Country Marans
In the Brooder
Hi, I've found so many of the forums on this site to be very helpful in the past, but there seems to be one question that I cannot find in the other forums, so I decided to sign up for BYC and ask it myself.
The question being the genetics of my blue and black copper Marans chicks. The first problem I noticed was fused toes on the chick I dubbed 'Ostrich' and one or two other chicks with stunted toes and wayward claws. We did what we could for Ostrich, but now I'm seeing other problems. BCMs are supposed to have slate-gray shanks, so why is yellow showing up on the toes and beaks? Also, I've noticed white feathers popping up on their little wings. Up until now I had no idea that there were problems like this, but is it a problem when it comes to breeding? Does it affect the chicks? The egg color?
All this aside, my real question would be 'can I show these chickens?' Right now I am just showing through my local 4-H and am probably going up against hatchery chicks, but will I get disqualified for these problems? I paid so much for these buggers, and they're super sweet and pet-able, but the original plan was to show! What do I do?
(1 week old) Their favorite pastime is stretching their fuzzy legs.
The question being the genetics of my blue and black copper Marans chicks. The first problem I noticed was fused toes on the chick I dubbed 'Ostrich' and one or two other chicks with stunted toes and wayward claws. We did what we could for Ostrich, but now I'm seeing other problems. BCMs are supposed to have slate-gray shanks, so why is yellow showing up on the toes and beaks? Also, I've noticed white feathers popping up on their little wings. Up until now I had no idea that there were problems like this, but is it a problem when it comes to breeding? Does it affect the chicks? The egg color?
All this aside, my real question would be 'can I show these chickens?' Right now I am just showing through my local 4-H and am probably going up against hatchery chicks, but will I get disqualified for these problems? I paid so much for these buggers, and they're super sweet and pet-able, but the original plan was to show! What do I do?
(1 week old) Their favorite pastime is stretching their fuzzy legs.
