Maran Keepers - Please School Me - PIC Heavy

Chicky Tocks

Crowing
14 Years
Oct 20, 2008
3,213
20
316
Benton, Arkansas
Dear Maran Keepers

Put me in the corner or make me wear the dunce cap, I have questions about what I'm doing here that I hope someone can answer.

I have cuckoo maran and french black copper. I say french because they have hairy feathered legs.
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First came the cuckoos. They lived together solely, 3 pullets and one (was two) roo. These girls have amazed me with their eggs. They're a beautiful, dark chocolate, and darker than the eggs from which they hatched. My roo has feathered legs as does one of the three girls. (for future reference)

My coop is large, and is split. I grew out four F. Black Copper Maran in there (2 cockerals, 2 pullets). They'd been bunk buddies with the cuckoos most of their lives, only split by the wire wall. Finely there was a merging of the tribes. The BCM pullets had not laid an egg on their side of the coop, but I knew that it wouldn't be too awful long. The merge went beautifully. Everyone coincides and gets along well, however they do stay in their own groups because they are two separate flocks. To this day there is no drama, no hen stealing, Big Daddy Cuckoo maintains his three ladies and the two boys keep good tabs on their two frenchies. I have never once seen any funny stuff whatsoever, but I hadn't seen the BCM boys do any mounting of their girls either.

Because of the winter weather, the cuckoolettes weren't laying daily. Little did I know that not long after the merge, the BCM had started to lay. Well to make a long story short, I lost a very favorite hen (not one of the marans) on Christmas day and I yanked all of her eggs from the fridge. It wasn't enough, and I was afraid of hatching just one chick, so I tossed in some test eggs from what I thought were all cuckoos. HA! I got a little pullet from my favorite passed hen, a very obvious cuckoo maran cockeral looking right at ya, and this on the left in the group photo:

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A little about her. She has black eyes, black legs with feathers, no copper as of yet. She's 4 weeks old. The comb is orangish as a BCM pullets should be.

Is this a BCM?! My cuckoos leg feathering is nothing near this amount. I do have one BCM pullet that has pumpkin eyes, the other has black, and both of the boys have pumpkin eyes. When I grabbed this egg, I thought it was a cuckoo egg and had no idea that it might have been a BCM. Whatever it is, I'm almost sure it's a pullet. Did I get lucky?! Here come the pics.

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C'mon! Everybody knows that Cuckoo Maran have white leggies!

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Here's a beak and comb shot.

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I've heard that copper may come later in pullets, which leads me to believe that this is not a roo.

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The end.

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Have I accidentally hatched a BCM pullet?
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That does not look like a roo chick. Even if you blacked out the part where the comb is, it is very feminine looking! Hope you get some nice copper coming in soon. It is way to early to judge the coppering on their necks. If they do have a lot showing at this age, they usually end up with bad golden streaks on their breasts, or huge mossiness. "SHE" looks great for her age so far. Congratulations!
 
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Thank you onthespot! The one single thing that threw me was the black legs and feet. I always thought that the BCM had lighter feet and if it was a pullet, the black would shade the top more so but not completely black. All four of my BCM are unrelated (eggs from different lines) so it will be interesting to see what I get from them. Now I am able to determine the difference between the eggs of the cuckoo and the BCM, and I have four test eggs in the bator due March 6th. I absolutely cannot wait!!!
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Even so, some BC's don't have much or no copper at all. Looks to me like you've got a pullet coming along though.
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