Midnight Majesty opposite pairing/ Black Marans with cream egg?

[jjjennejjj]

I am working on breeding chocolate cuckoo barred rocks. I started with chocolate orpington x barred rock hens. I now have an SF split chocolate barred roo paired with solid chocolate hens. I added 2 black marans to test their egg color on the marans scale into the pen assuming there would be a large color difference between their eggs and the two that I am trying to breed. They have been together since December and I have never seen a dark egg, so I assumed the black marans were simply not laying during the winter. Now that I have hatched a batch of dark cream eggs I collected from the pen I am wondering if I would be able to tell the difference between barred rock roo x chocolate hen chicks and barred rock roo x black maran hen chicks because I found out that not all BCM's lay dark eggs (but dark cream compared to dark brown???) and these were from Cackle Hatchery vs the breeders I normally acquire the super dark egg layers from. When researching I saw that the opposite pairing (BCM x BR) is called Midnight Majesty and is sex linked. Is the opposite (BR x BCM) also a Midnight Majesty with the same offspring phenotypes? Any knowledgable answers to any of my many questions is appreciated.

 

[Amer]

Is the opposite (BR x BCM) also a Midnight Majesty with the same offspring phenotypes?

No

Do your Marans have feathered feet? There is a chance they might not be pure for the gene (in which case I cannot help you) but if they are pure for the feathered feet gene all of their offspring will have feathered feet as well.

 

[jjjennejjj]

No

Do your Marans have feathered feet? There is a chance they might not be pure for the gene (in which case I cannot help you) but if they are pure for the feathered feet gene all of their offspring will have feathered feet as well.

Feathered feet; I won't assume they are pure but I all the birds I have ever gotten from Cackle Hatchery have been very healthy. several of the chicks DO have feathered feet. I think that answers my question because neither the chocolate orpington rooster nor barred rocks the rooster came from have feathered feet. I am shocked though that marans could have such light eggs.

 

[jjjennejjj]

No

Do your Marans have feathered feet? There is a chance they might not be pure for the gene (in which case I cannot help you) but if they are pure for the feathered feet gene all of their offspring will have feathered feet as well.

Does that mean all marans offspring? Like even though the rooster is a barred rock? Or do you just mean all pure marans, not crosses? That would be great if it were that simple to separate the feathered feet from the plain.

 

[Amer]

Does that mean all marans offspring? Like even though the rooster is a barred rock? Or do you just mean all pure marans, not crosses? That would be great if it were that simple to separate the feathered feet from the plain.

No.
I meant it would be easy to separate the Marans crosses if your Marans are homozygous for the feathered feet gene. If they aren't then half their offspring will have clean legs and would be very difficult to separate from the other chicks.

 

[jjjennejjj]

I am obviously not a pro, and am creating a certain mix just for fun, and all the birds involved are healthy and beautiful. I am actually only keeping the chocolate cuckoo roos from these batches anyways and will give away the rest of the pullets but would like to be able to tell friends what they likely are; cross breed and sex.

I can certainly narrow down the batches by separating the chicks with feathered feet. The 2 hens were French Black Marans with feathered feet, so I can be 100% sure that those chicks are from the marans and thise light eggs are just how much they lightened over the year.

I am scrapping the eggs I was about to incubate and removed those hens from the pen and will only collect the eggs from the chocolates so I can be certain of the crosses for the next hatches.

I am also glad I didn't intentionally breed these marans with my BCM rooster. I got them as a filler for an order and figured maybe one of them would lay a super dark egg. At least laying hens are easier to rehome!

Thanks again for the help. I appreciate your time.

 

[Grumpy Lady]

I will be getting my first marans in three weeks, so I cannot speak from experience yet. But I was told that their eggs would get darker after their first adult molt. I am not sure if this helps your question, just sharing some information that was told to me.