International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Tstraub]

I’m excited to one day hatch eggs from my own chickens and see what kind of hatch rates I can get from them. That will be a ways off though. The BCMs are about 3 months old now. I hear people recommend not hatching eggs from young hens, so maybe I’ll wait til they’re a year old to start incubating them.

From what I understand the biggest issue with breeding young birds is that you don’t really know how it’s long term health will be. The bird might have some genetic issues that won’t show up until later in life. This can compound if you do it over generations of birds. If you always incubate eggs as soon as you find a bird with more desirable traits you could unintentionally breed health problems into your line. Because your breeding them before the issues show themselves

 

[chickengr]

Hopefully its nothing serious, all my time spent here he's gone rogue at least twice for months. IIRC one was for covid.
Have you checked the French Marans site?

just tried marans aspiran site and it does not exist.

 

[wrathsfarm]

just tried marans aspiran site and it does not exist.

France has a Marans site...
https://marans.editboard.com/privmsg?folder=inbox
I joined just to look around there. Hard to navigate with translation but all my searches for him came up empty.
He's on a Facebook page unless that's the Aspirian your referring to. I'm not on Facebook.

 

[chickengr]

Is that the secret to get them to lay? Maybe I should put a for sale sign in my nesting boxes to motivate them to pay up

I threatened mine to butcher them and they started to lay, lol.

 

[wrathsfarm]

I threatened mine to butcher them and they started to lay, lol.

I can see how that would work.

 

[chickengr]

I’m excited to one day hatch eggs from my own chickens and see what kind of hatch rates I can get from them. That will be a ways off though. The BCMs are about 3 months old now. I hear people recommend not hatching eggs from young hens, so maybe I’ll wait til they’re a year old to start incubating them.

don't hatch their first 30 eggs. when their eggs become bigger you can hatch them.

 

[chickengr]

France has a Marans site...
https://marans.editboard.com/privmsg?folder=inbox
I joined just to look around there. Hard to navigate with translation but all my searches for him came up empty.
He's on a Facebook page unless that's the Aspirian your referring to. I'm not on Facebook.

there used to be marans aspiran site. I have not been on FB since covid lockdown. I cancelled my account.

 

[TexasBlues]

don't hatch their first 30 eggs. when their eggs become bigger you can hatch them.

Good plan. I’ll try to weigh them as they progress also.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Good plan. I’ll try to weigh them as they progress also.

Yes, and definitely don't do what I did.

 

[Tstraub]

Yes, and definitely don't do what I did.

Yours was a special case you didn’t have better eggs coming. It was a now or never situation