International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[wrathsfarm]

A bit of an impulse buy but when I saw silver cuckoo marans for sale I couldn’t help myself. When the breeder told me the could deliver them this Wednesday, I was basically sold on them. Five hens, pricy but I got a good deal given their rarity. I’m also telling myself that now I have more marans they’ll pay it back in sold hatching eggs.

I resisted buying the cockbird because I have so many boys already, plus I didn’t want to make Napoleon obsolete! Look like they’re brilliant quality, English type but they have feathered legs (I’ll have to fix by either introducing a clean legged bird or by breeding the lightest leg feathering until it’s almost gone).

My French blood from Loki and eventually Napoleon (carrying Chanel’s genes) will add even more bulk to the English type, which is really my aim with this project: show quality in England yet pays homage to the French ancestors.

The best part is I’m not working with three gene loci to make golden cuckoos, now I only need to breed true barring and the gold allele, no extended black like I would have gotten from dark cuckoos.

Looks like the GCM project is starting sooner than I expected, F1 will probably be my first hatch this year.

Exciting this early in the year, photo dump coming Wednesday…

That's great news. Very happy and can't wait to see pics.

 

[Bantambird]

One of the males only had a very slight crest.
There seems to be a lot of differences in CLB. Many have a lot of gold and not enough cream.

It's because cream doesn't always come out exactly the same strength every time, it's a dilute red gene, but you can get radical differences sometimes. , especially when you focus too hard on one area. To be fair, legbars seem like they would benefit from a separate line for show males and show females, with all the things wanted in their colors and all the little things. There are often single crest gene males about because the big crested males often get really floppy combs pushed waaaay over, it's hard to share a single straight comb and a glorious crest on the same head.

 

[Bantambird]

I hatched CLB in 2020. 7 girls and 2 boys

Their markings were very clear but 2 of these girls layed pink eggs. The boys were very aggressive.
View attachment 4042242


@Bantambird Do you see more aggression in CLB males?

Sometimes, but any aggressive males meet the soup pot. Thus they don't last very long around here.

 

[NanaK]

Thanks for the info.

The male with only a slight crest did have the best comb. Male#2 had a great crest but wonky floppy comb. Both show serious aggression early.

My MIL makes wonderful pastry.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

Thanks for the info.

The male with only a slight crest did have the best comb. Male#2 had a great crest but wonky floppy comb. Both show serious aggression early.

My MIL makes wonderful pastry.

Male legbars are only supposed to have a slight crest (at least in the UK standard), I don’t know if that is relevant to you here.

 

[Bantambird]

Male legbars are only supposed to have a slight crest (at least in the UK standard), I don’t know if that is relevant to you here.

like this
its an old picture, the current batch looks a bit different. I did fix the earlobe issue, but I like the shape and how the chestnut on the wing bows is not across the back.

 

[NanaK]

Those boys have nice crests and combs. They look great!

The 2 I had still had very large combs. The one I liked still had a bit of flop to the back of the comb.
The aggression was the deal breaker.

This was Jonas. His comb folded over in the back but was still better than his brother.
I liked his coloring. I know some do not like the white sickle feathers but I do.

His brother was Levi. He was darker, no white sickles. Crazy comb. I can't find a good picture at this moment. I have way too many chicken pictures. lol

 

[Bantambird]

Moving today's batch of legbars and marans

 

[Mwhit]

Hey everyone. I bought a trio of copper marans that are close to 16 weeks now. The pullets don’t seem to have the “copper” necks at all. The hens and rooster they came from looked legit. Here’s a few photos. What could be going on?

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

Hey everyone. I bought a trio of copper marans that are close to 16 weeks now. The pullets don’t seem to have the “copper” necks at all. The hens and rooster they came from looked legit. Here’s a few photos. What could be going on?

View attachment 4050645

They will either be black marans or highly melanised copper marans. Do you plan to breed them? If so we can all help you plan a breeding programme to improve this.