How to determine the strain of my chickens.

[Chad Cool]

I do not no what strain my chickens are. I have also asked the guy I bought them from and he had no clue. Is there an alternate way to determine the strain of your chickens. I would guess yes but how?

 

[Habibs Hens]

not really unless you do test breeds and see what you get

brotehr to sister is a good start

 

[3riverschick]

Quote: What breed of chickens do you have? What color are they?
Best,
Karen

 

[Chad Cool]

I have Cokuoo Marans and Copper Marans. They look the color they should be. My coppers have a few feathers on there legs.

 

[3riverschick]

Quote: Ok, you have Cuckoo Marans and Black Copper Marans. The Marans will need to have feathers on their legs to be shown.
This is rather easy to do. Not knowing your strains, find a high quality strain and inbreed to it. Marans are kinda homogenized, sigh.
Don't worry about making strain ID a "must have". Just use your foundation birds as a starting point to breed some really nice birds.
What follows is a time-tested method for doing this. How to do it:
1.Look at the egg show results online.
2.Check the breed shows online.
3.Cross-reference the results and find a strain of each color which has (hopefully) won in both venues. Failing that, find a strain with top quality show birds.
4. Check your birds, pick one or two(sex doesn't matter) which are the best representatives of a quality Marans. Then go to the selected breeder
and buy an adult of the opposite sex. Breed it to your selected birds. Try to hatch 50 chicks so you have a nice group to select from. Get rid of the
ones you don't want by calling them "brown egg layers", (not Marans, because the buyers aren't paying for Marans) and sell thru Craigslist.
5.Take the get and breed them back to the bought bird ( back to their parent).
6. Take the get from the #5 step and breed it back to the bought bird (back to their grandparent).
7. Now move all your original birds out of the flock. Retain only the bought bird and his sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters.
8. Since this bought bird was an outcross to your birds, you can breed the get from Step #7 back to him/her again one more time if you wish. If not, go to the same breeder you got the bought bird from and get a new cock (yes at this point you need a cock, not hen, regardless of the sex of your 1st bought bird) from the same strain but different breeding pen that your first bought bird. Start Steps 4 thru 8 once more. Always selecting for dark egg each generation.
Reference for the breeding method: http://archive.org/details/cu31924003158312
The author was a highly respected veteran poultry man. One of his gifts to the fancy was his ability to make complex genetics and breeding simple for other breeders to understand.
Best,
Karen in western PA, USA