International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Kung_pao]

View attachment 4277834An interesting egg today. Think it’s from the pullet that’s already been laying the darkest eggs, but a bit blotchier today. Nice shape, better than Chanel’s, likely comes from Loki’s genetics.

That’s a beautiful egg!

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

Watched this egg get laid, it was from Ratty, potentially her first. Five Marans eggs today. Ignore the blood, I was plucking pheasants.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

@Chooks man do you have any experience/advice on breeding silver cuckoos with dark cuckoos?

I’m thinking of keeping a dark line, even though most of them were bought for my golden cuckoo project, but only have the silver cuckoo cock to start with.

Obviously I’d have to breed out birchen E^R and make sure they’re E/E.

 

[Chooks man]

@Chooks man do you have any experience/advice on breeding silver cuckoos with dark cuckoos?

I’m thinking of keeping a dark line, even though most of them were bought for my golden cuckoo project, but only have the silver cuckoo cock to start with.

Obviously I’d have to breed out birchen E^R and make sure they’re E/E.

first of all the E/E will not make a proper golden cuckoo pattern , they have to ER /ER so they hackle will be nicely golden .
I don t know what SOP you are going to apply for your future Golden cuckoo ,but the French ER /ER call for a lighter under fluff and golden hackle with a vague cuckoo pattern .
in the UK all the silver cuckoos and Dark cuckoos where E/E but not sure now , the English breeders are not very good at replying to the question I have I asked them in they Facebook page or pm .
the English silver cuckoo I worked with was imported from the UK was ER/ER because never got solid black from his F1 X F1 ,got Birchen instead . so he was nor E/E for sure ,
I never worked with E/E dark English cuckoo but you will know when you breed the F1 progeny together to flush out the hidden genotype
chooks man

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

first of all the E/E will not make a proper golden cuckoo pattern , they have to ER /ER so they hackle will be nicely golden .
I don t know what SOP you are going to apply for your future Golden cuckoo ,but the French ER /ER call for a lighter under fluff and golden hackle with a vague cuckoo pattern .
in the UK all the silver cuckoos and Dark cuckoos where E/E but not sure now , the English breeders are not very good at replying to the question I have I asked them in they Facebook page or pm .
the English silver cuckoo I worked with was imported from the UK was ER/ER because never got solid black from his F1 X F1 ,got Birchen instead . so he was nor E/E for sure ,
I never worked with E/E dark English cuckoo but you will know when you breed the F1 progeny together to flush out the hidden genotype
chooks man

I’m using black coppers to breed in both birchen and gold. I’ll breed to the UK standard, which calls quite a dark cuckoo base with gold where birchens code for.

From what I’ve seen, silver cuckoos here seem to be birchen based usually, at least the best ones. The standard calls for the neck and back to be almost entirely white, and a lighter barring than darks. This is best achieved with a Birchen base, otherwise it’s basically hard to tell from a faulty patterned dark.

To better clarify my use for the dark cuckoos, I ordered them before I realised the cuckoos I hatched were silver cuckoo. Assuming the silver cuckoos are indeed birchen based, I’ll cross them to the black coppers so I’m only dealing with the barring and gold genes.
If I find they’re too pale for the UK standard, then I’ll start to work the dark cuckoo blood in slowly and carefully, breeding out E.

This all being said, even the marans club of GB president told me he hadn’t seen a golden cuckoo for a long time, so I have little to actually compare it to adhering to the English standard.