Let's talk Golden Cuckoo Marans!

[freddyyoung]

I have a gcm marans rooster, and I have wheaten marans and copper marans, what would you suggest to breed him with, as I'm not quite sure?

 

[chickee]

I have a gcm marans rooster, and I have wheaten marans and copper marans, what would you suggest to breed him with, as I'm not quite sure?

I don't know, but it would be a good experiment to see what each cross produced. The BCMs typically have better egg color, so I think that is why they are usually used to improve the GCMs.

 

[seventreesfarm]

I am surprised you got as nice of color on them with the F1 breeding of the BCM x GCM. My main rooster is 3rd generation removed from my friend using a BCM rooster over her GCM hens and he is throwing babies with good GC color.

I would like to see a heavier bodied rooster (and hens) with a lower tail set.

Keep up the good work.

I just culled a bunch of pullets and hens with funky tails (and other issues) and hope to have some nice pens set up for spring. My younger BCM pullets have nice tails, so I plan to cross a batch of them too.

I'll do a few more rounds of culling as the batch in the pics matures, but I think I will be better rewarded by a new cross with better tailed pullets. The olive egger roo has really pretty yellow legs and beak. Not proper for a marans, but I might breed that into my olivers. I'm also culling for size/conformation too. I got some nice oliver crosses from my marans x ameraucana hatches, but I want to keep the egg color while getting closer to a marans body style. And ameraucanas have tails I don't like.

It's really fun to see other people GCM's so I know what to aim for

 

[seventreesfarm]

I have a gcm marans rooster, and I have wheaten marans and copper marans, what would you suggest to breed him with, as I'm not quite sure?

I built an incubator out of a wine cooler, not so i could fill it full of eggs, but so i had lots of room for hatch baskets. That way I can try all kinds of crosses at one time. But banding the little peepers is fiddly. We use small zip ties and replace them fairly often until their growth slows down. I got 1000 on ebay for like $25, 100 ea of 10 diff colors.

 

[buckabucka]

We had our cockerels processed this morning. 6 golden cuckoos, 1 mixed breed, 1 Ameraucana, 4 Basque. All were 22 weeks old except for an adult Basque that was a year and a half old.

All weighed about 4 pounds.
7 were 4# or over (heaviest was 4.3)
3 were between 3.5 and 4#
2 were between 3 and 3.5 (I'm pretty sure those were the Ameraucana and the Ameraucana mix)

Those are pretty typical weights for us, so we were pleased with the results. If I were to guess their weights just based on their appearance, I'd say the 7 heaviest were the adult Basque and the 6 cuckoos.

I put our keeper golden cuckoo in a cage and set him in the coop with the girls. I'll give them 24 hours to get to know him and then set him free. I'm hoping he will be good with the hens. So far, he hasn't shown any aggression towards humans. He'll be on trial for a bit.

 

[buckabucka]

"Woody's" debut:

He's been living in a cage for a month, so I think he is a little baffled to suddenly be in charge of a flock, but he appears to be enjoying himself.

There is no blade on his comb, because the other cockerels bit it off, and those nice points will be gone too, after a winter here. Also,there are too many feathers on his toes (his middle toe is also feathered), but as long as he maintains a good disposition, I'll be keeping him around for a while.

 

[Paula Ashley]

I think he is a beauty!

 

[buckabucka]

Thanks!

 

[chickee]

We had our cockerels processed this morning. 6 golden cuckoos, 1 mixed breed, 1 Ameraucana, 4 Basque. All were 22 weeks old except for an adult Basque that was a year and a half old.

All weighed about 4 pounds.
7 were 4# or over (heaviest was 4.3)
3 were between 3.5 and 4#
2 were between 3 and 3.5 (I'm pretty sure those were the Ameraucana and the Ameraucana mix)

Those are pretty typical weights for us, so we were pleased with the results. If I were to guess their weights just based on their appearance, I'd say the 7 heaviest were the adult Basque and the 6 cuckoos.

I put our keeper golden cuckoo in a cage and set him in the coop with the girls. I'll give them 24 hours to get to know him and then set him free. I'm hoping he will be good with the hens. So far, he hasn't shown any aggression towards humans. He'll be on trial for a bit.

Thanks for posting your processing results! Gives me some hope of processing some of mine next year.

"Woody's" debut:

He's been living in a cage for a month, so I think he is a little baffled to suddenly be in charge of a flock, but he appears to be enjoying himself.

There is no blade on his comb, because the other cockerels bit it off, and those nice points will be gone too, after a winter here. Also,there are too many feathers on his toes (his middle toe is also feathered), but as long as he maintains a good disposition, I'll be keeping him around for a while.

I really like him! Such crisp cuckoo markings!

 

[freddyyoung]

If I crossed my gcm rooster with some wheaten hens, would the barring be lost in the offspring and if so how would I get it back?