International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[KF0002]

I wanted to update everyone on Mud. He is still alive and doing some better. Still thin and rough looking. He has been wormed again and has been getting antibiotic injections. His appetite is good and hearty as ever. We have been allowing him access to fresh grass. His loose green droppings have resolved and are normal. However, it looks like he will lose his entire comb from frostbite where it was bloody and it dropped down well below freezing the night he must have been injured. So I'm thinking whatever injured him had to do it after feeding time in the evening or during the night, and the temp dropped down that night freezing the blood on his comb and causing the frost bite. Until this point, his comb has been free of frostbite all winter. Once I am more comfortable with his condition and think he can handle it, his comb will be dubbed.

I managed to hatch one pure FRF chick from Mud and my FRF pullet. She is small but lovely! I will take pics as soon as I can. And I have one more FRF egg that will go into lockdown tomorrow.

I have many LA chicks to cull through, and quite a few blue coppers from Mud. Other than a few more Marans eggs in the incubator, my breeding program hangs in the balance pending Mud's recovery. All of the Marans girls are enjoying their rooster free time though.

Hope all is well with everyone!

 

[marchick]

I wanted to update everyone on Mud. He is still alive and doing some better. Still thin and rough looking. He has been wormed again and has been getting antibiotic injections. His appetite is good and hearty as ever. We have been allowing him access to fresh grass. His loose green droppings have resolved and are normal. However, it looks like he will lose his entire comb from frostbite where it was bloody and it dropped down well below freezing the night he must have been injured. So I'm thinking whatever injured him had to do it after feeding time in the evening or during the night, and the temp dropped down that night freezing the blood on his comb and causing the frost bite. Until this point, his comb has been free of frostbite all winter. Once I am more comfortable with his condition and think he can handle it, his comb will be dubbed.

I managed to hatch one pure FRF chick from Mud and my FRF pullet. She is small but lovely! I will take pics as soon as I can. And I have one more FRF egg that will go into lockdown tomorrow.

I have many LA chicks to cull through, and quite a few blue coppers from Mud. Other than a few more Marans eggs in the incubator, my breeding program hangs in the balance pending Mud's recovery. All of the Marans girls are enjoying their rooster free time though.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Thank you for the update! I am so glad he is doing better. I hope he makes a full recovery.

 

[Chooks man]

I wanted to update everyone on Mud. He is still alive and doing some better. Still thin and rough looking. He has been wormed again and has been getting antibiotic injections. His appetite is good and hearty as ever. We have been allowing him access to fresh grass. His loose green droppings have resolved and are normal. However, it looks like he will lose his entire comb from frostbite where it was bloody and it dropped down well below freezing the night he must have been injured. So I'm thinking whatever injured him had to do it after feeding time in the evening or during the night, and the temp dropped down that night freezing the blood on his comb and causing the frost bite. Until this point, his comb has been free of frostbite all winter. Once I am more comfortable with his condition and think he can handle it, his comb will be dubbed.

I managed to hatch one pure FRF chick from Mud and my FRF pullet. She is small but lovely! I will take pics as soon as I can. And I have one more FRF egg that will go into lockdown tomorrow.

I have many LA chicks to cull through, and quite a few blue coppers from Mud. Other than a few more Marans eggs in the incubator, my breeding program hangs in the balance pending Mud's recovery. All of the Marans girls are enjoying their rooster free time though.

Hope all is well with everyone!

nice to hear that .
take it easy with him for a wile .

pleased you got a chicks from FRF line .

you keep saying you have too many cull BCM chicks at that early stage .don t be to hard you ll left with no chooks to work with .
don t forget you just start breed them .you have to increase your working subject so you ll have a lot to chose from in the future .

don t cull to early .there is other traits will show up later . like maturity . health vigor . resistance to sickness, dark eggs laying etc.......... all this trait has to be observed in the chicks life

especially the pullets side .
me personally I prefer to wait tell they are adult .
cockerels get selected at 5 month old ,than at 1 year old .
the pullets are selected after they start laying . for me the egg color is on the top list of breeding trait ..

