Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[math ace]

Quote:

It is the closest correct smiley I could find to say - - - -

GEEBS - - This gives me HOPE! Thanks

 

[doxies1]

I recently read somewhere, (maybe even here on BYC), a theory that fowl feed sorghum would produce more females. Can anyone add to that theory. I'm going to try adding sorghum to my guineas food to see it it has any effect. Might as well try it on the marans also.

 

[pinkchick]

Math~ You are not ignorant! This stuff takes lots of reading and lots of mind bending to keep tight hold of what we do grasp and what we are learning and piling on top of that. I have to read and re-read many articles to get the info to stay and ask lots of questions. Roger (Village) has had lots of questions from me.

And he has been ever so kind to elaborate and give me his views and interpertations, it helps tremendously.

I don't know what's going on here with my chicks, but I can tell you who is who usually with in the first 48 hours, all by watching their feather growth and wings.
Remember those BCM chicks that I just hatched out??? When I posted photos of them I stated next to each one what I thought their gender was.....they are several days old now and I still hold strong on my initial guesses. I also had a blue copper hatch in that batch that I didn't photo, I marked her as a girl, I hold strong to that as well. We will see in a week or so, I will take new photos and post.
The week before I had a couple blue copper chicks hatch...one Bill kiddo and one pure Davis kiddo, anyway, those 2 girls haven't moved outside yet and are living in the brooder with the chicks that just hatched a few days ago, I marked them both as girls.....both are girls. Not that many roo's slip past me.....I think the last one to fool me ChickensAreSweet got him. My bad....let one of those little sneaky Pete's fool me, so mistakes do happen.

But, if they are not feather sexable or this trait (fast feather to slow feather) doesn't go past the first generation......how can I be almost 98% spot on with gender guesses at such an early age, simply by watching their wing growth and other little signs of feather growth with in the first 10- 14 days, again, my first guess is always at just a couple days old. I make this guess simply by primary and secondary wing feathers length. This is how I have been sexing them for 3 years. I learned this by watching similarities in feather growth with my Welsummers (because they can be feather sexed at hatch by feather markings), since I could see who was who and knew without a doubt female from male in the Wellies.....I studied them and applied female and male characteristics to my Marans and have been very pleasantly surprized by the similarities. I also applied this to my Delawares......I was spot on with how many males and females I got from them too, just by the wing and watching feather growth and rate on certain parts of the body.

 

[VillageChicken]

Sorry to rain on your parade. At least it's not a frustrating mystery anymore. Now at least you know the formula. I've found not many on this forum have taken the time to understand chicken genetics, so you are not alone. It seems daunting, so few attempt it. It's really not that bad.

Everything I learned beyond highschool genetics I learned online.

It's the terminology that's confusing, but the mechanisms are relatively simple. They work well for those who think in concrete terms and like formulas.
I was not a math major, and preferred Geometry to Calculus. I liked what you could see and measure with your eyes. Genetics is fairly concrete.

I think it helps to know that chickens, like humans, carry genes in pairs, one from mom and one from dad.
EXCEPT the genes that are sex-linked. These are genes like Gold/Silver, Barring, Pale/Dark shanks and the Fast/Slow feathering.

Of those genes, the hen only has one rather than a pair, and she gets it from dad. Every time, no matter what. Roosters carry these in pairs, like all the other genes, one from mom and one from dad.

For all genes, they are kind of like two sides of a coin. They determine feathered shanks or clean shanks, peacomb or straight, etc. That is why you hear about traits being either recessive or dominant. In people, blue eyes are recessive, brown are dominant. In chickens, peacomb is dominant, straight comb is recessive. It is the same with all the genes used for determining gender. The sex-linked genes.

For example, Silver is dominant to gold(white base color vs. tan base color), Barred over non-barred, Pale shanks over dark, and Slow over fast feathering. Dominant means that when paired, if there is one dominant and one recessive form of that gene, then the dominant trait is exhibited. Recessive means the opposite: that it ONLY exhibits if there are a pair of recessives, and does not exhibit when paired with a dominant form.

