Chocolate Marans

[jeremy]

I got a chocolate pullet from a pair of French black copper marans. Can I breed her back or if I get a chocolate roo can I breed them and get chocolate marans. TIA

Took with my phone

This might show the brown more

The odds of this mutation happening are almost impossible... but it does look like your pullet is Chocolate.

Do you have pictures of the parent birds she came from?

Have you considered that she might be Dun?

 

[Lozuufy]

Subscribing. This thread is awesome, can't believe it took me this long to find it. I've been researching for months to see if anyone is breeding Chocolate Marans since that's what I'm working on breeding right now. To start with I have a Choc Cuckoo Orp rooster, gonna try crossing him with BCM hens to get Chocolate Copper Marans eventually. And maybe gonna work on breeding Choc Cuckoo Marans too.

 

[bchomestead]

YES! Started a couple years ago.

And a recent hatch gave me a chick I thought was blue at first, but now looks khaki, which doesn't comport with the chicken calculator.

1st cross =
Chocolate Orpington roo X Blue Marans hens (two in pen with him)
= 1 Chocolate pullet, 1 Khaki pullet
(The Chocolate Orpington roo I hatched out eggs incubator; he was mid-size and a beautiful chocolate color; I don't know his color genes, but the guy I got the eggs from does raise lavender orps; unfortunately the roo is MIA after letting him free-range)

2nd cross (spring 2016 incubator hatch) =
Black Copper Marans roo X the 1st gen Chocolate and Khaki hens (both in pen with him)
= 3 black cockerels, 3 blue pullets (cocks went free-range and MIA, pullets are safe)

2nd cross (summer 2016 natural hatch) =
Black Copper Marans roo X the same 1st gen Chocolate and Khaki hens (both in pen with him)
= 6 black chicks (not for sure on sex yet), 1 KHAKI-looking chick that appeared blue at first (not for sure on sex yet)

("Disclosure" -- In the summer 2016 natural hatch above, I did have a Chocolate Orpington hen in the same pen with the Black Copper Marans roo to give her more room than a small pen and keep her safe; her eggs were smaller than standard, larger than bantam, (she's bigger than a bantam), so I thought I would be able to know the difference between hers and my 1st gen Chocolate and Khaki hens, but the girls decided to all have a sit in and I had other more pressing matters than to challenge them every day as they chose a large dog box that made it difficult to reach all the way to the back; I hatched the Chocolate Orpington hen with the roo referenced in my 1st cross and as noted on him, I don't know the color genes on them, but the guy I got the eggs from does raise lavender orps.)

Now that I've had a little free time to try and figure out who my 2nd cross (summer 2016 natural hatch) KHAKI-looking chick belongs to, I'm stumped.

The chicken calculator tells me that my 2nd crosses should either be blue or black out of the 1st gen Chocolate hen, and only black out of my 1st gen Khaki hen; and chicks from a Black Copper Marans roo X Chocolate Orpington hen would all be black, even if she was split for lavender.

My uneducated guess is the original blue and chocolate genes have combined/diluted the dominant blue/black expected offspring.

The 1st gen Chocolate and Khaki hens are gorgeously fluffy with feathered legs, but their eggs only have a fine spray of chocolate. I was trying to get a darker egg color by using the Black Copper Marans roo, but expected him to hide the offsprings' chocolate gene the first time around and figured that I might have to start another chocolate line to cross with the 3rd gen to fix the chocolate feather gene. I've contemplated doing that with my little Chocolate Orpington hen and a different Marans roo (that I don't have right now), although I suspect she is closely related to the Chocolate Orpington roo I started with. I'm not a fan of solid black chickens (it's probably THE BIRDS movie from childhood), so I'm not crazy about keeping a bunch of black birds around that might be split for chocolate to experiment with.

Any ideas that might help me along to getting to my goal of "Chocolate Marans" would be great! When I was "calculating" awhile back, I came up with a possibility at some point to get a red-necked chocolate roo, which would be absolutely awesome to go with chocolate girls. I have to say, though, my khaki hen really catches my eye.

I'm not into exhibition, but the birds in this project look like pretty good specimens to me. I'll take the camera out in awhile and try to get some pics.

