black copper marans egg color

[ChickChuck22]

I am getting 2 new Black Copper Marans tomorrow, they are point of lay and are from a very dark egg laying strain, sooo excited! )

 

[RIR0BCM]

Lucky you all the pullets i have lay light brown eggs

 

[3riverschick]

Lucky you all the pullets i have lay light brown eggs

The eggs may get darker as the season progresses. if not then look at the egg show results. See who is winning regularly. And also has good conformation in their birds. make a short list of abut 3 breeders. Now pick one and buy a cock from whose dam was also a dark egg layer. preferably a hen who laid winning eggs for them. the cock will pass on the dark egg genes from his mother to his daughters. Bred that cock to your hens. Then breed his daughters back to him. That should darken up your eggs You can actually do that three time, esp if the cock is not related to your birds.
Here's how it goes.
Season 1: Breed the cock to your hens. ( reserve the best son for later)
Season 2: breed his best daughters back to their father, the cock.
Season 3 : breed the best grand-daughters back to that original cock( their grandfather).
Season 4: breed the best great-granddaughters back to the original cock.
Season 5: breed the best daughters from step 4 back to the son you held back in step one.
Season 6: Breed together the sisters and brothers that resulted from step 5.
Season 7: By now you will know your strain and how it inherits and can decide for yourself how to proceed.
Best,
Karen

 

[JP FFM]

Hi everyone it's been a while since I been on here , I just got home and found my first black copper Marans egg .

 

[Spartan22]

Hi everyone it's been a while since I been on here , I just got home and found my first black copper Marans egg .

Congrats! Very nice! Mine are all on winter break after laying for 4 months.

 

[Coop de Grass]

That's a nice variety of colors! i am hoping to have something similar by this summer. right now, my darkest eggs are from my 2 Bielefelders, the Australorp and the Silver Lace Wyandottes and the Buff Orpington lay light brown eggs. The light Brahma is laying a light cream egg. I have 6 pullets that are EEs.

I have 6 olive eggers and 6 crested cream legbars in the incubator and 24 BCM eggs just going into the incubator.

These are the eggs that I picked up today. The seller has an excellent reputation on ebay and these are supposed to be Bev Davis line. The first photo has no flash. The second was taken with flash. There is a huge variance in color. Is this normal?

 

[Spartan22]

Totally normal w/ different BCMs hens, different shades of brown.

 

[Coop de Grass]

@Spartan22 It is disappointing because when you bid on auctions, they show the dark eggs in the photos. In the descriptions it will sometimes say that you aren't going to get the same darkness in the eggs you receive. Its a bit like buying a pig in a poke

I would like to have the dark marans eggs, I am wondering how I go about getting them without starting my own breeding program!

 

[Spartan22]

Been there, I didn't know some of my Marans are already laying eggs since some had been laying lighter or speckled eggs when they started, also some turned out to be blue, mossy or roo when they grew up. Considering I paid lots for them from a reputable breeders.

 

[Coop de Grass]

i guess you learn as you go along!