Black Copper Marans - Time progression of sexing - UPDATED with WEEKs #1-3 PICTURES

[tworockchicken]

My BCM roo Patrick at 5 weeks 1 day. Note the absolute lack of girly-ness. He's been making the cutest squeaky little cockadoodle-doos for about a week now.

 

[kmfehrer2]

My BCM roo Patrick at 5 weeks 1 day. Note the absolute lack of girly-ness. He's been making the cutest squeaky little cockadoodle-doos for about a week now.

Wow! Can't believe he's only 5 weeks old here! Handsome and All boy for sure

BCMs are such fast growers, I thought for sure at two weeks old mine was a boy just due to her large feet and she had nearly doubled in size that week but yes, her comb is girly and no signs of red! Fingers still crossed though that it doesn't change!

 

[Coop de Grass]

What cuties! Girl in the back? Looks like she already has a sweet little tail.

@tworockchicken does the tail mean that it is a pullet? Half of my week old chicks have tails, and half dont!

 

[Coop de Grass]

You'll know if something is going on if you start seeing red breakthrough on the wings of chicks, or a blonde or brown chick, etc, shows up eventually.

I just hatched a blond chick in the middle of the black and white chicks! What does that mean?

 

[One Chick Two]

I have just checked on my new born hatched by a muscovie duck. the chick has a copper spot on the left side on the head, next to the comb. I think she is a girl. from what you said before it seems my adults are not pure for colour. what colour can I expect when/if the chick grows up? I hope the duck will manage to grow it. it seems that the other eggs will not hatch.

Hi,

It's hard to say exactly what will be expressed this time. It could be mossiness (watch especially on wings, and tail), brown fluff, copper leakage, white feathers or down, straw hackles, etc. It would be interesting to find out what it will do on her. Make sure the duck doesn't take her swimming!

 

[One Chick Two]

Of course!

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of good photos of these two from when they were younger. Somehow my other chicks got all the attention. I do have this one from a week ago, though. It's a little hard to tell, but if you look closely you can see that the BCM chick on the left (Misha) is smaller, and has less tail than the larger one on the right (Jackie). Jackie's tail is hard to see because the SLW chick's head is right underneath it, but it's definitely much bigger than Misha's. Jackie also has always had bigger legs/feet.



Another interesting thing I noticed about these two is that on both of them, their outermost toe is significantly shorter than the outermost toes of all the other chicks. I also noticed that they both took a little longer than the others to really master balancing on things, and landing precisely on things when they jump/fly. I attribute that at least in part to that short toe.

You can really see it in this pic of Misha. Look at the relative length of that outer toe (with all the feathers) to her middle toe, and then compare that to the EE chick below her in the brooder.





Is that a normal Marans thing or do I just have weirdos here?

What you have going on is what is commonly known as "Brachydactyly Mutation." Without getting too far into nerdy details, it is caused by a recessive feathered change gene (Pti-1 for Langshans or Marans). Here is an excellent site dealing with mutaions.

http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations2.html

Do not breed birds having this trait. Missing toenails can also the first sign of line exhaustion.

 

[One Chick Two]

My BCM roo Patrick at 5 weeks 1 day. Note the absolute lack of girly-ness. He's been making the cutest squeaky little cockadoodle-doos for about a week now.

tworockchicken

He's a handsome Alpha male for sure!

The white laced chest feathers are said by some breeders to not be indicative of anything. However, my BCM mentor told me that he noticed this in birds who later as an adult expressed white feathers. I have seen this in a hen and did express white feathers as an adult. It may not hold true for every bird though
.

 

[tworockchicken]

@tworockchicken does the tail mean that it is a pullet? Half of my week old chicks have tails, and half dont!

My two roos barely had tails at a week. At two weeks they had cute little wide downward pointing tails. And notice the pink wattles coming in on both of them!

 

[tworockchicken]

He's a handsome Alpha male for sure!

The white laced chest feathers are said by some breeders to not be indicative of anything. However, my BCM mentor told me that he noticed this in birds who later as an adult expressed white feathers. I have seen this in a hen and did express white feathers as an adult. It may not hold true for every bird though.

Thanks @One Chick Two ! I was curious about the white feathers and whether he'll keep them. The breeder who sold me his egg has a mixed Marans flock with some Splash and Blue hens, although I think their roo has black coloration. Wondering if the white feathers are a bit of Splash peaking through?

 

[One Chick Two]

Thanks @One Chick Two ! I was curious about the white feathers and whether he'll keep them. The breeder who sold me his egg has a mixed Marans flock with some Splash and Blue hens, although I think their roo has black coloration. Wondering if the white feathers are a bit of Splash peaking through?

No, it's not coloring issues resulting from a blue-black-splash mating. It is just a leftover gene or will show up again as a white feather possibly. People are on the fence about this issue.

You will only want to keep this male in blue-black-splash matings- no pure black Copper matings, as he would carry in unwanted color issues into Black Coppers. The breeder was using the black male to darker the hue of her blues so they weren't washed out.