Black Copper Marans

[cuckoosnest]

Hi. I recently purchased some French black copper marans and am new to the breed. They are about 6 weeks old and I notice that a couple of the young birds are starting to develop combs, but their plumage is all black. So my question is, should all black copper roosters have the colorful plumage that you see in the standard, or is there some genetic characteristic that make some black, some colorful, etc.? Thanks for any knowledge you can share!!

 

[pinkchick]

Hi. I recently purchased some French black copper marans and am new to the breed. They are about 6 weeks old and I notice that a couple of the young birds are starting to develop combs, but their plumage is all black. So my question is, should all black copper roosters have the colorful plumage that you see in the standard, or is there some genetic characteristic that make some black, some colorful, etc.? Thanks for any knowledge you can share!!

Hi! Welcome to BYC and Welcome to Marans! It can take them several months to sometimes a year to get their copper in fully, but in most cases you can/should see some copper starting to come in as early as 3 weeks (sometimes even sooner) or some can start showing it around 6 weeks of age.....but truly it all depends on the bird and how he matures. Each one will be different.
Also.....sometimes, some Black Coppers will not show the copper at all leaving folks to believe that they have solid Black Marans, which is not the case. If they came from birds that have copper in them....they carry the copper gene and they are still Coppers.

Solid Marans are VERY rare and even harder to come by.

Hope this helps and pop over and visit the Marans thread from time to time and post photos of your chickies. We LOVE seeing photos!