That's why the HEN has to have the dominant form of the gene and dad has to have a pair of the recessive form.
The hen passes that dominant form to her sons, who get the recessive form from dad. The dominant prevails over the recessive and they exhibit the trait (barring, slow feathers). The girls only get the one recessive gene from dad, and do not exhibit the trait (no barring, fast feathers)

If it were reversed, and dad had the dominant form, say slow feathering, and mom carried fast: Dad (because he has a pair of these dominant slow genes) passes slow on to both his sons and daughters. Mom only contributes one recessive gene to her sons, and they end up with one from mom and one from dad. Because what they get from dad was the dominant form, it doesn't matter what they get from mom, they still exhibit what they get from dad, just like all of dad's daughters... = can't determine the sex because all the offspring were given the dominant form from dad. If dad is heterozygous for a trait (carries one dominant and one recessive form) he passes either of these forms randomly down to all of his offspring.

I think all of the sex-linked genes are considered to be incompletely dominant. That means if a rooster has one Silver gene and one gold gene, then his background color is not white or tan, but something in between. He needs two silver genes to exhibit the trait perfectly. Since hens only get one gene, they are only either, silver or gold.

Barring works the same way. That is why barred hens are darker than purebred barred roosters. They only get one barring gene, and roosters get two- they call this a double dose, so their barring is more extensive and results in more numerous narrower bars.

This is also why our BCM hens have darker shanks than the roosters. Our roosters get a double dose of the Id gene that lightens shanks. Hens only get one.

There are still lots of things related to chicken genetics that are being discovered and determined. It's not all nice neat theory either. But most of the basics are fairly simple.
So you see it's not all lab-geek mumbo jumbo. Or is it??? Maybe I am a lab-geek.
Did it help?

Pink: I hear you... I think there are definitely gender determined differences in feathering rates, they are just subtle and not consistent. I have two wheaten girls who are on opposite ends of the spectrum in feathering, and I knew their genders on day 3 because of the color. I think the general rule is girls feather out faster, but on my UK BCM the boys grew huge primaries overnight and left the girls in the dust. I think when it's the day-old little primary pin feathers, the genetic theory above holds fairly true. When you're looking at tail feathers, dorsal line feathers etc. at 10-14 days it's definitely not just influenced by slow/fast feathering, but also by gender. Maybe your whole flock is homozygous for either fast or slow, and it doesn't mess up the gender related rate difference.

I think your eye is also trained to notice subtle differences in beak, comb, leg etc. and your mind puts all the data in with the subtle differences in feathering to give you your final verdict.

Honestly I stopped fretting over it, because I would never cull a chick based on gender, so I just wait. I wouldn't treat them any differently if I knew their gender at 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months, so I just have fun watching them grow, and watch things like growth rates, feather coloring, etc. to help me determine who I keep.

 

[sabella]

Thanks! I feel so much better now.

I'll be sure to post on everybody at 6 months old. This morning I noticed that one of the BCMs has mahogany lacing on her back. She is still getting her big girl feathers but does this mean anything?

I'm only on page 50 something and my brain is full!!!

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Hi Sabella!

Do you have a photo of the BCM that you see Mahongany lacing on? Females should not have any color other than black on the body, with the exception of the hackles, this should be or is suppose to be copper, but some females will never show copper or they can show very little.


Ohhh...and no need to wait until they are 6 mos. old to post more photos of them.....we'd love to watch them grow with you.

 

[Wynette]

Sabella, I know what you mean - I get super busy, and return to the thread and have MANY MANY pages to review! It's worth it - lots of awesome information in these threads.

 

[Greenskeeper]

Wow. I feel like I'm underwater in here! I need a hands on lesson! Going to a show next week, some poor soul is gonna have his or her brain pecked by me good! Hopefully someone will be showing some BCM's this time!

Village you did put me in the direction of the surface! I'll get this one way or another! I'm gonna see if we can get better pictures today!

 

[poularde]

Wow. Thank you Village you have a great way of explaining things. You give me hope that I might get this genetic thing down someday. I really enjoy your posts.

 

[VillageChicken]

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That's better than when Geebs hadn't started the Black Copper thread, and there was the old marans thread AND the new one, and the new one was 600+ pages when I started. I never finished.. got into the 400's and it was enough!

It's the best way to learn though, don't give up!
Ask lots of questions, even if you think they might have been asked before... trust me someone else wants to ask the same question!

I've learned tons from the marans forums. And met some really nice people.