take it easy .especially with Mud in not at his best .

chooks man

 

[KF0002]

nice to hear that .
take it easy with him for a wile .

pleased you got a chicks from FRF line .

you keep saying you have too many cull BCM chicks at that early stage .don t be to hard you ll left with no chooks to work with .
don t forget you just start  breed them .you have to increase your working subject so you ll have a lot to chose from in the future .

don t cull to early .there is other traits will show up later . like maturity . health vigor . resistance to sickness, dark eggs laying etc.......... all this trait has to be observed in the chicks life

especially the pullets side .
me personally I prefer to wait tell they are adult .
cockerels get selected at 5 month old ,than at 1 year old .
the pullets are selected after they start laying . for me the egg color is on the top list of breeding trait ..

take it easy .especially with Mud in not at his best .

chooks man

Oh Im going to grow most of them them out before I cull through them. I only cull chicks for deformities or other problems. Im going to be growing out a lot. Any that crop up with vulture hock are culled as chicks also. Im going to go ahead and cull chicks with very heavy middle toe feathering and only keep those with minimal middle toe feathering to grow out. I will still have a lot to choose from.

 

[Chooks man]

Oh Im going to grow most of them them out before I cull through them. I only cull chicks for deformities or other problems. Im going to be growing out a lot. Any that crop up with vulture hock are culled as chicks also. Im going to go ahead and cull chicks with very heavy middle toe feathering and only keep those with minimal middle toe feathering to grow out. I will still have a lot to choose from.

Ah that is great .I thought you are going for them and you will left with a few .

nice to know you ll have enough to chose from when adult .

All the best

chooks man

 

[KF0002]

I just wanted to share results from my last few Marans hatches. I have had around 90% hatch rates on every hatch once fertility improved in my younger cockerels. My last hatch from yesterday I got a 100% hatch rate! I attribute that to good line breeding practices in part of the breeder of my LA birds and hybrid vigor with the blue copper chicks, considering the parents were unrelated and different lines (black copper X splash coppers).

My main incubator is kept at a rock steady humidity of 42% for the first 18 days, then they are moved to the hatcher the last 3 days. Humidity during lockdown is kept at 65-70% but once chicks start hatching it goes on up to 72-74%.

Just wanted to share what has been working for me.

 

[pioneerchick816]

@kfelton0002
Could you show & tell the difference between your incubators & your hatchers? I know everyone on here hatches A LOT of chicks at one time, but I was just wondering about the difference

 

[Chooks man]

I just wanted to share results from my last few Marans hatches. I have had around 90% hatch rates on every hatch once fertility improved in my younger cockerels. My last hatch from yesterday I got a 100% hatch rate! I attribute that to good line breeding practices in part of the breeder of my LA birds and hybrid vigor with the blue copper chicks, considering the parents were unrelated and different lines (black copper X splash coppers).

My main incubator is kept at a rock steady humidity of 42% for the first 18 days, then they are moved to the hatcher the last 3 days. Humidity during lockdown is kept at 65-70% but once chicks start hatching it goes on up to 72-74%.

Just wanted to share what has been working for me.

i m impressed with a result you are getting .

I only got a 100% hatch rate from Charlie2 and Zanbezi. the rest of the roosters they fertility varies a lot

your good result are as well the result of your chooks feed and care you are giving them .

chooks man

 

[Bantambird]

Mine are second hand, with temperature modulators installed. The acrylic door unit is set up as a hatcher so I can increase humidity for hatching. Here in Montana where I'm at I get best results at 25% humidity for incubating, but I need to bring that up quite a bit for hatching, and I like to watch.

 

[Chooks man]

Mine are second hand, with temperature modulators installed. The acrylic door unit is set up as a hatcher so I can increase humidity for hatching. Here in Montana where I'm at I get best results at 25% humidity for incubating, but I need to bring that up quite a bit for hatching, and I like to watch.

how many eggs you incubate at any given time ?
are you using one shelf a week or you fill up all the bator at ones ?

Chooks man