International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Chooks man]

I marked pullets who were fast feathering in my line #2 birds. The 2 cockerels were slow feathering.

Line #1, Negan, is fast feathering.

When the time comes to breed, my plan is to eventually produce this trait for sexing.

Ok here how you can breed FFT and SFT from your existing flock . forget about other fault ,here we are only talking about the feathering gene for future chicks sexing .
Step one = year one = Negan FFT X pullets line #1 SFT = F1 mostly fast feathering type ,because we don t know what they are hiding . we only keep fast feathering cockerels from this pairing .
Cockerels line #2 SFT will be bred to Slow feathering type pullets regardless odd of the line .= we get F1 SFT pullets and cockerels .not all but high percentage I think . we only keep SFT pullets from this pairing .
now we have .F1 FFT cockerels from Negan s pairing and we has F1 SFT pullets from Cockerels line #1 pairing .

Step 2= year 2 = we pair the 2 best F1 FFT cockerel { Negan } to the best F1 pullets { Cockerels #1 } = we will F2 FFT pullets and F2 SFT cockerels .they can be sexed at hatch .

chooks man

 

[Punkybrewster]

Ok here how you can breed FFT and SFT from your existing flock . forget about other fault ,here we are only talking about the feathering gene for future chicks sexing .
Step one = year one = Negan FFT X pullets line #1 SFT = F1 mostly fast feathering type ,because we don t know what they are hiding . we only keep fast feathering cockerels from this pairing .
Cockerels line #2 SFT will be bred to Slow feathering type pullets regardless odd of the line .= we get F1 SFT pullets and cockerels .not all but high percentage I think . we only keep SFT pullets from this pairing .
now we have .F1 FFT cockerels from Negan s pairing and we has F1 SFT pullets from Cockerels line #1 pairing .

Step 2= year 2 = we pair the 2 best F1 FFT cockerel { Negan } to the best F1 pullets { Cockerels #1 } = we will F2 FFT pullets and F2 SFT cockerels .they can be sexed at hatch .

chooks man

Thank you. Awesome info.
Line #1 pullets are fft. The whole line was. I would have noticed any slow or medium feathering.

So that means i only need to work on line #2 for fft? Or still both lines?

 

[Chooks man]

Thank you. Awesome info.
Line #1 pullets are fft. The whole line was. I would have noticed any slow or medium feathering.

So that means i only need to work on line #2 for fft? Or still both lines?

for this trait FFT you need both lines .
line #1 to produce FFT cockerels .
line #2 to produce SFT pullets .
cross between the 2 lines in the right order { Cockerel FFT mated to Pullets SFT } will produce sexed chicks at hatch with feather type .

if I was you I will no worry about this traits now .I ll keep focus in fixing the body type and dark eggs color .

chooks man

 

[Punkybrewster]

for this trait FFT you need both lines .
line #1 to produce FFT cockerels .
line #2 to produce SFT pullets .
cross between the 2 lines in the right order { Cockerel FFT mated to Pullets SFT } will produce sexed chicks at hatch with feather type .

if I was you I will no worry about this traits now .I ll keep focus in fixing the body type and dark eggs color .

chooks man

Ahhhh. Yes. I get it.

You are right.
Body type and egg color first.


I will keep this information though because while breeding what i have, i may just get the opportunity to do it.

 

[Chooks man]

Ahhhh. Yes. I get it.

You are right.
Body type and egg color first.


I will keep this information though because while breeding what i have, i may just get the opportunity to do it.

you have the FFT trait in your line #1 and you has as well SFT in you line #2 . so the genes are not going any where ,we are going a make sure to keep all the good genes your have in you flock , we are going to do first is to breed a body type and dark eggs color , than we move on to the rest .body color ,nice comb ,no parasitic white etc.......................
by pairing Negan to line #2 pullets and pairing cockerels line #2 to line #1 pullets .we are preserving both FFT /SFT genes in the flock . when time is alright we can breed the pattern properly . for now we just preserving it . we make sure we don t loose the genes we like in the way .

chooks man.

 

[Minky]

Not everyone wants to sex them to select breeding stock at an early age.... most of what I see would be to be able to sell as female at an early age.... I may be wrong?

Here we just sell them straight run, especially during the pandemic. so hard to get chicks. but I dont care either way- Im happy to have roosters too. I sort of love them.
And of course I love rooster chilli. ;-). But I'm not selling these, this was very much an experiment for me to do some learning. Hatch out olive Eggers from 2 different roosters (Marans roo with CLB hen and CLB roo with welsummers hens.)

Two of my 3 marans pullets (6 mo) are broody! Is this common for marans?

 

[Minky]

I marked pullets who were fast feathering in my line #2 birds. The 2 cockerels were slow feathering.

Line #1, Negan, is fast feathering.

When the time comes to breed, my plan is to eventually produce this trait for sexing.

When do you do this? Check your chick for fast or slow feathering?

 

[kcrandall]

When do you do this? Check your chick for fast or slow feathering?

From hatch until each chick is fully feathered. Some chicks are fully feathered by 4 weeks old (Fast Feathering Type) and other may take as long as 8 weeks (Slow Feathering Type) and some fall in the middle (Moderate Feathering Type).

 

[Punkybrewster]

This line #2 has obvious slow feathering birds.

I had never experienced slow feathering in all my years of raising chickens until now.
Or maybe i just never paid attention because Chickens were chickens.

Now that i am paying attention, i cant help but notice when some chicks are fully feathered out and the others are still naked and dinosaur looking.

 

[Chooks man]

Here we just sell them straight run, especially during the pandemic. so hard to get chicks. but I dont care either way- Im happy to have roosters too. I sort of love them.
And of course I love rooster chilli. ;-). But I'm not selling these, this was very much an experiment for me to do some learning. Hatch out olive Eggers from 2 different roosters (Marans roo with CLB hen and CLB roo with welsummers hens.)

Two of my 3 marans pullets (6 mo) are broody! Is this common for marans?

marans can go broody .how much depend on the line .most marans are poorly bred . peoples focus on dark eggs color and they forget about the other marans traits .

6 month old pullets goes broody ,that tell us some thing is wrong . they hardly start laying at 6 months old . how she become broody at that young age . not selectively bred for sure .

chooks man