International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[wrathsfarm]

Hummm hopefully they lay in the winter. I am in California, so no harsh winter, just rain sometimes.

Their laying schedule decreases or stops based on shortened daylight hours. Weather doesn't effect it.

 

[wrathsfarm]

whose babies are you hatching? Did you order eggs? I thought you only have BCM? Let us see pics

How do you make your hens broody. I was told marans almost get broody.

The pics are where I'm slacking. But I do have a picture/story thread ..
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/wraths-marans.1625296/

I'll attempt to give a thorough update today. But I have 2 separate flocks. BCMs and a mixed flock. And I'm at the beginnings of a BBS Silver flock with the 2 that hatched that Raven was raising. I'm sitting over 40 birds with 31 Marans at this point with 3 more BCM broodys sitting on Marans eggs and 1 BCM and 1 Australorp sitting on Marans hybrids.

No you can't make them go broody but it's infectious once one goes broody, others may follow.
In my case, only 1 (Joannie) 2 years ago, 1 last year (Momma) and 8 this year - Joannie, Momma, Raven, Copper, Jett, Black, and Angel all BCM. And Roady (BA) in the mixed flock.

 

[wrathsfarm]

These guys will be 16 weeks this coming Sunday and I need to get selective on who to keep if any. So any thoughts on them is surely welcome.
These are both Kong X Joannie and the more dominant one (single purple band) has more color in chest and back.
Myself, I'm favoring the double purple band as he has slightly less color and I think a nicer comb and better temperament but they are both over colored in the chest so I think they both need to go, as I feel they aren't an improvement over Kong .

I have 4 more boys from Kong x Betty and 3 from Kong x Angel here. So I need extremely picky judgement on these 2 guys.
If everyone remembers... Betty's 4 boys are my watchers with one having the head spot and with her being all black, hopefully her boys are my improvement on Kongs over coloring and possibly fixing his 'type' would be a bonus.

Any other pic requests or questions feel free.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Double purple band

 

[wrathsfarm]

Single purple band..more dominant of the 2 and not camera friendly.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Side by side.. single band has a higher tail and on right in all these pics.

 

[Tstraub]

These guys will be 16 weeks this coming Sunday and I need to get selective on who to keep if any. So any thoughts on them is surely welcome.
These are both Kong X Joannie and the more dominant one (single purple band) has more color in chest and back.
Myself, I'm favoring the double purple band as he has slightly less color and I think a nicer comb and better temperament but they are both over colored in the chest so I think they both need to go, as I feel they aren't an improvement over Kong .

I have 4 more boys from Kong x Betty and 3 from Kong x Angel here. So I need extremely picky judgement on these 2 guys.
If everyone remembers... Betty's 4 boys are my watchers with one having the head spot and with her being all black, hopefully her boys are my improvement on Kongs over coloring and possibly fixing his 'type' would be a bonus.

Any other pic requests or questions feel free.

I’m still new at this so I could be missing something but I do agree with you that neither one is an improvement over Kong. Is Kong your only mature rooster? If you need to keep a backup I do like the double purple over the single but I do feel like Kong is still the best of what you have

I recently thinned my flock down to just one rooster but none of my cockerels were pure Marans so none of them could serve as a replacement. If something happens to Axl I’ll have to incubate every Marans egg I have and cross my fingers or bring in one from another source.

 

[wrathsfarm]

I’m still new at this so I could be missing something but I do agree with you that neither one is an improvement over Kong. Is Kong your only mature rooster? If you need to keep a backup I do like the double purple over the single but I do feel like Kong is still the best of what you have

I recently thinned my flock down to just one rooster but none of my cockerels were pure Marans so none of them could serve as a replacement. If something happens to Axl I’ll have to incubate every Marans egg I have and cross my fingers or bring in one from another source.

Kong is my only breeder. King is in the mixed flock and not a breeder. Unless something happens to Kong or unforeseeable to the whole flock I have 7 other boys besides these 2 and Kong and King, with roughly 12 more eggs under broodys.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Finally got a decent pic of single bands chest...way over colored.

And double band for comparison

 

[Tstraub]

Kong is my only breeder. King is in the mixed flock and not a breeder. Unless something happens to Kong or unforeseeable to the whole flock I have 7 other boys besides these 2 and Kong and King, with roughly 12 more eggs under broodys.

I’m glad to hear King is still around. I remember he had some neurological issues that disqualified him from the breeding program and he had a pretty rough time a few months ago. I haven’t heard anything about him in a while so I wasn’t sure what came of him.