Which BCM would you keep......anyone???No BCM experts.....

[Evilkitty162]

i like the 3rd one myself (

i want one but i have too many roos. )

 

[Germaine_11.20]

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Thank you for that information. I think I am going to go check ears!

 

[AHappychick]

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really weird, now I am wondering what color my roos ear is...

 

[Country Living Farm]

So copper ear are the way to go........I will be looking at a lot of ear in the morning....Once I am done with that, should I keep the ones with a solid black chest or copper on the chest.

I have 10 roo's to pick 4 from.

 

[onthespot]

I don't know what the standard says, but I would choose one with a SMALL amt of copper up under his neck, not down the breast, over one that had a pure black breast. If you go too black, so do your pullets is all I am saying. If you with one with a coppered breast, you get golden shafts on the breast feathers clear down to the belly on some of the pullets, which I sold all of mine that looked like that too. It looks almost welsummerish to me, and their plumage had sorta lacing, double, even blurry triple lacing. At least the roo I had. The best coloring of pullets seems to come from my roo with copper colored ear feathers, that round patch of feathers in front of or over the ear hole. The hackles are copper all the way to the bottom. Ones with golden hackles on the bottom of their neck, I got some yellowish hackled pullets. Sold those too. Sent the roo to taco camp. So... things I learned to avoid.

Black ears.
Heavy coppered breasts with heavy spangling on the feathers
Saddle feathers that are black halfway down and only copper on the tips, or outer third. I want as much copper in the saddle as possible
No mahogany on the wing bows. I wouldn't even try a bird like that.
White flight feathers in the inner bend of the wing. Some lines carry this trait very strongly and it is hard to breed out.
Roos with shorter outer toes than what you see in normal other birds.
Crooked toes.
Any bird with a fused outer toe, webbed, whatever you want to call it. You will know it if you see it. Cull, cull CULL! that bird. Hen or roo, goodbye from the breeding flock. Hens can be good layers, no need to do them in, just don't breed them. If you know who the roo father is of a webbed chick, cull him from your breeding pen too. It seems to be recessive, so they can carry it and not show it.

Too many points in the comb. Even though some of the many pointed combs look fantastic, it is not the breed standard and passes on strongly.
Comb that slants up away from the head in the back. It should follow the natural curve of his neck, not wander off into space, especially if the back of it has a toothy oddball look to it.
Side sprigs. Zero tolerance even if it is just a pimple. Adios.
White ear lobes, or even a hazy blue tinge, not to be confused with pale, like if the roo is frightened or not feeling well.
Crooked beak, Cross beak, "odd looking" beak, like short and stumpy, long with a hooked tip that needs maintenance to keep it good.
Really prone to bumblefoot from being too heavy for the feet god gave him.
Dark eyes.
Squirrel tail, or a tail that starts straight up from their tail, even points toward the head a bit before it curves back in the typical sickle shape. I hear it is very hard to breed out.
Bad temperament. If you roo flogs you, don't keep him. Get a good roo. There are a lot of good roos around, especially marans. As a breed they are docile and freindly mostly, unless you make him a complete spoiled pet as a chick, then you are just looking for trouble. Might have been a good rooster, you will never know. He will have to go, regardless.

On another note, I don't see sparse feathers or clean legs as a deal breaker. It is such an easy trait to breed in or out in a few generations, not hardly even worth mentioning except if the hen lays dark and is otherwise a nice girl, I wouldn't kick her to the curb for sparse or no feathers. Now a roo.... you'd be making a lot of work for yourself if you used a clean legged roo, but depending on whatever other traits he carried that you needed, and if he was fine in all other ways, I might use on if I had to.

I know that is a long list, but it is all things I have run across in just the short year and a half I have been working with them. I have gotten a lot of different birds from different breeders and lines from all over the country, so I am not calling out names, and I believe these faults can pop up in anyone's line, so just keep your eye out and just do the right thing when you see it needs to be done.

Sorry so windy, it is just that there are a lot of faults, if I have seen these with just the hundred or so birds I have had, and chicks I have hatched from various lines.

 

[solarquail]

first one is what i'd choose