Cuckoo Maran Rooster x (breed here) offspring?

[australorp_breeder]

I'm going to be buying an incubator and hatching eggs. It will be practice for me because I've never used an incubator before (normally I would let the hens just hatch them). I just got my rooster yesterday, and he just met the hens today. No breeding has occured yet.

Can anyone tell me, or have proof what the followings' offspring would look like? (If you can't tell me all, please tell me the ones that you do know.

a) Cuckoo Maran Rooster x Black Australorp Hen

b) Cuckoo Maran Rooster x Black Jersey Giant Hen

c) Cuckoo Maran Rooster x Blue Cochin Hen

d) Cuckoo Maran Rooster x Buff Orpington Hen

e) Cuckoo Maran Rooster x Buff Rock Hen

I have a few questions too please:

1) Can someone give me an estimate of how many days after a hen has been bred before her eggs will be fertile?

2) Can someone give me an estimate of how many days/weeks you think it would take for 14 hens to lay fertile eggs with one rooster? Or I was thinking maybe I could put a little bit at a time in a pen with him and let him breed them all that way. I could also get another rooster if need be.

 

[onthespot]

one roo should be able to handle the hens you have. Is he old enough? If he is of breeding age pretty soon he should be able to breed your hens successfully. start cracking tose eggs open and looking for the bullseye and you will know when it is time to incubate.

Barring/cuckoo is sex linked. Crossing a roo on any other color of hen will result in half the offspring being barred, half non-barred, of both sexes.

 

[australorp_breeder]

Thank you! I believe the cockerel* (correcting myself) is around 8 months old...if I heard from his previous owner right.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
In the first cross of a Barred/Cuckoo roo, all of the F1 offspring should be barred.

Breeding him to your Black hens would give all black Barred birds.
Breeding hime to the blue hen would give half black barred and half blue barred.
Breeding him to the buff hens would give chicks ranging from Black barred to some with buff coming through and looking a bit like the crele color.

Again all the F1 chicks should be barred, but the roos produced should be heterozygous barred and if you bred them back to a solid colored hen, those offspring would be half barred and half solid but would not be sexlinked.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Quote:
It's the other way around. You need a Barred Hen for the Sex-linking to work.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
It's the other way around. You need a Barred Hen for the Sex-linking to work.

No, She's right there, Barring itself is sexlinked, I believe females have one copy and males have two copies, (unless the male is het. barred) that's why it's so easy to sex barred birds at most any age, they are pretty easy to sex.

She wasn't talking about crossing to get sexlinked chicks, if that were the case, you would be right, you must have a solid male on barred females, but she was talking about sexlinkage just within barring itself and how the gene is passed when using a barred male.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Quote:
It's the other way around. You need a Barred Hen for the Sex-linking to work.

No, She's right there, Barring itself is sexlinked, I believe females have one copy and males have two copies, (unless the male is het. barred) that's why it's so easy to sex barred birds at most any age, they are pretty easy to sex.

She wasn't talking about crossing to get sexlinked chicks, if that were the case, you would be right, you must have a solid male on barred females, but she was talking about sexlinkage just within barring itself and how the gene is passed when using a barred male.

Ahhh, Ok. I didn't get that from the post. Thanks for clarifying

 

[australorp_breeder]

one roo should be able to handle the hens you have. Is he old enough? If he is of breeding age pretty soon he should be able to breed your hens successfully. start cracking tose eggs open and looking for the bullseye and you will know when it is time to incubate.

I found out from his previous owner this morning that the cockerel is actually 6 months. So I think I'll have to wait a bit. Cockerels reach sexual maturity around the time a pullet begins to lay, right?

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Wow! Thanks for all the explainations! So all in all, if I crossed my Cuckoo Maran with my hens the results would pretty much be Barred chicks?

And do Cuckoo Marans have feathers on their legs? I looked in Hatchery books I have and all of them are clean-legged. I even Googled and found those to be clean-legged too. My cockerel doesn't have feathers on his feet, but on the outsides of his legs right above his feet. They aren't as long as feathers on a Cochin's feet, they're a little shorter. I wonder if he was cross-bred...​

 

[RAREROO]

most hatchery marans aren't feather legged but Ideal claims to have them, but some do and some don't, it depends on how they are bred, the French Standard, ( which is what most try to breed to) does call for feathered leggs on them Marans but the English standard does not. but the ones that do have feathered legs arent as full as the leggs of Cochins.

Oh and yes, you can expect all cuckoo/barred chicks from your roo and the time when roos reach maturity can vary somewhat, but 6-7 mos is usually the norm.

 

[australorp_breeder]

I was just using a Cochin as an example, but thank you! So...Cuckoo Marans aren't their own breed, they're mixed?