Let's talk Cuckoo and WHITE marans... breeding strategies...

[TNBEARCHICK]

THANKS PALLET QUEEN.

anyone else got pointers.

 

[pickledchicken]

Hello everyone I wanted to post some pics of my cuckoos and see what you think. I feel like they would make a good start if I could get the feathered shanks going. The roo is the best I had and culled the others. I like the size and type so far please feel free to comment I would appreciate the help. I think if I could find a good roo with heavily feathered shanks I might have something.

 

[Raven1]

Very nice. You do need a very heavily feathered roo to get the babes w/feathered shanks. Nice start, the hen by herself is a real chunky monkey!

 

[pickledchicken]

Very nice. You do need a very heavily feathered roo to get the babes w/feathered shanks. Nice start, the hen by herself is a real chunky monkey!

I think she is the one that laid the goose egg.

 

[BevDavis]

Hi TNBEARCHICK


I think the roosters are only carrying one set of genes for barring. The way to tell if the bird is carrying one set is that the barring is very close together. If a rooster is carrying two sets of barring genes the bars are wider apart which gives the effect of a lighter colored bird. I would select the male without any color in his hackles and breed him to a cuckoo female and you will get some roosters that have the required two sets of barring genes.

Bev

 

[BevDavis]

Hi Pickledchicken

Now this is the colored flock that I am used to, the female is very nice although her tail is a little high but that might be because she is having her picture taken. I see they have clean legs and that is something that would need to be addressed if breeding for the SOP. A very nice flock none the less.

Bev

 

[pickledchicken]

Thanks Bev I'm guessing the light straw coloring in the roo is ok then he does seem to have less of it than most I see. I would love to get the feathers going on the shanks. I had pondered the idea of bringing in a Birchen roo to feather the shanks up and try to gain the silver hackles on my hens not to mention darken the eggs up a bit. Would this be a bad idea ? any advice Thank You

 

[mrheinz77]

Its probably been posted before but could somebody point me in the direction of the proposed standard?
Thanks,
Jim

 

[BevDavis]

Hi

I would try to get a cuckoo with feathered legs. If you use a birchen the hackles might get too light in not just the hens but the males as well. This is not what we want at this time. In time to come, there could be a golden cuckoo, a silver cuckoo and a cuckoo but no one has bred for those yet. I appreciate that some people are calling cuckoo carrying wheaten golden cuckoo but the color is not correct, the cuckoo would need to be bred to a black copper to get the correct coloring and the males would need to have two sets of barring genes.

I would try to get a male and female to get quick results with the leg feathering as there are at least three genes involved, two dominant and one recessive.

Bev

 

[pickledchicken]

Hi again Bev thank you for the help. Would these work as Golden Cuckoo's