International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Tstraub]

Finally able to get a few crappy shots of the babies... 20 wks old. 11-4-23. I (in my limit knowledge) really like how these 3 are growing out so far.
Dark Angel is red band @Chooks man
Copper is black band
Raven is no band
My grand daughter wanted to name the other 2 and she loved the name Raven I suggested from @marchick

Raven still has a white feather tip showing on her right side. It's been windy here where you see the ruffled feathers and tail in some pics
Tell me your thoughts so far good and bad...

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They look good to me but I don’t have enough experience to really give an informed opinion. Mine are very close in age, 19 weeks yesterday. I remember you commenting that mine looked to be growing faster than yours a couple months ago. Now yours looks to have further developed combs and wattles than mine. My girls are just barely starting to get some color in there tiny little combs

 

[wrathsfarm]

They look good to me but I don’t have enough experience to really give an informed opinion. Mine are very close in age, 19 weeks yesterday. I remember you commenting that mine looked to be growing faster than yours a couple months ago. Now yours looks to have further developed combs and wattles than mine. My girls are just barely starting to get some color in there tiny little combs

Thank you. Yes over the last couple weeks they really sprouted up. Raven is still the little one but she'll spring up. Copper is going to be huge. And her cape is almost fully covered in color. Hopefully I can get a lot more and better pics soon.

And I'm curious if they are going to start laying in a few weeks or wait til spring.
Anxious to see egg colors and hatch more chicks out now.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

And of course Kong in full on molt View attachment 3678984

I love the contrast between the intense copper and black in his hackle.

 

[Tstraub]

Thank you. Yes over the last couple weeks they really sprouted up. Raven is still the little one but she'll spring up. Copper is going to be huge. And her cape is almost fully covered in color. Hopefully I can get a lot more and better pics soon.

And I'm curious if they are going to start laying in a few weeks or wait til spring.
Anxious to see egg colors and hatch more chicks out now.

I’m waiting as patiently as I can for mine to lay. My barred rock that I brooded along the marans might be laying. I have found a couple light brown eggs outside of the nesting boxes recently I suspect the breed rock is coming into POL.

I did just witness Axl dancing for Betty. She didn’t squat but she didn’t run away when he jumped on top of her so I think the hormones are kicking in.

 

[TexasBlues]

This guy turned 3 weeks old yesterday. I’m starting to notice some pecking order going on and red wattles forming.

 

[wrathsfarm]

This guy turned 3 weeks old yesterday. I’m starting to notice some pecking order going on and red wattles forming.
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That looks to be a cockerel to me, also. I'm no expert tho so don't take my word as gospel.
All cuties tho... Congrats.

 

[wrathsfarm]

that is good question . the copper we are looking for ( what SOP call for ) is uniform rich red .not orangy neither Mahogany
the halo in the hackle is polution cause by unkown genes we are not aware of because is stongly inherited .we try to avoid it in breeding if we can , if we are forced to work with it becuase it is the only bird we have than we have to hatch as much chicks as we can , the halo is like the parasitic white doesn t go without a fight .
to breed proper copper into the line we haver to have atlease one correct bird with great rich red copper as foundation in the breeding programs .
we need to have a stong breeding program to achieve what we want and fix any fault plus breed any good trait true , lot peoples if not most have a lot birds to breed from but they don t have any breeding program .like @chickengr said Rooster + hens = chicks nothing to do with program .
to breed great marans we have to breed each trait separatly than we merge them all together when they start breeding true .
chooks man

Here's some pics of Kong from July.
Could you point out where on him is a proper color? If there is any proper color of course?
Would it be his wing bow? That's a pretty deep reddish. Different lighting makes it so hard to tell pic from pic. It almost looks like he has a slight/soft halo in some pics but I don't see it in person.
I realize his color isn't uniform thru out, he's over colored in the chest, and he's narrow from front to back but I love him to death... He's such a Goober.

Edited to add... The pic of his back , him crowing is more like I see daily.

 

[wrathsfarm]

And here's a couple of King with his obvious halo and of course his parasitic white (is that the correct term ?)
We've already talked about him being removed from my Marans line for anyone new here because of the white and an unknown neurology issue we don't to pass down. But he's my only spare at the moment and I can use him for my crosses
Again if you see any proper color on him point it out. Gives me a good reference I can visualize on a daily basis.
If I had to take a guess I really like the vertical color stripe directly beneath his waddles in the last pic. Correct me if I'm wrong please.

 

[Tstraub]

I don’t know the proper color for copper but I’ll add pictures of my boys as an example of too yellow heckles.
Sammy

Axl

 

[wrathsfarm]

I don’t know the proper color for copper but I’ll add pictures of my boys as an example of too yellow heckles.
Sammy
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Axl
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Sell or hatch out them Easter Egger (EE) and Barred Rock (BR) eggs for Olive Eggers and Midnight Majesty Marans in case you didn't know.

Here's my Esther...