International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[Red Banks]

Quote:
Laughing..... I don't blame them (dogs). I need to get better about all this and I will. I recently found out about a man that does the same thing, processes them for a percentage of the meat. I need a much bigger freezer for a thousand chooks.

 

[Chooks man]

I will take good care of him, Bello and Claude. How to you keep your roosters? Are they in a batchelor pen? When I put my three together Bello has them cowering on the ground in a heap. Right now while everyone is in lock down each rooster is in a coop with about 10-12 hens. I let them out every night for an hour, I clean the water buckets and reset them for the morning, remove all the food and clean the coop a little. So they get to be out for a little while and I am with them the whole time. I started in the Spring with 100 chickens. I am down to 45 soon to be 41 when the Ameraucana cockerels go this weekend. I sold the Bielefelders. I culled many many BCM, Cuckoo, Ameraucana, Bielefelder cockerels very early. I lost some to predators.

Yeah I have a few batchelor pens 10 roosters /cockerels in each group . I ll give them a lot of space and perches so they can get away if they need.

I do not put the top dogs ( lead rooster ) together . each leader or Boss have his young crew to hang out with.

my 3 leader roosters are. Rocky BC - Chinatown GC - Vicking Br. this 3 they never meet but they know each other from crowing . Chinatown is the Big Boss .a true champion.

here what I look for in the leader rooster . good fighter. nice to his ladies. gentle with a young cockerel. insert dominance if fight broke up in the betchlor pen.

The cockerels pens are my favorite I spend a lot time with them , first pen to visit in the morning. they chat to each other and posing . pushing . they all trying to establish they space .funny to watch .

chooks man

 

[Chooks man]

Laughing..... I don't blame them (dogs). I need to get better about all this and I will. I recently found out about a man that does the same thing, processes them for a percentage of the meat. I need a much bigger freezer for a thousand chooks.

I don t keep all the 1000 for my self I ll sale them to the Chinese Restaurent ..They love them.

my butcher he want to take them all and sale them to his client . I don t have enough.

I ll try to do 3000 this year to supply all my orders. . plus a backyard layer orders , plus the the breeder chook orders , a lot to hatch this years.

Marans are a good chooks to work with

chooks man

 

[Red Banks]

I have a Cuckoo Marans that just started laying. Every egg is a huge double yolker! Today I was amazed at the size of the egg. I always put eggs in my pocket when I am out in the yard. Never had one break before. Todays was just too big. I wanted to send a picture but this is one from two days ago.

The egg next to it is a egg from an older BCM (not a pullet) so you can see just how big that egg is. This is the only kind of egg she has laid. Big and double yolks.

 

[Red Banks]

I have been trying to find my way around the French Marans Aspirans forum. I have to copy and paste into a translator everything that google doesn't translate. The other day I was reading one of the posts and I said "Mon Dieu" out loud to myself instead of OMG. It is funny...... I am starting to think in French. I was terrible at High School French. I only remember where is the library and chocolate ice cream. Very important things to know if you are ever in France. Zut alors...... I will be fluent in French before long!

 

[chickengr]

I have just got back from athens. the 8 eggs are resting and tomorrow will be put under a broody. I hope they will hatch (1 silver cuckoo, 3-4 good ones bcm and the rest we shall see what happens.

each egg was perfectly wrapped, poor monique must have spent hours to do that. but the biggest problem is that 24 eggs arrived whole but gone bad. I still don't believe it.

 

[KF0002]

nice eggs Kfelton!

Thanks Redbanks! And thank u Chooksman for posting my eggs here. These are the eggs from my oldest group that I got from a breeder in Louisiana. The breeder is a very nice man and breeds his birds to SOP while maintaining good egg color. He sent me the eggs free of charge to help me get some good starter stock. I was humbled by his kindness. He otained his main parent stock from Bev Davis herself. I have actually talked to Bev on facebook and she is brilliant and she is one of the best Marans breeders in the United States. He also purchased some stock from Debbie Little of Little Peddlers Marans and infused them into his Bev Davis stock. He regrets infusing the LP due to the occasional cropping up of vulture hock in a small percentage of his offspring now where he never encountered it before. One of my cockerels has mild vulture hock. He is tagged to cull. Anyhoo.. long story short he sent me eggs from two different pens so I could line breed the two. Strangely all of my pullets hatched from one set and the cockerels all hatched from the other set so it worked out okay. Here is a pic the breeder sent me of the parent stock of my cockerels.

It was never my intention to obtain BCM Marans from two sources. He offered to start collecting eggs to send to me after I had already arranged to purchase hatching eggs from Feels Right Farm (GFF/LP bloodlines).

Now I am trying to decide how to breed my two groups from two different sources. Do I breed them into each other (best cockerel from one group with pullets of the other group and vice versa) or would it be best to breed the two groups separately and not mix the two? I hope that isnt horribly confusing.

 

[Red Banks]

I have just got back from athens. the 8 eggs are resting and tomorrow will be put under a broody. I hope they will hatch (1 silver cuckoo, 3-4 good ones bcm and the rest we shall see what happens.

each egg was perfectly wrapped, poor monique must have spent hours to do that. but the biggest problem is that 24 eggs arrived whole but gone bad. I still don't believe it.

I am so sorry..... I know you are disappointed. Good luck with the hatch,

 

[KF0002]

My cull cockerel with vulture hock. It is mild but it is definitely vulture hock. His thigh feathers are stiffer than normal fluffy thigh feathers and they point backwards. Im growing him out for the crock pot.

 

[KF0002]

Cropped closer up pic of my roo with vulture hock.