International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Chooks man]

I must have missed the posts! Congratulations! What medal?

I think @chickengr is talking about BYC Spirit Medal .
chooks man

 

[marchick]

I must have missed the posts! Congratulations! What medal?

Oh, I see! it! Congratulations Chooksman!

 

[Punkybrewster]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/byc-recognition-medals.1214207/page-91#post-23361250


every 3 months people nominate who they want to.

you deserve your medal. when you were missing for some time (a year or 2 ago) we were a bit lost. you help people save years of breeding.

×2 !

 

[Punkybrewster]

Welp, all 3 cockerels from line #1 now have vulture hocks. The one chooks man said to save that seemed to not have it was just a late bloomer. Negan.

He is the smallest with the least mass to him. I dont know what to do now. Cull all 3?

I dont have a problem with doing that. I guess im just disappointed.

One of them has such nice copper coming in and nice and chunky... its so tempting to use him but the vulture hocks will be passed down and a nightmare to get rid of.

It would leave me with only the 2 cockerels from line #2. Their still young. Ugh.

 

[snowbird]

Just a suggestion for folks that are newer to raising Poultry. This works for all Poultry. When we first get started with Poultry we should Single Mate all breeder fowl and mark all eggs and toe punch all chicks and band all as they develop. The good thing about Single Mating is if all check ok with no major faults we can then pen mate the Pullet with a male that has been proven and get more quality chicks. Try not to bring in to your farm anything not proven . When you get started with this it will take a little more time but will be worth it later.

 

[Minky]

Just a suggestion for folks that are newer to raising Poultry. This works for all Poultry. When we first get started with Poultry we should Single Mate all breeder fowl and mark all eggs and toe punch all chicks and band all as they develop. The good thing about Single Mating is if all check ok with no major faults we can then pen mate the Pullet with a male that has been proven and get more quality chicks. Try not to bring in to your farm anything not proven . When you get started with this it will take a little more time but will be worth it later.

How do you keep track with an incubator full? If you come back and 6 new chicks are out of their eggs- how do you know who is who- even if the egg is marked?

 

[snowbird]

How do you keep track with an incubator full? If you come back and 6 new chicks are out of their eggs- how do you know who is who- even if the egg is marked?

All eggs are marked before going in the incubator room. I have wire baskets made for the Trays in different incubators.

 

[snowbird]

Couple of days ago some one stated that they could tell if a chicken was pure Marans by just looking at them. I hope this is just wishful thinking. There is no one that can just look and say any Marans is pure. This is very misleading to the newer Marans people .

 

[aliciaplus3]

now I have hatched several eggs from a local gal that were "pure" black/blue copper marans and I have to say that when the chicks grew up some I could tell by the look that there had been an "EE" in the woodpile so to speak. yes the offspring had the beautiful coloring but they had a few characteristics that do not belong on a marans, such as beards and muffs.... oh and Pea combs. uggg.
I do agree that being able to tell from the looks of a chook that it is pure marans can be deceiving but I do believe its possible to tell from the looks what is mixed breed.

 

[kcrandall]

How do you keep track with an incubator full? If you come back and 6 new chicks are out of their eggs- how do you know who is who- even if the egg is marked?

Breeders that hatch large quantities of chicks use cabinet incubators that can hold 200 up to 500 eggs at one time. These cabinet incubators also accommodate wire baskets so you can group eggs by hen.

Hobby Breeders that breed on a smaller scale use incubators that hold 25 to 50 eggs so wire baskets are not really an option. Instead they use mesh vegetable bags to group eggs by hen at lockdown.

Regardless of how many chicks you hatch each season you must tag your breeders for easy identification and diligently take notes on all your breeders (good / bad qualities) so that when chicks are hatched they are tagged (wingor leg bands) accordingly so that you can easily track their lineage.