Help me choose my french black copper marans cockerels for breeding

[Eggcellent]

Hello fellow BYCers,

I am getting ready to put my BCMs in a breeding pen and I need to thin the cockerels down to 2. I am no expert on the breed standard so I could use a little help choosing the best 2. If you could tell me which 2 look the best to you (and why) that would be greatly helpful! Also, one of the cockerels has 1 white feather on a wing tip (couldn't get a photo because it only is visible when he stretches his wing). Is that something I should be overly concerned about? Here are the photos:

Cockerel #1 - I am not too impressed by his comb and the really light feathering on the shanks/feet. I think he is likely a "cull".

Cockerel #2

Cockerel #3

Cockerel #4

Cockerel #5 - His comb is a little darker than this due to the flash, but it is not as red as the other roos. He does have a lot of feathers on his feet and shanks. He is also the smallest of the bunch.

 

[snowbird]

Cockerel 2,4,5 appear to have green legs. Some appear to have too much Brown on breast.

 

[Eggcellent]

Does #3 seem OK? I guess I could just keep one.

 

[blackdotte]

Cockerel 2,4,5 appear to have green legs which means they have the recessive yellow skin as the result of cross breeding. They should be culled.
Cockerel 1 has too much red on the breast, golden neck hackles & should be culled.
Cockerel 3 is the best of a bad lot, he also has golden neck hackles, & his tail angle is too high.
If he is related to the others you would need to test mate him to determine if he is carrying the recessive yellow shank/skin gene. This will take time ,space & money, so all in all you might be better buying a pure bred male. Even then you should test mate all of your hens to see which carry the unwanted recessive yellow shank/skin gene, presuming you bred these yourself.
David

 

[Eggcellent]

Hmmm,

All these are from a single source. I got some hatching eggs and all of my females are from the same source as well. I guess maybe I need to just cull the entire flock and get some eggs from a good source. A lot of time and money wasted though

Thanks for all the input. I will probably just keep the girls around for nice colored eggs.