 

[bchomestead]

I took a few pics today of the birds (not MIA ones

) involved in my "Chocolate Marans" project referenced above:



Black Copper Marans roo of 2nd Xs



1st X offspring chocolate hen & 2nd X chicks summer 2016 natural hatch from Black Copper Marans roo X with this hen and/or 1st X offspring khaki hen below (and possibly small chocolate orp hen below)
All chicks appear black except for "KHAKI" looking one on right (same chick as pictured again below)



Summer 2016 natural hatch "KHAKI" chick (using flash)
This is my mystery-colored chick --possibilities for layer are chocolate or khaki hens from 1st X (above and below) or small chocolate "orpington" hen (below) X Black Copper Marans roo (above)




1st X offspring khaki hen and one of the two original Blue Marans 2012 hatched hens (other hen is free-range MIA)
This khaki hen is much more washed out looking than before this summer


2nd X offspring spring 2016 incubator hatch -- 1 of 3 blue pullets (other 3 chicks hatched were black cockerels)
Black Copper Marans roo X above1st X offspring chocolate and/or khaki hens


2nd X offspring spring 2016 incubator hatch -- 2 and 3 of 3 blue pullets (other 3 chicks hatched were black cockerels)
Black Copper Marans roo X above1st X offspring chocolate and/or khaki hens



Chocolate "Orpington" (incubator hatched, eggs from someone else)
Chocolate roo over 2 Blue Marans hens for 1st X was this same color and from same hatch

 

[selangston]

I've decided to try breeding some Chocolate Marans. It seems like a cool project. So far I have hatched 11 chicks from my Chocolate Orpington rooster and Black Copper Maran hen. Three chicks are chocolate, 8 are black. Does anyone know if the sex link guidelines for chocolate and black genes are the same for Marans as they are for Orpingtons? If they are, then my chocolate chicks would be pullets and my blacks would be cockerels. That's a lot of cockerels. I think that the next step would be raising the chocolate hens and mating one with a pure Black Copper Maran Rooster in hopes of getting a 75% Maran split color roo that could be bred with a chocolate hen etc. How high of a ratio of Maran vs Orpington parentage would I need to get before the chicks could be considered to be Marans? Has anyone else been working on this that already with Chocolate Orpingtons and Black Copper Marans?

 

[bchomestead]

I started with a Choc Orp roo X Blue Marans hens, and gave away the black chicks (thinking they would be cockerels), but the only pullets I know for sure were chocolate and khaki. I never got around to repeating for more, because I let him free-range a few hours one day.

When I bred the Black Copper Marans roo back to his daughters of the 1st X (for egg color), they were all either black or blue, (both sexes, so the choc didn't have any effect at that stage).

The "khaki" mystery chick (F2) I posted above who hatched out blue, is blue again --a gorgeous Blue Copper roo. I'm not sure if/where he'll come in, but he's too handsome to turn out for coyote bait, I think he looks like a very French Marans type.

I'm not a black feathered chicken lover (unless they're frizzled), so right now I have a mature F2 (free-range) BC roo split for choc, + a young black unsexed chick who would be a sibling/cousin to him, if you or anyone else are interested and near. (SE OH)

I've got 3 more F2 blue chicks from a recent hatch to work with, and they could also be either sex based on what I've had so far.

I'm incubating some (hopefully) not-close-related Choc Orp and BC Marans eggs to start a second line to cross with my blue F2s split for chocolate to get to chocolate. (I don't think I would mind if the roos were copper chocolate though.)

The Chocolate Orpington roo I started with was bigger than a banty, but not as big as a standard. The 1st and 2nd crosses to the BC Marans roo pictured are big and robust with feathered feet (although my pics don't appear as good reps not being cleaned up).

The first 3 F2 hens are laying full-sized, mid-range chocolate eggs almost as dark as their Blue Marans grandmother's.

Maybe by next summer, I'll finally be hatching out "Chocolate Marans" who will lay chocolate eggs all winter!

 

[The Moonshiner]

I've decided to try breeding some Chocolate Marans.  It seems like a cool project.  So far I have hatched 11 chicks from my Chocolate Orpington rooster and Black Copper Maran hen.  Three chicks are chocolate, 8 are black. Does anyone know if the sex link guidelines for chocolate and black genes are the same for Marans as they are for Orpingtons?  If they are, then my chocolate chicks would be pullets and my blacks would be cockerels.  That's a lot of cockerels.  I think that the next step would be raising the chocolate hens and mating one with a pure Black Copper Maran Rooster in hopes of getting a 75% Maran split color roo that could be bred with a chocolate hen etc.  How high of a ratio of Maran vs Orpington parentage would I need to get before the chicks could be considered to be Marans?  Has anyone else been working on this that already with Chocolate Orpingtons and Black Copper Marans?

