looking for others who raise Golden Cuckoo Marans

[snowbird]

I would like to ask you a question and I have a comment. Do you plan on trying to breed feather leg or clean leg.

Does the 1/2 Black Copper have any white in wing or tail and does he have feather legs ? If he has white in tail or wing I would not use him at all. If he is good color wise this would be a good mating. If the color is not good find a Black Copper that does not have white in the tail or wing and use him.

 

[chasehope]

he does not have feathered legs, but his mom did...I asked the seller if he has whiet feathers, but have not gotten a response. I am planning to put a couple of the hens with him, and see what happens. It may work, it may not. I figure that it might cut out the initial use of a black copper. I still have to work on the feathered legs....

 

[zchickens]

I have a small flock of golden cuckoos that I hatched eggs for this spring. Two of the marans (one roo, one hen) came from eggs I got from Julie Gabbard. The other birds (one roo, seven hens) came from pasinofarms (Melissa)

Here are some pics of the oldest roo (approx 23 weeks old - from the Gabbard eggs) - has a decent comb, good amount of gold on the back of his neck, not so much in front as of yet..but he is still young.

Younger roo (19 wks old - not sure why the comb has not developed much at this point ...a late bloomer or could it be a permanent fault.... he has a lot of gold color to him though....

A few of the hens (they are mixed in with a couple of my wheatens). Sorry, I am not very good a getting them to be still enough for decent pics

The hens haven't started laying yet, but I expect that they will within the next month or so.

Michael

 

[SunnyDawn]

Quote:
Bev, great to see you on BYC! I am forever on your site drooling over your beautiful birds! I am at capacity now (live on a small city lot) but definitely want some of your gorgeous Marans in the future!!!

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Are you sure? It appears to me that the bird is just a young cockerel and once he feathers out will have the right top color.

I once had Cuckoo Marans about 6 years ago and was a member of the first US Maran's club ( I forget it's name right now). I hatched and raised a bunch of birds with selection in mind of the French Standard. From those birds a few Crele Maran popped up and I toyed with the idea of working on them but I got over it.

I am not a genetic expert but I have been developing a line of Large Crele Old English for exhibition for about 5 years. One of the things I see in the pictures of the Crele Marans in this thread is that they have almost sold white tails and a smattering of black feathers in the body. This is a Major defect and very hard to breed out. You better count on raising about 100 of them to maturity and then culling back to the best 3 or 4. You may have to do this for 3 or 4 years before you get it out.

Bob

Hi Bob

We are discussing the Australian Marans Clubs website.

Look at the hackle feathers the females have. A cuckoo female should have the same colored feathering all over her, these females have lighter colored hackles.

The first two Marans clubs were called North American Marans Club and North American Marans Breeders, I too was a member and the fifteenth member to join.

The white feathers in the tail is something that does have to be bred out, it is in both the cuckoo and black coppers lines.

Bev

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Hi

It is only the roosters that have the white feathers in their tails, I have never seen it with any females. Sometimes there is an odd feather that has a bit more black on it than all the other feathers. It's just something that happens.

Your birds are nice birds and have a lot of good qualities, carry on breeding them and select for roosters with no white in the tail. The best thing is to get to know your birds and the genes they are carrying. If you get different birds from someone else there might be faults with the birds that you don't like as well.

Bev

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Bev, great to see you on BYC! I am forever on your site drooling over your beautiful birds! I am at capacity now (live on a small city lot) but definitely want some of your gorgeous Marans in the future!!!

Hi

Thank you for the welcome.

I started keeping Marans when I lived in a city but even so, I got so much pleasure from them.

My golden salmon/gold duckwing started laying yesterday and the egg was a beautiful dark color, almost as dark as the black coppers. I have been working on this line for some years for egg color only although I have been keeping an eye on size as well. I try to select for just one thing at a time and egg color comes first. Now I have to wait for the male to mature to start my golden cuckoo line. The male has very sparse leg feathering and doesn't have any white in his tail. I can already tell he is going to be a large bird so at this point will be working on leg feathering after the initial cross.

The eggs from the salmon lines are usually spotted and the cuckoo lay a solid colored egg so it will be interesting to see what I get from a cross of these two lines.

Bev

 

[chasehope]

Bev...When you have some golden cuckoos or eggs for sale can I be added to your list? I cant wait for my girls to start laying!

 

[snowbird]

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If you purchase the Black Copper- Cuckoo cross would be nice to see a picture of him.

 

[flgardengirl]

Hi I have 2 pairs of golden cuckoos and another extra light golden cuckoo rooster that I am using in a project for lemon cuckoo marans. I really love the golden cuckoos I think they are the prettiest of the barred birds.