Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[Arielle]

Quote:
I believe it is the girls that tend to be overmelanized, not the roos. I believe the suggestion is that some "copper" leakage on the chest/breast of the roo might help improve copper in the females down the road.

Down the road??

 

[debbie_nibbles]

I fell in love with the Marans egg color! Went online and didn't find anything, everyone was sold out. I did finally find some on eBay and recieved them Wedneday last week. Put them in the incubater 24 hours later and am now on day 3. I'm just really preparing myself for not having any hatch

Thinking the odds aren't great when they're shipped from Alabama and I'm in Washington. Can anyone enlighten me on this? Really hoping we get at least 1. Our Grand-daughter is absolutly loving this

(So's Grandma and Papa)

 

[Arielle]

Hatching eggs takes some practice, and shipped eggs have had to endure the rough handling of the USPS, which decreases hatch rate. Give it a go--you won't know until the hatching is over. Hope for the best--you might get a couple to hatch. Good luck. ANd post some pics of the chicks.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
I believe it is the girls that tend to be overmelanized, not the roos. I believe the suggestion is that some "copper" leakage on the chest/breast of the roo might help improve copper in the females down the road.

Down the road??

Hopefully, some of the more experienced breeders will chime in on this. My understanding is some of the folks that actually have experience breeding BCMs will use a roo with more than the ideal amount of colour in his chest with over melanized hens to get female offspring with more copper in future generations (down the road.)

 

[Arielle]

Got it! THanks BarnGodess.

 

[RedBugPoultry]

Quote:
I am in South Carolina and received eggs through USPS from Washington this year that I put in the incubator. I received 3 dozen eggs and hatched 18 chicks. Now these were not Marans but just letting you know it can be done. I will keep my fingers crossed for your eggs!!

 

[Kansas Gal]

Just to chime in, I bought 3 dozen (received 42, 2 of which were broken) hatching eggs from Illinois (I am in Kansas). I bought 1 dozen each BCM, and a dozen each Lavender Orps and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. Unfortunately, I only had 16 live hatches, one of which died. Of the 14 BCM eggs, I only got 3 BCMs. Sure hope your hatch does better than mine! I invested a small fortune in these eggs, and was very disappointed.

 

[VillageChicken]

Quote:
Do you remember what he looked like as a chick? Did he have any brownish chickdown on his head? Sometimes that much extra rust color is from the Db gene that inhibits melanin. He may have the proper melanizing genes, but the Db is holding them back. It's not a great gene to perpetuate in your flock. Often hens carry and don't express it, and pass it on to make more rusty roos.

 

[flgardengirl]

Quote:
Sounds like my first hatching experience with black copper marans. Just remember though, if you got good birds and good eggs...all you need is one girl and one boy...

but yeah it can be a bummer to see that many not hatch.

 

[Roosterfry]

Hey guys just wanted to share a few pictures I took this week, the eggs are light as they get shown here. They've been laying since april.

This has been my first whole year owning this breed I've had a blast with them! It may be all in my head but I swear the eggs taste better! Ha I usually just eat my black copper maran eggs "over easy" on saturday mornings....

I'm working on improving my egg color in my breeding efforts. The two pullets pictured here are hopefully my improved stock for next spring breeding season. We'll see how improved when I see some eggs laid. For my rooster's sake they better be dark!

Two of my pullets I hatched this summer

Yes I'm still getting tomatoes

These eggs are from my favorite two hens that I hatched all this next years breeding stock from. This picture of eggs is recent as well. Most people don't like to show their lighter eggs. Mine were darker in the first part of laying season. I wanted to show my average normal color.