International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[shepherd6567]

The SOP is a guide, a perfect bird is not attainable. I am not saying you don't try, that is the whole point. With dogs, only one pup in a litter might be a show dog, only one pup might be champion. It doesn't matter that the sire and dam are champions. The same in chickens, there are no guarantees that a particular line will give you great birds, you have to do the work and you still are not going to have perfect birds. My birds meet the SOP. They are not perfect, if you take your bird from top to bottom and evaluate it against the SOP you should hit the requirements. The reality is that all birds have faults, some are worse than others. We work to eliminate faults thru selective breeding and probably a lot harder culling than I am doing.... I am not showing. Show breeders breed hundreds to get a good one. Chooks man type breeders breed to improve their line. I have seen Chooks man take a horrible looking rooster and end up with a beautiful line of birds from that rooster that I would have never kept. In time he can fix anything. He doesn't throw them away. I like my birds because they do not have USA lines. I know that the numbers in USA were very limited in the beginning and I know they had a hard time. Tom.... your birds meet the standard.

Terrific post! Bravo

 

[Red Banks]

If you have chickens on your picnic table, you might be a redneck!

View attachment 1385348

Or in your kitchen! I have both!

 

[Red Banks]

Here is my pullet from @RedBanks. She is a lovely girl, all class as Chooks man says. I think I will call her Patty.

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How is Patty doing? She looks very good in these pics.

 

[marchick]

Are they yellow or white?

They have a yellow hue.

 

[marchick]

Or in your kitchen! I have both!

I almost posted the exact same thing. Lol

 

[KF0002]

How is Patty doing? She looks very good in these pics.

She is doing really good. I have her penned by herself so she doesn't get roughed up by the cockerels. Her comb is getting red so I'm hoping to see an egg from her any day now. I will try to get some updated pictures of her on my next day off from work.

 

[KF0002]

Or in your kitchen! I have both!

Yes me too! lol

That cockerel on the picnic table is my best grow out free ranging right now. His dam is Lucille, my blue copper hen and his sire is Maximus, from my black copper line C. He is a huge pet and stays under my feet to be petted and picked up. My biggest beef with him is that his eyes are yellow, but I still think he has a lot of potential as a breeder because of his nice long back if his tail stays nice and doesn't get too high.

 

[KF0002]

The SOP is a guide, a perfect bird is not attainable. I am not saying you don't try, that is the whole point. With dogs, only one pup in a litter might be a show dog, only one pup might be champion. It doesn't matter that the sire and dam are champions. The same in chickens, there are no guarantees that a particular line will give you great birds, you have to do the work and you still are not going to have perfect birds. My birds meet the SOP. They are not perfect, if you take your bird from top to bottom and evaluate it against the SOP you should hit the requirements. The reality is that all birds have faults, some are worse than others. We work to eliminate faults thru selective breeding and probably a lot harder culling than I am doing.... I am not showing. Show breeders breed hundreds to get a good one. Chooks man type breeders breed to improve their line. I have seen Chooks man take a horrible looking rooster and end up with a beautiful line of birds from that rooster that I would have never kept. In time he can fix anything. He doesn't throw them away. I like my birds because they do not have USA lines. I know that the numbers in USA were very limited in the beginning and I know they had a hard time. Tom.... your birds meet the standard.

This is very true. We could try for 40 years and never breed a "perfect" bird. Perfect meaning not one fault and meets the standard completely to the letter. Like Redbanks said, the SOP are guidelines for us to breed by so that the breed if uniform.

I have talked to 2 show breeders about marchick's yellow shanked birds and both breeders said that the line can still be worked with. One breeder said that the yellow can skip a generation only to show up the next. If you do rehome or sell any birds/chicks @marchick you can disclose that the yellow is something you are working on so that the person receiving the bird is aware. Like Redbanks said in her post, Chooks man takes some really rough looking birds and creates beautiful lines with them. Faults can be bred out, and lines can be improved through very selective and careful breeding.

 

[KF0002]

I realized yesterday that a couple of my SDW OEGB chicks have light yellow shanks. Considering that the birds did not come from "show" lines that doesn't surprise me. I got the eggs they hatched from for free from my sister's neighbor so I wasn't expecting "perfection." I love my little bantams, they are extremely sweet and I plan on working with them for fun to see how they turn out. Who knows, they may turn out to be very nice looking birds as they mature. I will most definitely enter them in shows if I can, and will select the nicest ones to breed further to improve the line. We can work on eliminating the yellow legs together @marchick just with two different breeds.

 

[marchick]

I think I am going to start by rehoming Thor. I know he is carrying the yellow gene. Shame he is my best rooster. I think the two hens with him can go also. They are not my best hens. I just thought they would be good to breed to Thor. I am wondering about the babies also.Then I can breed my other Blue Copper rooster to a couple different blue Copper hens. See if they also produce yellow. This could be a plague through all my Marans. It just bothers me! If I mess up the future Marrans world. I would have to rehome or butcher. They would all have to go to people that had no intentions of breeding from them and just wanted egg layers. I just don't know what is best to do! I want to improve the breed not hurt it.