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Sunday, October 6, 2013

Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Lay

Black Copper Marans pullet, Red#55

I love my Black Copper Marans but when you are trying to breed them to the Standard of Perfection, well let's just say that it's hard. This girl, Red #55 is too dark and should have a lot more copper color around her neck. She should also have a lot more feathers down her leg. Both issues can be worked on in the next generation.

Black Coppers should lay really dark chocolate brown eggs like Orange #69 does. Actually hers is about the lightest acceptable color.








I like red #55 as she is fairly large and has a decent
egg from orange #69 laid 10-2-13
shape to her. But I am sooo very disappointed. I can't tell her egg from one of my Buff Orpingtons. ;-(

I _might_ breed her and hatch just a few eggs and raise a couple of pullets to see if her daughters lay reasonably dark. And then again I might just leave her in the layer flock and go look a bit closer at some of the other girls.

2 comments:

  1. Mary, you have chicken raising down to a science, don't you. I'm amazed that you can tell which chicken laid which egg. I can remember the days when I was very young trying to wrangle those eggs away from those old broody hens. I don't think they could ever hurt a young boy but they could sure fluff up and peck with determination. It was just a little scary but I was not going to be intimidated by a chicken that was much smaller than me. Roosters, on the other hand, were just plain mean and almost always went in the stew pot on my uncle's farm. I was always glad when he got rid of them.

    Have a great scientific chicken/egg day.

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  2. Hi Dave! I do have a lot of fun with my chickens. One of the ways I know who is laying what egg is by mixing them up; I have been putting my Black Copper girls one at a time in a pen with blue & green layers so I can pin point who is laying what. Not all roosters are mean, some are actually very nice. Meaners are soup around here too.

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