Blue................
Blue Copper can be achieved by crossing a solid blue (a bird not showing any signs of copper IMO would be considered solid blue, however, this does not mean that this bird does not carry the copper gene, so this gene that is not expressed visually can be passed onto offspring, we find this out by single mating birds and raising the offspring to see how they color out, we keep the best birds,(the closest resemblance of the particular variety of what we are looking to breed, i.e.
solid blue, blue copper , black copper, solid black, splash copper or splash. By selecting the birds that visually show desired traits and characteristics of what we want to duplicate we can then move forward to breeding those selected birds back to its parent/s. Say you cross a BCM rooster over a solid blue pullet or hen- the resulting offspring would be 50% black and 50% Blue
this cross will not guarantee you the perfect offspring
you may get a very correct BCM or Blue Copper(but not usually with the first cross) , or birds in both colors with not enough copper, or you may also get some birds blue and black that do not show copper at all
.(I have found that I do not get birds that are overly red, this may have to do with other things considered in Marans
eye color, lack of melanizers, the line of the bird
.many other factors blah blah blah
..that is later as to not confuse where I was going)
the offspring of a BCM cross solid blue
depending on the color variety I want to breed and lets say I want to breed for solid blues , first I would look for a cockerel that is or will not show any signs of copper (does not mean he wont carry the gene because after all his daddy is a bcm and it can pop up in his offspring and/or it could wait several generations and pop up in grandchildren or even further down the line), I understand that solid blue cockerels and roos can be pretty hard to come by and that there are few out there. If I cant go that route, my next best option would be to use a cockerel that shows very little copper, the least amount as possible, and breed him back to his solid mother , incubate and yet again grow these chicks out to see how they mature and choose a cockerel from this mating that best represents the color I am going for and breed back again to his mother/grandmother..(again to the original solid blue hen)
with continued breeding of certain dominant traits that we are looking for eventually the desired goal will be achieved. Let me say that not every bird produced is going to come out perfect or close, each one will be different, this is why we take the bird that best resembles the variety we would like to breed and breed those birds back. It will/can take more than 2 generations to get to what you are looking for and to breed out the copper/red/gold leakage because blue is a leaky gene and will allow some leakage, this is why some see what appears to be a solid blue bird with some light almost un-noticeable tan/grey/taupe ish looking color bleeding through in the hackles of them. I have noticed in these birds that after molt the leakage is darker and covers more area. This suggests to me that they carry the copper gene and tells me not to use them for breeding if I am going for solid blues. However, if it is all I have I would breed them and set my sights once again for the best representation of what I am after and start the process over.
Breeding for Blue coppers~
Blue Coppers can be achieved the same way but you would breed those that show the copper or amounts of it back to the Copper parent and continue to breed the best of the them back until the goal you set out after is achieved. IMO the best blue coppers come from copper parents, if both parents are copper then the amount of copper being given to the offspring will be greater and can be more correct. The amount of copper they get will depend on the amount of copper their parents have, they cannot lend what they do not have, so if a bird has very little copper that is all they can lend to their offspring. This is where selecting birds that compliment each other comes in to play the same as breeding for BCMs
.example
..breeding an overly red roo to a pullet that shows little copper can improve your copper in the next generation of offspring from that cross and again getting the perfect bird may or may not happen here
..I cannot stress this enough, even breeders such as Bev can tell you that not every bird produced is a perfect example of the desired variety.
Blue is genetically a black bird that has one copy of the blue gene and its expresses itself for one to see as the color blue everywhere that the bird would normally be black
.one copy of the blue gene dilutes black to blue and two copies of the blue gene expresses itself as or dilutes to splash or white but it is not truly white it almost has a gray or blue tinge to it but looks white
standing next to a genetically white bird the 2 colors are different, blue being a leaky gene and with the splash variety will express itself in random feathers of light and dark blue and flecks of copper color through out the body with no uniformity usually in the females, but can happen in the splash copper variety males, i.e.
.splash copper pullets or hens do not normally have a pattern like that of the copper blacks and copper blues, but a splash copper male can take on a copper shoulder pattern like that of a BCM and Bl-Cpr male and also have flecks of coppering in the saddles and hackle area.
Blue is also a gene/color that can and will express itself in different shades from light to dark and in some instances almost black. To find out if a bird that appears black is truly a blue bird simply cross it with a genetically black bird and if you get blue offspring, your bird that appears black is genetically blue.
The only way to find out what your bird/s may be carrying is to test mate them and see how the offspring grow out but this does not eliminate recessive genes that will/can pop up later.
This is just my opinion and I posted it just for reference
.if I am wrong or have made a mistake please anyone feel free to jump in and add your thoughts.
