Looking to keep Black Copper Marans Rooster...4 wks old...which one is it?

[Bfast4Dinner]

We hatched 25 eggs from different hens (Black Copper Marans, Easter Eggers, Oliver Eggers, Welsummer, and Ameraucana) with 2 Black Copper Marans Roosters. I want to keep one Black Copper Marans Rooster. Our chicks are 4 weeks old. Can you help identify

breed and gender? Thanks.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi, welcome to BYC!

Most of those are cross bred cockerels and I don't see a single one I would be looking to keep as good QUALITY French Black Copper Marans. No ugliness intended here!

Reasons... 1. the striped ones MIGHT be cuckoo, but NOT FBCM. 2. The ones without any copper yet, WON'T get it. 3. The ones sporting nicely feathered legs (a key feature) aren't sporting any copper. 4. The one that is sporting some copper, has poorly feathered legs. 5. One of them looks crested.

The closest one to acceptable (IMHO) is farthest right in the first pic.

I would suggest collecting and hatching ONLY from the black copper Marans ladies and growing out some more. Really it's impossible to pick a good next rooster at 4 weeks old. attitude is barely starting to come into play, feather pattern can change some still, comb sprigs may still come in, injuries or disease could happen. Still gotta check for split wing, Eye color isn't yet in to see how it lines up with the standard... I grow out all my stags in a stag pen until I can decide who is staying. Not less than 16 weeks, by then you can tell a lot of times who MUST go. With no development of saddle feathers and such, it's just WAY too early to make a good informed and solid decision. The one mentioned from the first pic, will end up having too much straw color in the hackles from my experience. It is REALLY hard to get truly good quality chicks. That's why I (we) hatch so many and keep just a few every year. Please understand I meant this all ONLY as constructive and not to put your birds down in ANY way. The chick in pic 3 appears to be female still, and maybe the crested one on pic 8.

If you are truly interested in Marans... one of my favorite resources is... http://www.maransofamericaclub.com/black-copper-marans.html

I am still learning and practicing to get right the Marans standard. Thank you for sharing. And good luck!

 

[Bfast4Dinner]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the feedback.

 

[LilJoe]

What were your olive eggers' parents? If it was BCM roo × Cream legbar hen then the barred ones are olive egger cockerels

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

4,5,8,9,10,11,12,13, and 14 are obvious cockerels.
You'll need to wait a couple weeks more for the others.

 

[LilJoe]

6 is a welsumer roo... 7 & 8 & 12(?) are olive egger pullets

 

[Bfast4Dinner]

 

[Bfast4Dinner]

 

[Bfast4Dinner]

Hen?

 

[Bfast4Dinner]