International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[BlueTheBrahma]

What is your normal feed?
Do you have the vast assortment of feed types available like the US?

It seems like they suddenly just explode overnight in size. Poppy and Solo were slower than mine, also. I had a hard time gendering Poppy long after my usual at 2-3 wks old. @Bantambird actually helped me with him. Them small combs really thru me off, and I need them in my BCM flock to help with frostbite.

Any plans for more hatching eggs this year?

Now that I got the BBS Silvers, but didn't get any Blues, that's my new obsession....I want more Blues now.
Poppy of course is in hiding...

we’re lucky when the local pet shop (which is a huge place) stocks growers, we have to stock up when we can, and usually it’s only 10 lbs bags for £9 ($11.15). I try to get the 45 lbs bags when I can, but they weren’t stocked last year. As a result, the young chickens this year were switched to a mixture of wheat and layers when we ran out of growers, which was earlier then I’d like.

The pet shop only stocks layers meal, conditioner (a seed mix) and layers pellets (but plenty of wild bird foods for some reason).

I figure I’m probably going to resort to Amazon or something else, I’m not used to ordering online but it will be better for my flock. Even so, it’s all basically £15+ for a 45 lbs bag.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

part of me loves blues but then I don’t want the frequency of non-standard colours to become too high. But then I think maybe having blues and later splashes will make me focus on type more because I’m not distracted by colouring.

Ultimately all my marans are probably going to end up being golden cuckoos later down the line, I love the blue golden cuckoo but it’s no good for showing. I might breed out blue eventually, but only when type is sorted, but I think it’s more likely I keep a few.

I know this is just me contradicting myself, but I guess I’m just saying that there are pros and cons.

Also I believe the blue gene dilutes egg colour as well as feather colour, but I might be wrong.

 

[Bantambird]

Legbars and marans chicks. I moved them yesterday.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

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Legbars and marans chicks. I moved them yesterday.

Is your legbar line a good autosexing strain? Just out of interest because I’ve seen somewhere that it’s becoming an issue where some bloodlines are becoming worse for sexing.

 

[Bantambird]

Is your legbar line a good autosexing strain? Just out of interest because I’ve seen somewhere that it’s becoming an issue where some bloodlines are becoming worse for sexing.

It is. I don't keep any ambiguous chicks. Tbh I've only had a handful of ambiguous chicks, and they all turned out female, so not real ambiguous. I don't have any Ree's line legbars, those were the ones brought to the states as the 'best looking' for shows and such, unfortunately that line has the problem of the ambiguous chicks. Mine are mainly the first and second group, and a few from the third group. My pal in Wyoming had a rosecomb project I have integrated into my flock, he was at f6 so I was ok with bringing them in. He had crossed a rosecomb brown leghorn roo into his legbar flock to get better weatherhardy combs for our frigid winters. I do have to cull those combs hard because that stupid inverted spike issu is showing up sometimes, but with persistence I'm sure it will work out. Since rosecomb is dominant, that gene can play nice and I'll just have them showing up regularly. The biggest issue with the rosecomb group was they had squirrel tail, but I've bred it out before and I can do it again. Even with this new group, I've not seen ambiguous chicks.

 

[Bantambird]

4 females, 2 males in this picture, just a handful for example

 

[wrathsfarm]

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Legbars and marans chicks. I moved them yesterday.

Cuteness overload... All I see in the Marans is Blacks and Blues or did you get some whites also? How many did you hatch?

I know it's not advisable for pullet eggs, but I can't resist hatching some from Kong x Solo before I move her over to Poppy. My thinking is let her lay for 7 eggs and then start collecting for 7.

What's your thoughts on this?

 

[Bantambird]

Cuteness overload... All I see in the Marans is Blacks and Blues or did you get some whites also? How many did you hatch?

I know it's not advisable for pullet eggs, but I can't resist hatching some from Kong x Solo before I move her over to Poppy. My thinking is let her lay for 7 eggs and then start collecting for 7.

What's your thoughts on this?

There are 2 in the back where one is white or splash, and there is one definitely white one, but he got lazy while hatching so has a bit of a crooked neck. Since he's vigorous enough, I'll give a chance to grow out of it. If no progress, I might cull. The splashy one looks great. There's 29 total chicks this hatch.

 

[Bantambird]

The only issue with crossing silver and copper is the cleanup breeding later, otherwise they are the same breed.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

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4 females, 2 males in this picture, just a handful for example

Would you consider the middle girl on the first photo ambiguous? Because I feel like it would look male in a bad line, because it’s still much paler than the others.

I guess as long as you can tell between members of the same strain it’s good autosexing.