What are the odds this cockerel is a pure Marans?

[humblehillsfarm]

Check the bottoms of their feet. It's not uncommon to have dark shanks and feet. The sole will reveal their true skin color.

Yellow shanks and toes means yellow skin. Which means not a Marans.

Well when I butchered the dad I was intimately familiar with the feet when I learned plucking feathers off of feet isn’t worth the effort. (Also learned how nasty eating a year old rooster was). His feet were all grey with darker grey splotches.

 

[Painted Calls]

Well when I butchered the dad I was intimately familiar with the feet when I learned plucking feathers off of feet isn’t worth the effort. (Also learned how nasty eating a year old rooster was). His feet were all grey with darker grey splotches.

Lord I bet lol! Sounds like white skin.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Lord I bet lol! Sounds like white skin.

So if you were to choose between a black or a blue Marans roo to get a more equal amount of black and blue offspring, would you choose one of the black cockerels or the blue? Of the four pullets I had, one has different parentage all together, two are definite OEs and one is a definite Black copper Marans pullet. I was probably for one generation going to breed him back to the mom and to the sister.... then get hatching eggs from someone else for fresh stock but idk yet. That’s a ways off lol

 

[Painted Calls]

So if you were to choose between a black or a blue Marans roo to get a more equal amount of black and blue offspring, would you choose one of the black cockerels or the blue? Of the four pullets I had, one has different parentage all together, two are definite OEs and one is a definite Black copper Marans pullet. I was probably for one generation going to breed him back to the mom and to the sister.... then get hatching eggs from someone else for fresh stock but idk yet. That’s a ways off lol

That's a great question!...... For @The Moonshiner.

 

[SpotTheCat]

So if you were to choose between a black or a blue Marans roo to get a more equal amount of black and blue offspring, would you choose one of the black cockerels or the blue? Of the four pullets I had, one has different parentage all together, two are definite OEs and one is a definite Black copper Marans pullet. I was probably for one generation going to breed him back to the mom and to the sister.... then get hatching eggs from someone else for fresh stock but idk yet. That’s a ways off lol

Depends on what colour your hens are, to get blue you need one blue gene (B) and one non-blue gene (b) black has no blue genes and splash has two
Black bb
Blue Bb
Splash BB
so if you where to have black hens (bb) and a blue cockerel (Bb) you would have 50% chance for each chick to be either black or blue
B. b
b Bb bb
b Bb bb

If you have blue hens then you get the same as above if you kept a black cockerel

If you have blue hens and a blue cockerel you will get 25% splash 50% blue and 25%black
B b
B BB Bb
b Bb bb

Splash bred to black will get you 100% blue

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Depends on what colour your hens are, to get blue you need one blue gene (B) and one non-blue gene (b) black has no blue genes and splash has two
Black bb
Blue Bb
Splash BB
so if you where to have black hens (bb) and a blue cockerel (Bb) you would have 50% chance for each chick to be either black or blue
B. b
b Bb bb
b Bb bb

If you have blue hens then you get the same as above if you kept a black cockerel

If you have blue hens and a blue cockerel you will get 25% splash 50% blue and 25%black
B b
B BB Bb
b Bb bb

Splash bred to black will get you 100% blue

Okay so the rooster was blue and the OE was blue. I’m thinking my cockerel is a version of splash, but is an OE. Looks like I’ll be keeping the blue Marans cockerel. Which is honestly a shame because he looks like his dad and he was truly an awful rooster.

 

[3KillerBs]

Okay so the rooster was blue and the OE was blue. I’m thinking my cockerel is a version of splash, but is an OE. Looks like I’ll be keeping the blue Marans cockerel. Which is honestly a shame because he looks like his dad and he was truly an awful rooster.

I so wish I were going to Pittsburgh this fall (we had to scrap those plans for various reasons). I'd have begged to buy your handsome OE because he's very much like what I want for my flock.

I don't care about pure breeding and am hoping for blue cuckoo down the line.

 

[Briosafarm]

Thank you. He is my favorite I’ll be honest he’s tempting me to scrap my whole agenda and just breed him to the Marans anyways. They’d be a super high percentage of Marans...... but much less sellable I know I feel like I’ll never have another one like him.

He's a beautiful boy! And as you already know, an OE. Nothing wrong with keeping him as long as you only sell hatching eggs or chicks as mixed breeds. It takes work to get and keep a properly dark egg that should be sold as a Marans (even purebred Marans breeders who show don't sell their chickens or hatching eggs that aren't the proper color as "Marans") but a pretty chicken is still a pretty chicken as long as you're honest with people buying them. I totally get it; a few months ago I got some gorgeous blue Olive Eggers and one ended up being one of the prettiest cockerels I've ever seen...but I knew that as an Olive Egger there was no way to predict what color eggs any hens he sired would lay so I let him go. If you want to breed Marans, it's hard enough to get good type and proper egg color anyway...handicapping yourself sets you back even more. :-/ If you got some good blue Marans, you'd soon have more like him. ))

 

[humblehillsfarm]

He's a beautiful boy! And as you already know, an OE. Nothing wrong with keeping him as long as you only sell hatching eggs or chicks as mixed breeds. It takes work to get and keep a properly dark egg that should be sold as a Marans (even purebred Marans breeders who show don't sell their chickens or hatching eggs that aren't the proper color as "Marans") but a pretty chicken is still a pretty chicken as long as you're honest with people buying them. I totally get it; a few months ago I got some gorgeous blue Olive Eggers and one ended up being one of the prettiest cockerels I've ever seen...but I knew that as an Olive Egger there was no way to predict what color eggs any hens he sired would lay so I let him go. If you want to breed Marans, it's hard enough to get good type and proper egg color anyway...handicapping yourself sets you back even more. :-/ If you got some good blue Marans, you'd soon have more like him. ))

The lineage is hatchery stock but I have been very pleased with the egg color and size from my hen! Sadly I already have a two year old rooster mutt that everyone pushed for me to keep. I’ve bothered an older roo (the Marans sire who was an awful rooster) before and he was inedible so at that point I consider butchering a nice roo a waste of life. He’s a great flock rooster, but makes everything soooo much harder in terms of breeding. I have 24 hens including the pullets so keeping two young cockerels would probably result in over mating I have tried to advertise for someone to take him, but you know how that goes. Looks like I’ll be keeping my single blue Marans cockerel and calling it a day. I’ll have five cockerels to butcher! I wanted to grow them out more but they are already harassing my girls.

 

[Briosafarm]

The lineage is hatchery stock but I have been very pleased with the egg color and size from my hen! Sadly I already have a two year old rooster mutt that everyone pushed for me to keep. I’ve bothered an older roo (the Marans sire who was an awful rooster) before and he was inedible so at that point I consider butchering a nice roo a waste of life. He’s a great flock rooster, but makes everything soooo much harder in terms of breeding. I have 24 hens including the pullets so keeping two young cockerels would probably result in over mating I have tried to advertise for someone to take him, but you know how that goes. Looks like I’ll be keeping my single blue Marans cockerel and calling it a day. I’ll have five cockerels to butcI

That's great about your egg color! The rest....I feel you. My Marans roos have been either jerks or wonderful and unfortunately you don't know until they get to a certain age. I'm trying a bachelor flock for the first time...growing out boys together in their own pen/flock until I can see who is the best type, etc. I've read about how to manage them that way but so far it's an experiment here.