International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Red Banks]

I start with Mud because he is every thing you need in a Black copper cockerel .
1) Great body type ,rectangular shape with great mass .10/10
2) great rich copper
3) nice solid thick head .
4) well colored eyes
5) nice size comb and wattle ,comb need to be more define not a big deal .
6 ) good size ears lobe and nice red color .
7) good strong beak well colored too .
8) solid and strong neck well arched at the top and well colored
10) nice long flat back , nicely colored lancet and saddle .nice copper .
11) shoulder well held close to the body the way they should be .nice rich mahogany color .need more ,still young .
12) tail ,nice shape and nice size good angle close to 60 degree is accepted .nothing odd about it .
13) body feathers ,free from any fluff ,
14) wing well held close to the body
15)shanks well fathered and colored ,nice and strait .
16) great chest

I haven t seen any thing I dislike about him .

Can any body correct me if I m wrong .
Close to perfection . BRAVO to the you and especially the BREEDER .OF THIS FINE SPECIMEN . .

Chooks man
12

@Chooks man - Mud is from the exact same birds as Antonio and my BCMs. They are FRF, Amanda's birds. A dog broke into the pen and killed all of Amanda's birds a few days ago. The only birds that survived are the two roosters that sired Kfelton2002 and my birds. Amanda has offered me those roosters so I will be able to take my pullets back to their sire. I will have the pure LP rooster and the GFF rooster. I agree with you if I were Kfelton2002 I would keep the two lines separate. Mud looks very much like Antonio to me. There is a great consistency in these lines. Our pullets look alike as well.

 

[kcrandall]

@Chooks man
- Mud is from the exact same birds as Antonio and my BCMs.  They are FRF, Amanda's birds.  A dog broke into the pen and killed all of Amanda's birds a few days ago. The only birds that survived are the two roosters that sired Kfelton2002 and my birds.  Amanda has offered me those roosters so I will be able to take my pullets back to their sire.  I will have the pure LP rooster and the GFF rooster.  I agree with you if I were Kfelton2002 I would keep the two lines separate.  Mud looks very much like Antonio to me.  There is a great consistency in these lines.  Our pullets look alike as well.

@RedBanks,

Sorry to hear about Amanda's troubles. I know you will take good care of her roosters! Having the sires will help you to advance your line much quicker.

Good to see you back on the thread!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Keith

 

[KF0002]

Ah a good question .

always keep the line pure separately even if did had fault . so you can get bird from it to cross to other line tell you are happy about the result .

hatch a minimum of 25 chicks from Copper and his LA pullet to keep the line pure as LA line or Copper line .Do no cross Copper to the other line .

use Mud as your main sire for both line and compare his progeny with LA pullets to Copper progeny with a same pullets .

so if Copper prove to throw pullets with a dark egg than keep him and get his progeny pullets to cross them to Mud line .

Like you said if you use Mud over LA pullets you still working with the LA gene at 50% rate .they are bringing the genetic diversity .

hatch as many chicks from MUD as you can from different pullets and tug them like you said .and see what you get .

I m not giving up on Copper .yet .I m waiting to see more of his photos in better pose .

chooks man

Great advice! I have started a folder on my computer and I save all of your advice in a word document to my computer.

 

[Chooks man]

@Chooks man - Mud is from the exact same birds as Antonio and my BCMs. They are FRF, Amanda's birds. A dog broke into the pen and killed all of Amanda's birds a few days ago. The only birds that survived are the two roosters that sired Kfelton2002 and my birds. Amanda has offered me those roosters so I will be able to take my pullets back to their sire. I will have the pure LP rooster and the GFF rooster. I agree with you if I were Kfelton2002 I would keep the two lines separate. Mud looks very much like Antonio to me. There is a great consistency in these lines. Our pullets look alike as well.

nice to see you are back .

he look like Antonio well bred and stable line .

shame to hear about what happen to Amanda . bloody dogs .they keep killing ours chooks . they are doing more damage than a foxes .

happy for you you are getting the 2 main rooster ( sires from her . nice to keep the line going .it is very had to get to that stage .years and years of dedicated work .

chooks man

 

[KF0002]

@Chooks man - Mud is from the exact same birds as Antonio and my BCMs. They are FRF, Amanda's birds. A dog broke into the pen and killed all of Amanda's birds a few days ago. The only birds that survived are the two roosters that sired Kfelton2002 and my birds. Amanda has offered me those roosters so I will be able to take my pullets back to their sire. I will have the pure LP rooster and the GFF rooster. I agree with you if I were Kfelton2002 I would keep the two lines separate. Mud looks very much like Antonio to me. There is a great consistency in these lines. Our pullets look alike as well.

