Blue Copper Marans Roo... Breeding question

[jettgirl24]

Hi All,

Back in July I decided to try my hand at hatching chicks for the first time. I ended up with 8 gorgeous little Marans babies, 3 Blue, 4 Splash, and one black. They are now 6 weeks old and one of my little blue roos has begun developing a bunch of copper feathers on his neck. I was going to sell all of my roos but if this one is a blue copper I really think I'd like to keep him. The Marans girls I have are splash and black... I'm just curious, if I decided to keep and and breed him to the black and splash girls what colors would they have the potential of hatching?

 

[pinkchick]

Blue Copper x Black Copper will give you 50% Blue Copper chicks and 50% Black Copper chicks.

Blue Copper x Splash Copper will give you 50% Blue Copper chicks and 50% Splash Copper chicks.

 

[jettgirl24]

What about Blue Copper to Splash and Blue Copper to Black? None of my girls are copper, just the roo.

 

[pinkchick]

The birds that do not show copper can and may produce babies that will show copper if using the roo that has copper. The amount of copper that will express itself in the offspring may vary...ie maybe too little to none but just because they do not express copper in the feathering upon maturing does not mean that they do not have the gene and could be crossed back to the original blue copper roo for more improvement on the copper color.

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
From reading between the lines I do not think she has the original male. If she uses the brother to the females should be prepared for the faults to multify. Would be nice if she had a splash unrelated male to use.

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
From reading between the lines I do not think she has the original male. If she uses the brother to the females should be prepared for the faults to multify. Would be nice if she had a splash unrelated male to use.

Thanks for pointing that out Don....my mistake in my latter post, I should have stated that I was referring to a second gen. cross, and you are right an unrelated roo would be a good way to go.

 

[jettgirl24]

Thank you for pointing that out, it's something I hadn't thought too much about yet. Keeping him was sort of a new idea (as in today) because I noticed today how much copper he's getting. He's just gorgeous! I was very disappointed that he turned out to be a roo because he's been my favorite since the day they hatched and I wasn't planning on keeping any of the boys. If I do keep him I would like to hatch some of his babies but maybe I will hang on to him and wait until we have space for a second pen where I can get some unrelated girls. The group I have right now are a mix of half siblings and full siblings, I just have no idea who is fully related and who is half.