year here.

But...the Marans have weathered it all and keep laying albeit not as much. I love these birds!

I would take pics but it is nothing but mud and yuck out there and it seems when I take pics someone always comes on to slam them and their "conditions" so I am not posting. I may pm them to you though.

Does anyone have a link to how to improve egg color in the Golden Cuckoo Marans? I am terrible with genetics and don't know who I can breed who to and get a better color egg. I was going to can the project but then one hen laid a very nice egg (not as dark as a BCM) but something to work with.

OK gotta go exercise before I can come and read.

 

[newlyweds]

Quote:
Thank you Geebs!!! Your input is priceless! I'd love to work toward the standard, and may main goal is really dark eggs, and all of these hatched from dark eggs, so fingers are crossed!

The little Mottled Pullet is actually an Ancona, she is just small especially compared to my big rooster, ha!

 

[geebs]

No rusty I don't have anything finished but I will tell you the dark wild type can be split for gold/silver cuckoo!!! From a dark egg you can develop a strain of new ones!!!! I may work on that... Depends on wether the little bugger is still available... I could easily split the genes and send some eggies maybe this summer... It would be a work in progress though... If you want to work it...LET ME KNOW... I will snag the carrier.... (he is poked in a friend's backyard)

 

[snowbird]

I have been lurking since this thread started. I have a comment to make about breeding the BC to the APA SOP, never use the white leg BC male or female, never use the male with white undercolor in neck and white wing or tail. I have found by eliminating these faults in the breeding pen will reduced the amount of young in the future with all the white.

If you are not breeding to the APA SOP then go ahead and breed them anyway you would like, if you sell eggs at least tell the prospective buyer what they will be getting from the eggs.

Back into the dark hole, Don

 

[geebs]

The SOP allows room for both. I find that if I breed the darker shanked birds I have trouble with too much black in the subsequent offspring...It is harder to "breed true"... Just my experience.... The melanisers show themselves in the leg... Sometimes there is a mix in the lines and you will see too much melanistics and a lighter shanked bird... that is very suspicious of another color gene.... this may be the problem you have experienced... I stay away from the gold in the hackle and the dark shanks in the males and so far I have managed to breed the males true with some success. So I guess it depends on what you are going for... I am trying to critique within the written SOP proposal... Right, wrong or indiffferent that is my reasoning. Thanks for posting that... It is good to hear all sides.

There are pro's and cons to whatever decisions we make... If you can operate within the standard and breed true with a dark shank over more than 5 generations I would love to see it... How do the chests on your birds look.. Is their some red in the breast???

 

[onthespot]

Hi Don, thanks for posting. It really is a good idea to advertise what you are breeding for in your flock when you are selling eggs. Right now I am keeping my Bev Davis separate from my Wade/Presley line. The BD line seems to be bigger, and have more white faults, and lay larger, darker eggs and more of them, so for now I am overlooking the white in that flock, but have two roos on there, a big ol' blue boy with white, and a darker copper black roo in there with too high of a tailset and somewhat too much melanizer, but DANG! He hatched out of one of the darkest eggs laid all year, so he's staying. Plus, both are very gentle natured boys.

My other pen is cut down to just a few hens and my original roo, Goody. That pen has produced some smaller (bantam-ish?) birds, and I would just like to keep just those few and hatch out a few more and dabble with that line, but for now they are not available. The color is good in that line, sometimes too much copper/mossiness. The egg color sometimes varies quite a bit during the laying cycle.

Thanks geebs for starting this thread. Sorry, no pics right now. I did get a new camera a couple weeks ago, so hopefully new pics will be available soon.

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
Jan, I always go by the american Standard and fail to see anywhere that it say white leg BC is acceptable, enlighten me please. Don