Yes chocolate works like chocolate it doesnt matter what breed its on.
Yes your chocolate chicks are pullets and black chicks are cockerels.
What I would do is....
Breed your chocolate pullets to a pure BCM. You will get black pullets and black split to chocolate cockerels (75%)
Keep split cockerel and breed to BCM hens. About half the pullets will be chocolate (87.5%)
Breed chocolate pullet to BCM rooster. All cockerels will again be splits (93.75%)
Breed split cockerel to BCM hens. Half pullets will be choclolate (96.875%)
Breed chocolate pullet to BCM rooster. Cockerels will again be splits (98.4375%)
Now I would breed best couple of those cockerels back to best chocolate pullets from generation before. Half pullets will be chocolate and half cockerels will be chocolate (97.65625%) then keep breeding the chocolates with best type and egg color.
I kept it simple with calling them all black but of course along the way you should get black, black with leakage and black copper. Of course also be using the ones that are BC or closer to it whenever they start showing up.
Ive done chocolate projects and used blacks to improve chocolates but never worked with chocolate and BC so not expert on how much it will take to get back to the nice BC pattern.
Also I used a gold based chocolate so everything was gold based. I know some blacks are silver based so would assume some chocolates may also be. If so you have to work with the gold base and breed out tbe silver base.
As far as getting back to pure marans thats on you to decide. Ive always figured by 6th generation youre there or really close. Some will claim that they will never be pure ever. Ive also bought from breeders that believed they were to pure when they produced offspring that were all over in type so some jump the gun IMO.
Its up to you and also depends what the two breeds crossed were and how well you did in selecting for type. Of course two breeds that are simular will get there usually quicker then two breeds that are very different. Selection of breeders for each generation will make or break you IMO.
Hope that helps and again thats how I would do it but theres other ways to get there.

 

[selangston]

Thanks so much for all the great advice. I had forgotten that breeding a chocolate split rooster with a pure BCM hen will also produce chocolate hens. I'll have to work that into my plan. I had been thinking that I would need to breed the 75% choc split roos back with the 50% hens to get a choc roo, but I could keep one of my 50% split roos and put him with a pure hen and get 75% choc pullets! At some points along the way, I will need to be aiming for chocolate mostly Maran roosters, so that I can breed some lovely sex linked chocolate pullets with my pure BCM hens. Even if I haven't made it to pure Maran yet, I will need to be able to sell some nice dark laying chocolate hens along the way in order finance the long range project. I'm a pretty small time backyard hobbyist with a limited budget, but this seems like a really great project to work on. The whole idea of having chocolate colored chickens that lay chocolate colored eggs just seems like a fun goal that many chicken owners would be willing to embrace, even if it took a long time for chocolate to become an official Maran breed color.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Thanks so much for all the great advice.  I had forgotten that breeding a chocolate split rooster with a pure BCM hen will also produce chocolate hens.  I'll have to work that into my plan. I had been thinking that I would need to  breed the 75% choc split roos back with the 50% hens to get a choc roo, but I could keep one of my 50% split roos and put him with a pure hen and get 75% choc pullets! At some points along the way, I will need to be aiming for chocolate mostly Maran roosters, so that I can breed some lovely sex linked chocolate pullets with my pure BCM hens.  Even if I haven't made it to pure Maran yet, I will need to be able to sell some nice dark laying chocolate hens along the way in order finance the long range project.  I'm a pretty small time backyard hobbyist with a limited budget, but this seems like a really great project to work on. The whole idea of having chocolate colored chickens that lay chocolate colored eggs just seems like a fun goal that many chicken owners would be willing to embrace, even if it took a long time for chocolate to become an official Maran breed color.

Ya I like the idea myself. I also work with a limited budget so remember me when you start selling hatching eggs and cut me a deal.
Chocolate is easy to work with in the big scheme of genetics. You can kinda drag it along using pullets one generation then split cockerels the next. That way you breed back to your goal breed every generation so you can concentrate on type and get there faster then with some other color projects.
Youll have to work with the egg color too so I would use the darkest egg laying BCMs that you can find. Ive had a lot of marans that didnt lay very dark eggs so id be putting that dark colored eggs as a very high priority from start to finish. I think thats going to be the biggest issue with your project. Or at least something to really watch and select for.

 

[bchomestead]

a mature F2 (free-range) BC roo split for choc

I'm sorry for any confusion, on describing that roo, he would be Choc+ Choc+, but not "split".