International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[wrathsfarm]

Need to get individual pics yet but here's one of some of the Easter hatch.
Harmony is on the left, F2 (white band) Remember the chick pic with the egg in incubator?
Middle is purple F1 from Joannie. I lost the other pullet a week or so back so she's the only pullet I have and the reason I wanted to set more eggs from Joannie.
On the right is an F1 red band and one of the 3 from Betty.

My thoughts are at the moment while still waiting for egg color...
White, purple, and the one red band that's not mossy are staying. 2 mossy from Betty are getting re homed.

 

[Tstraub]

Need to get individual pics yet but here's one of some of the Easter hatch.
Harmony is on the left, F2 (white band) Remember the chick pic with the egg in incubator?
Middle is purple F1 from Joannie. I lost the other pullet a week or so back so she's the only pullet I have and the reason I wanted to set more eggs from Joannie.
On the right is an F1 red band and one of the 3 from Betty.

My thoughts are at the moment while still waiting for egg color...
White, purple, and the one red band that's not mossy are staying. 2 mossy from Betty are getting re homed.View attachment 3894594

Those girls look like they are ready to lay any day. My Easter hatched pullets still look immature to me. Mine are BCMxOE so they are not full Marans but they still have tiny combs and wattles. I hope you get some eggs real soon

 

[wrathsfarm]

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.

He's doing ok. Seems to be a little better than he was. He's getting around better and don't stagger as much than he was but still don't jump up to roosts or perches.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Those girls look like they are ready to lay any day. My Easter hatched pullets still look immature to me. Mine are BCMxOE so they are not full Marans but they still have tiny combs and wattles. I hope you get some eggs real soon

Yes, they've been taking interest in Kong these last few days since I separated out the 2 cockerels. Haven't noticed any interest in the nest boxes yet, tho.

Super excited to see egg colors from them.

 

[MayBerg]

He's doing ok. Seems to be a little better than he was. He's getting around better and don't stagger as much than he was but still don't jump up to roosts or perches.View attachment 3894614View attachment 3894615

I am glad he is doing better. He's so handsome.

 

[MayBerg]

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.

It might me a little bit too early to select??? Maybe 6 months?

 

[MayBerg]

What do you guys think of the tail and comb? This is Monsieur Jacques. Probably 12-13 weeks old now.

 

[MayBerg]

The 2 pullets are no good for breeding. Their eyes are completely black. No yellow.

 

[wrathsfarm]

The 2 pullets are no good for breeding. Their eyes are completely black. No yellow.

Post pics with close up of eyes.
When posted pics for selection. Front, both sides, over the top view of whole bird, rear, close ups of eyes, comb, legs, feet and anything your questioning are best for a complete 'describe'. The more clean, clear pics the better. It also helps to leg band each bird or number the pics with individual posts of each bird to keep separated to avoid confusion.

I'm not an expert here, but I have a tendency to focus on the negatives of my birds and have been told many times "we work with what we have, and everything is fixable".
For you that means...if your pullets have great qualities that can be an asset to your breeding program, you can mate them to your male that has beautiful eyes to correct. Maybe I'm wrong here with the eyes, I have a couple here I'm looking at that are questionable I've been meaning to post.
In general tho, we need to look at the overall confirmation of each bird and what each one has to offer with our program.

The 2 main factors are 'type' and 'egg color'. If it don't look like a Marans it's not a Marans and if it don't lay at least a #4 on the Marans color chart, it's not a Marans.

Don't focus on just the bad.... It could be easily fixable.

Not a direct quote but close..."If we cull all our Marans for everything wrong, we won't have any Marans left" - Chooks Man

 

[wrathsfarm]

Here's a decent example of where I'm getting at..
This is Betty. She's pitch black, no copper at all. And she mostly lays a #4, light #5 with darker speckles. So theoretically she's not a Marans according to what I posted in my above post.

But she's an asset to my program to at least test mate because my Kong is over colored in his chest and his 'type' is not complete. (His chest is wide but narrows towards rear)
Betty is a big girl, and her being all black may fix Kongs progeny to have correct coloring. I've got the 3 pullets, no cockerels from the Easter hatch that are mossy I'm still watching. So, she might not be a pullet line hen.
But I got no boys from her so I did another hatch.
The other 5 I just hatched at the end of May, I have 4 cockerels and 1 pullet. Got my boys... 1 of which has a brown head spot which indicates purity.

So I wait and watch... And if the boys fix Kongs over colored chest and hopefully 'type' at the same time, Betty now just went from being not a 'Marans' technically speaking to my 'Golden Girl' , my cockerel line hen.
It's wishful thinking at this point, but that's why we test mate and we watch them grow.
It's all about balancing out each individual quality and what each bird contributes as an asset in our flock.

If we immediately eliminate everything wrong, we're throwing away great things also.

Hope this helps...