I am new to french silver cuckoos, and marans in general. The lady I bought my eggs from sent me 13 eggs, all but 2 had very nice dark color. The two lighter eggs were a creamy brown with dark freckles, and I almost didn't set them but wanted to get as many chicks as I could get. Long story short, after culling a few early quitters (one of which was one of the lighter eggs) I had 10 that looked good. Then there was a power outage the day before lockdown and I only ended up with 6. Out of the 6, one little black pullet came clean legged. Out of the others that were feather legged there are 2 nicely feather legged roos, 1 sparsely feather legged roo, and 2 sparsely feather legged pullets. In the pictures of the parent stock, the roos have good feathering on their legs and the hens' legs are sparsely feathered. So that needs to be improved in this line for sure. I also want to breed for the darkest egg color I can achieve. That is my goal with my black coppers as well.
My question is this: Should I cull the clean legged pullet from my planned breeding pen? I want to keep the two roos with good feathering on their legs (one in the main pen, and one for a backup), and definitely the two feather legged pullets. I will cull the roo with sparse feathers on his legs. Or would you go ahead and breed off the clean legged pullet just this one year and then cull her once I get a few more feather legged pullets from the bunch?
We are pretty strict when it comes to what goes in our breeding pens for other breeds, so that part of me wants to cull the clean legged pullet. I just want to get the two cents of some experienced Marans breeders. If I had 40 pullets to choose from instead of 3, it would be no question as to whether or not I should cull. But where I am limited to these 3 pullets I am temped to just go with it.
I would love to hear any thoughts. Thanks!
