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

[Jadenrosesmom]

I know this thread is older but can anyone help I only have FBCM in my flock. I got her mid September and at that point she was about 4 months so around 6 months now. She doesn't seem to have developed her comb and waddles at all since I got her and they are sill black is this normal?

 

[PolarBerry]

I know this is an older thread but hoping my BCM (foreground) is female. The Olive egger (half a week older) is behind. They’re both close to the 3 week mark.

 

[NTBugtraq]

I currently have chicks from 3 hatches in my young birds coop. They are all from eggs laid by my own hens, with the same roosters as fathers. The hens and roosters are from 3 different blood lines, but all look solidly BCM. One group are 5 weeks less a day old, others are 1 week old today, and still others are just 2 days old.

I have notice some distinct characteristics, applying to birds of the same age, for which there appear to be only A or B choices:

1. They have color (orange, ruddy) around their neck and chest and towards their back, or are almost entirely black.
2. They have signs of a comb, or show no sign at all.
3. They have an almost orange-ish yellow on their chest/belly, or are strictly yellow.

I've read about leg thickness, head size, posture, and attentiveness as sex characteristics in chicks, but I'm curious if anyone has male/female choices to apply to the 3 characteristics I've numbered.

I currently have over 100 chicks and am incubating more in an effort to get a good laying flock going before winter. I'm am prepared to be mistaken with a few pullets, but the more aggressively I can cull the cockerels the better.

 

[Hensndoes]

I currently have chicks from 3 hatches in my young birds coop. They are all from eggs laid by my own hens, with the same roosters as fathers. The hens and roosters are from 3 different blood lines, but all look solidly BCM. One group are 5 weeks less a day old, others are 1 week old today, and still others are just 2 days old.

I have notice some distinct characteristics, applying to birds of the same age, for which there appear to be only A or B choices:

1. They have color (orange, ruddy) around their neck and chest and towards their back, or are almost entirely black.
2. They have signs of a comb, or show no sign at all.
3. They have an almost orange-ish yellow on their chest/belly, or are strictly yellow.

I've read about leg thickness, head size, posture, and attentiveness as sex characteristics in chicks, but I'm curious if anyone has male/female choices to apply to the 3 characteristics I've numbered.

I currently have over 100 chicks and am incubating more in an effort to get a good laying flock going before winter. I'm am prepared to be mistaken with a few pullets, but the more aggressively I can cull the cockerels the better.

1st - how did you change your tag line? Sorry that's just the first thing I noticed

2nd - since your a surgeon you can appreciate the complexity here

You have 3 different lines all mixed up. One hen or roo may throw a certain gene when bred. Another will throw a different. But your all mixed up. So there could be slow maturing cockerels, fast maturing pullets, and average birds, well copper colored pullet and not so well colored pullet. Well colored cockerels and not so well colored. Hens with good mass and hens without good mass. Same for Roos. not to mention egg color variations *for each mated combination since you haven't separately marked and bred them. And your all mixed up. Unless you didn't provide full disclosed and have separate mating markers - then you have to think about who threw what quality.

So, as a rule of thumb you did read correctly that there are some loose guidelines. But if I'm reading right you may want to wait until the clincher at about 6-8 weeks and look for copper feather in the wing bows. What is your purpose of this larger scale breeding? If for standard your going to have to get scientific with your mate paring.

Also: you said something about color variation- are they just different kinds of marans? Black copper, black, wheaton, cuckoo, blue copperetc? Or all they supposed to be copper? If so then I don't want yellow in my gene pool.

Edit: actually you said bcm- so yea. Boys will show themselves with those red bars on wings.

 

[NTBugtraq]

1. Its been so long since the tag line was changed...I'm pretty sure you have to email one of the admins to get it done, but I don't remember the email address.

2. Ha ha ha...it was an honorary title...;-]

My flock is intended to provide me with severely dark brown eggs which I sell as eating eggs at a good price to folks who come to me from the city. I also sell day olds, mostly to small flock farmers who want to add a brown egg to their clutch, or just like the coloring of the BCMs, they buy a dozen or so. I sell meat to people who haven't been here in Canada for very long, or remember traditional dishes that call for more flavorful chicken.

What I am not doing is trying to show birds. I am certainly culling strongly defective birds, and birds who do not have consistent traits, but I haven't been strict on the pairings.

Anyway, thanks very much for the information and feedback.

 

[killerdillard]

Chickenguysmom, thank you for taking the time to do this, it is helping me enormously. My very first hatch of marans was 3 weeks ago and I HAD 6 but because of a very idiot mistake on my part I only have one... and she is an English Orpington. I had 4 BCM's and a Blue Birch Maran... they were sooo adorable. None of the hatches since have survived. I've got 11 more eggs to start tonight though so wish me luck.

 

[dannygirl1]

Good luck, I recently hatched bcm , had 10 chicks from 24 shipped eggs, ( never going there again!) Out of the 10 I have 5 pullets , rooster combs very visible by 3 weeks.

 

[Zwillingsmama]

I have 1 BCM I want to believe she is a girl. No sign of wattle and comb has not really changed. Here are pictures of her at 2 and 4 weeks. What do you think? I took the 4 week picture when there was a loud noise that why she is stretching the neck her usual pasture is like the younger pic

 

[dannygirl1]

I would say pullet

 

[aglandaetap]

I have 1 BCM I want to believe she is a girl. No sign of wattle and comb has not really changed. Here are pictures of her at 2 and 4 weeks. What do you think? I took the 4 week picture when there was a loud noise that why she is stretching the neck her usual pasture is like the younger pic View attachment 1461316View attachment 1461317

Pullet