Black copper marans rooster, what do you think?

[blackdotte]

If he was sold to you as a Black-Copper Marans I would be asking for my money back.
David

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
The false autosomal barred feathers are juvenile feathers and will fall out and be replaced by red or black feathers. It is not unusual for black coppers to produce black-tailed red offspring. I think he will feather in and be a better looking bird. He does have some faults, but give him some time to become a rooster. He could produce chicks with descent (4) egg color, you never know.

Tim

 

[onthespot]

I agree with tadkerson. He is not a show quality bird, plumage wise, but he likely carries some very dark egg genes and if you just wanted dark layers in your flock, he may be the ticket still. If you have dark, feather shanked, copper hackled hens to cross him back to you could possibly breed your way back to the plumage color you want in a couple generations, maybe even one generation. The worst thing I see about him is his squirrel tail, where his tail sort of bows over his back a little before curving away behind. It is supposed to be set so that it angles away from the body at a forty five degree angle with a fairly level back and the head should be the same. Those angles usually don't improve themselves with time, they are evident at a few months old an mostly you get what you get. That tail angle is strongly an inherited gene and hard to breed out. A squirrel tail roo will likely get you a flock of squirrel tailed chicks. Here is one of my roos, more or less the same color as yours, but better tail and head and back angles. He is eight months old in this pic, so it is not a fair comparison, developmental wise, but the angles are there already. You can see how the tail is supposed to set. This rooster is by no means perfect either, with light legs, and wrong comb points, and the comb does not hug the top of his head at all. It just juts out into thin air. He is a good roo though, great with the hens and very easy to get along with. He is pretty mellow around other roosters even, great fertility and he passes on most of his faults faithfully, LOL.

 

[Krys109uk]

A few years ago I was corresponding with a lady who had been sent some eggs which were supposed to be. These.....

http://marans-club.club.fr/fauvang.htm#FAUV

However the offspring looked to me like they were crossed with wheaten & were rather light in build. The females didn't look so far off but the males had rather a lot more black in the body than a black tailed dark buff.


The lady was selling the eggs on e-bay to try to make some of her money back. Perhaps it's possible that your male is descended from those.
They did lay a nice colour of egg.