That is my plan with the two lines, to breed them separate. The LA line still has some kinks to be worked out (making sure the vulture hock gene is eliminated, correcting the over-feathered shanks, etc). I won't infuse any LA into the FRF line, but I may experiment next year by putting Mud over Cooper's daughters and see how the chicks grow out. Cooper hatched from a nice dark egg with good shape so I am expecting good egg color from his daughters. Cooper will only be bred this year to the LA pullets, and then probably won't be used further in an attempt to eliminate the vulture hocks gene. His full brother was the cockerel I culled for vulture hocks back in the summer so it is possible he carries the gene.

I keep meticulous hatch records, so all chicks will be toe punched at hatch for identification. Each breeding will have a different toe punch to tell them apart (ex. double left.. in and in.. out and out.. etc.) and the sire/dame(s) of each breeding recorded, any keepers are then wing banded as they mature and that information recorded as well. I have a touch of OCD when it comes to chickens.

So glad you got the GFF and LP roosters from Amanda. It would be incredible to take a few pullets and breed back to each sire separately and mark the GFF and LP sides different. You are so lucky! What an amazing opportunity. Take lots of pics of them!

 

[Chooks man]

That is my plan with the two lines, to breed them separate. The LA line still has some kinks to be worked out (making sure the vulture hock gene is eliminated, correcting the over-feathered shanks, etc). I won't infuse any LA into the FRF line, but I may experiment next year by putting Mud over Cooper's daughters and see how the chicks grow out. Cooper hatched from a nice dark egg with good shape so I am expecting good egg color from his daughters. Cooper will only be bred this year to the LA pullets, and then probably won't be used further in an attempt to eliminate the vulture hocks gene. His full brother was the cockerel I culled for vulture hocks back in the summer so it is possible he carries the gene.

I keep meticulous hatch records, so all chicks will be toe punched at hatch for identification. Each breeding will have a different toe punch to tell them apart (ex. double left.. in and in.. out and out.. etc.) and the sire/dame(s) of each breeding recorded, any keepers are then wing banded as they mature and that information recorded as well. I have a touch of OCD when it comes to chickens.

So glad you got the GFF and LP roosters from Amanda. It would be incredible to take a few pullets and breed back to each sire separately and mark the GFF and LP sides different. You are so lucky! What an amazing opportunity. Take lots of pics of them!

if you are welling to put that much work and effort why not start your line this year . don t loose time and just keep some body line a live .

if I was you here how I ll do it .

this breeding season .

LA line = mate Copper to his hatch mate pullets = get minimum of 25 /30 chicks . all tugged ;Sire and dame

take a best LA pullet and cross them to MUD GFF and hatch a minimum too ,

GFF line = mate Mud to his hatch mate pullets and hatch a good number 50 will be good .

Next year will have all different progeny ,pure ones and the cross one data to compare .if Mud prove to be the one than mate him to his daughters and keep the other 2 line separate . each time a great chooks will show up from this 2 different line will be introduced to Mud line to strengthen it .

ALWAYS HIGH LIGHT YOUR WORK IN THIS LIFE .

love your work and optimist .

chooks man

 

[KF0002]

if you are welling to put that much work and effort why not start your line this year . don t loose time and just keep some body line a live .

if I was you here how I ll do it .

this breeding season .

LA line = mate Copper to his hatch mate pullets = get minimum of 25 /30 chicks . all tugged ;Sire and dame

take a best LA pullet and cross them to MUD GFF and hatch a minimum too ,

GFF line = mate Mud to his hatch mate pullets and hatch a good number 50 will be good .

