International Black Copper Marans Thread - Breeding to the SOP

[wrathsfarm]

When you forgot to drain the pool before the big freeze...View attachment 3732796

If anyone asks, this is a new hybrid white Marans I've been developing. Paddle feet and love water...

 

[wrathsfarm]

betty and the boys are good match. penny and the boys would produce overcoloured chicks.

IIRC... @Chooks man told me to mate my Betty (same, no copper) to Kong to give progeny pullets color. So my understanding this would be true for @Tstraub

 

[wrathsfarm]

are you kidding? he looks great. can you post more pics of him?

Agree... Need more pics of him, please.

 

[Tstraub]

In my

In my honest opinion, you have most of the ingredients for good marans, but you’re going to have to breed them carefully to combine them correctly.

Betty: best body type of all four, good for a Black marans, not BCM. Decent body, good string neck. Face good, comb maybe a bit scruffy but it’s harder to tell in hens. Issues are colour (if you want BCMs) and the leg colour, they should be pink/white with grey shading, but hers are all slate. The tail angle looks okay in the picture (more will make it better to decide) but the tail is too long, this seems to be a problem with all of them, but hers is the least extreme.

Penny: bad head in my opinion, too curved like a huckbill duck’s. Pretty perfect amount of copper, but it could do with being a bit more of a deep orange, she looks a bit too pale. Same issue with legs, body too short and skinny. And the tail will cause some problems. It’s too long, but the biggest issue is how high it is, her sons will have bad squirrel tails (like my Roo does).
Sorry to be so negative about her: she looks lovely, just not a perfect marans.

Axl: (love the name) his pattern (by that I mean the ratio of copper to black) is pretty perfect, better than the other. His colour is also better, but still not 10/10. Some autosomal red genes would help to strengthen the quality of the copper. Body looks well fleshed but is still too short (I’ve found that my boy looks longer now he’s older). His face is relatively nice, shame about the frostbite. Correct number of serrations on comb (5-7), nice round wattles. None of the facial features are too big either, they seem just right. I can’t see the leg colour properly but it looks to have pink on the bottom, better than the hens. Again the tail has some issues: not squirrel but a little high. The problem with his is the length, too long, this might change when he finishes growing out his feathers but I don’t think it will be perfect still.

Sammy: 100% agree with your comments, too pale, not enough copper, body poor. Legs are pink/white I think, this might be a helpful trait. (Unless his legs are yellow, I can’t tell, if so this is wrong). Tail smaller and waiting to fill out, but squirrel. Comb tidy but too many serrations at the back. I think he is developing slower than Axl, I’ve seen this happen a lot when I grow pairs of cockerels together, the dominant one develops quicker (mostly in colour and face more than size).

Sorry, I feel like I’ve been really mean to them. BCMs look beautiful even when they don’t conform to the SOP. If you want to figure out a breeding strategy, feel free to ask. It may take some hard work, as is always the case with breeding strictly to the SOP of any animal, but you can certainly work with what you’ve got, or introduce new blood, depending on what’s right for you.

Thank you for all of your comments. I don’t feel that you have been mean at all. I got them all as eggs from a local guy that was breeding strictly for egg color. I have no plans to make show birds out of them I’m just having fun and trying to learn a few things. I live close enough to @wrathsfarm that we have plans in doing an egg swap once we both get our incubators dialed in. I think he wants some olive egger stock and I need some more marans in my mix

I find it really interesting that you assumed Sammy to be the non dominant male of the group just by looking at a picture of him. I have a total of 3 boys living happily together in the same coop. Sammy is absolutely the low man on the totem pole. He knows his place and doesn’t try to challenge either of the others. My barn yard mix(Oster) is the oldest and dominant over the flock. Every morning Oster crows first with his cock a doodle doo. Then Axl follows but it’s more like cock a doo. He misses 2 syllables. I have never heard Sammy even try to crow.

 

[wrathsfarm]

I've been meaning to post an update on Raven but weather. So here's a couple I got just now. She's doing great all things considering how it could've turn out. Tips of her comb are a touch white but I think she's gonna recover from that just fine. She's filled back out perfectly but I haven't caught her laying yet so we'll wait on her for eggs when she's ready.
Very happy to see her thriving from her ordeal.

 

[Tstraub]

I've been meaning to post an update on Raven but weather. So here's a couple I got just now. She's doing great all things considering how it could've turn out. Tips of her comb are a touch white but I think she's gonna recover from that just fine. She's filled back out perfectly but I haven't caught her laying yet so we'll wait on her for eggs when she's ready.
Very happy to see her thriving from her ordeal.
View attachment 3732879View attachment 3732880​

I’m glad to hear that she is doing so well.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

Thank you for all of your comments. I don’t feel that you have been mean at all. I got them all as eggs from a local guy that was breeding strictly for egg color. I have no plans to make show birds out of them I’m just having fun and trying to learn a few things. I live close enough to @wrathsfarm that we have plans in doing an egg swap once we both get our incubators dialed in. I think he wants some olive egger stock and I need some more marans in my mix

I find it really interesting that you assumed Sammy to be the non dominant male of the group just by looking at a picture of him. I have a total of 3 boys living happily together in the same coop. Sammy is absolutely the low man on the totem pole. He knows his place and doesn’t try to challenge either of the others. My barn yard mix(Oster) is the oldest and dominant over the flock. Every morning Oster crows first with his cock a doodle doo. Then Axl follows but it’s more like cock a doo. He misses 2 syllables. I have never heard Sammy even try to crow.

Yes, I’ve had I’d say four pairs of cockerels grown like this. First was Blue and Barry, (Blue is a Brahma, Barry was a Brahma cross) Blue was a few weeks older and was always the dominant one. There about another two months where Blue was his adult massive size while Barry remained tall but lean until finally becoming
mature.

The second was a bit different, 4 Wellie cockerels, but I culled 2 at about 5 months, the two culls were less developed and the two I kept were more developed. As they kept growing, the two of them (‘02’ and Captain Jack) would often switch from dominant to subordinate depending on moulting, Jack’s brain condition (he falls around a lot) and illness. When they were in my biggest pen, both crowed, but when they were moved to my Wellie pen, only the dominant at the time crowed.

The third was Loki and Freddy. Loki (my first male BCM) was always the dominant despite their similar size. Freddy’s (he is Barry’s ‘Nephew’, half SDW, quarter Brahma, one eight RIR and one eighth white PR) comb was always slightly smaller but they were never physically much different in size. Now, Freddy is slightly heavier than Loki, but as he grew slower he was subordinate for all their growing, and he is still flighty when Loki tells him off.

My most recent are my two marans cockerels, the first had a redder comb and brighter copper when young, maybe showing his genetics, but quite quickly the other overtook him and now has much more copper and a bigger comb. They’re still quite young so I’ll see how this progresses.

 

[MamaPoult]

are you kidding? he looks great. can you post more pics of him?

Awww thank you

 

[MamaPoult]

 

[chickengr]

Awww thank youView attachment 3733103

I hope @Chooks man will return here and tell you more. this guy is keeper for sure.