Next year will have all different progeny ,pure ones and the cross one data to compare .if Mud prove to be the one than mate him to his daughters and keep the other 2 line separate . each time a great chooks will show up from this 2 different line will be introduced to Mud line to strengthen it .

ALWAYS HIGH LIGHT YOUR WORK IN THIS LIFE .

love your work and optimist .

chooks man

The way I figured it, by the time the LA line will be laying decent sized eggs to be incubated it will be March at the earliest. Then by the time their pullet offspring (LA F1) will be point of lay age it will be late summer/fall at the earliest and those would be small dainty pullet eggs for a while. It might be possible to get a few decent sized eggs from them in the fall. Then they likely will stop laying for winter as Marans in my KY climate are proving to be very poor winter layers and wouldn't pick back up until spring. Darn those stingy chooks! lol

None of my BCM pullets have yet to lay their first egg as it is now winter here and they probably won't til spring without supplemental lighting. If they were a few months older I would put some lights on them. I'm just going to let them have the winter to mature, then start setting their eggs in the spring.

The waiting is maddening.

 

[Braxton Brigade]

These are two chicks of the batch, I am planning to get better photos of my favorites (about 5 chicks) tomorrow...
I believe one is a cockerel in pullets clothing haha. They are about 7 weeks old.

Here is my favorite cockerel, some of the hatch has very poorly feathered shanks.
He happens to be one of the batch that has poor shank feathering. Only a tiny bit of feathers at the very top of his shank.

Body pic of the same cockerel. He has no white wing feather, never did.

Green eyes are a very prevalent within this bunch, I am excited about that.


Here is a chick that I presume is a pullet, it is kinda on that line that makes me not 100% sure of it's sex. I shall presume that it is a pullet.
Her under fluff is much denser than a few of the others, I am not sure if this is because of the temps they are exposed to or just a trait that she has.

Body pic of her, here you can notice that loose under fluff.
All are proving to be very chunky, healthy chicks.


So far I haven't notice any high tails, they are still very young though.

 

[Chooks man]

These are two chicks of the batch, I am planning to get better photos of my favorites (about 5 chicks) tomorrow...
I believe one is a cockerel in pullets clothing haha. They are about 7 weeks old.

Here is my favorite cockerel, some of the hatch has very poorly feathered shanks.
He happens to be one of the batch that has poor shank feathering. Only a tiny bit of feathers at the very top of his shank.

Body pic of the same cockerel. He has no white wing feather, never did.

Green eyes are a very prevalent within this bunch, I am excited about that.


Here is a chick that I presume is a pullet, it is kinda on that line that makes me not 100% sure of it's sex. I shall presume that it is a pullet.
Her under fluff is much denser than a few of the others, I am not sure if this is because of the temps they are exposed to or just a trait that she has.

Body pic of her, here you can notice that loose under fluff.
All are proving to be very chunky, healthy chicks.


So far I haven't notice any high tails, they are still very young though.

they are very nice .well chunky . great type .nice long back and well feathered tail .

I like his comb .plus nice copper coming along his neck .

both have nice eyes .

the pullet/cockerel she is gorgeous .well stretch body .

you should be well happy about them .

chooks man

 

[KF0002]

These are two chicks of the batch, I am planning to get better photos of my favorites (about 5 chicks) tomorrow... I believe one is a cockerel in pullets clothing haha. They are about 7 weeks old. Here is my favorite cockerel, some of the hatch has very poorly feathered shanks. He happens to be one of the batch that has poor shank feathering. Only a tiny bit of feathers at the very top of his shank. Body pic of the same cockerel. He has no white wing feather, never did. Green eyes are a very prevalent within this bunch, I am excited about that. Here is a chick that I presume is a pullet, it is kinda on that line that makes me not 100% sure of it's sex. I shall presume that it is a pullet. Her under fluff is much denser than a few of the others, I am not sure if this is because of the temps they are exposed to or just a trait that she has. Body pic of her, here you can notice that loose under fluff. All are proving to be very chunky, healthy chicks. So far I haven't notice any high tails, they are still very young though.

They are looking great! The second chick is definitely a pullet. Looking forward to seeing pics as they grow out.