How do you find good breeders?

I have been screwed over FOUR times now by local breeders. I try to buy from local people because I've heard horror stories about buying from hatcheries. Plus live in OK, where it gets close to 100 degrees right now, and I feel bad about shipping chicks in that kind of weather, but good grief I'm tired of not getting what I paid for. It's so frustrating to spend money on chicks, drive anywhere from half an hour to an hour away to get them, raise them up, then start to realize as they are growing that they are NOT pure bred birds and that I just wasted my time and money on chicks. I'm so frustrated. Now I get to start over but I don't know where to start. I don't want to buy from a hatchery because I want good quality birds, but I am sick of "breeders" right now.

Shellystanley said:

I have been screwed over FOUR times now by local breeders. I try to buy from local people because I've heard horror stories about buying from hatcheries. Plus live in OK, where it gets close to 100 degrees right now, and I feel bad about shipping chicks in that kind of weather, but good grief I'm tired of not getting what I paid for. It's so frustrating to spend money on chicks, drive anywhere from half an hour to an hour away to get them, raise them up, then start to realize as they are growing that they are NOT pure bred birds and that I just wasted my time and money on chicks. I'm so frustrated. Now I get to start over but I don't know where to start. I don't want to buy from a hatchery because I want good quality birds, but I am sick of "breeders" right now.

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Hello Shelly, as a fellow Okie and chicken enthusiast I share your concerns and troubles. Reputable breeders are not so easy to pin down and many only breed a certain well breed of chicken. To help you meet your needs it would be nice to know specifically what breeds you are interested in. For instance there is a wonderful farm in Tuttle known as Elite Beaks but they specialize in exotic and ornamental birds so that may not be of any use to you no matter how well bred their chickens are. The second thing you can do is learn to identify what the standard of perfection for your chicken is so that you can better spot good chickens from bad. I have more suggestions and ideas I would be happy to share but it until we know what breeds you are interested in there is only so much help I can give you. Best wishes.

ChickenChaser9 said:

 Hello Shelly, as a fellow Okie and chicken enthusiast I share your concerns and troubles. Reputable breeders are not so easy to pin down and many only breed a certain well breed of chicken. To help you meet your needs it would be nice to know specifically what breeds you are interested in. For instance there is a wonderful farm in Tuttle known as Elite Beaks but they specialize in exotic and ornamental birds so that may not be of any use to you no matter how well bred their chickens are​. The second thing you can do is learn to identify what the standard of perfection for your chicken is so that you can better spot good chickens from bad. I have more suggestions and ideas I would be happy to share but it until we know what breeds you are interested in there is only so much help I can give you. Best wishes.

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I wanted some black copper Marans, which seem to be very hard to come by in this state. I'm wanting those super dark chocolate brown eggs. I actually just bought five chicks from someone in Tuttle about 3-4 weeks ago and they are definitely not pure bred birds. My "black copper Marans" have white feathers coming in. Then I got some "wheaten Marans" that don't even look anything like wheaten Marans. My husband picked them up for me. As soon as I saw them my heart sunk because I knew they weren't pure bred birds. Now it's turned out that all five of them are roosters. We will end up raising them up and eating them, so at least it's not a total waste, but I really wanted dark eggs and I don't know how to find them.

Shellystanley said:

I wanted some black copper Marans, which seem to be very hard to come by in this state. I'm wanting those super dark chocolate brown eggs. I actually just bought five chicks from someone in Tuttle about 3-4 weeks ago and they are definitely not pure bred birds. My "black copper Marans" have white feathers coming in. Then I got some "wheaten Marans" that don't even look anything like wheaten Marans. My husband picked them up for me. As soon as I saw them my heart sunk because I knew they weren't pure bred birds. Now it's turned out that all five of them are roosters. We will end up raising them up and eating them, so at least it's not a total waste, but I really wanted dark eggs and I don't know how to find them.

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Thank you for the quick response. My suggestions would be as follows: 1st if you visit a breeder it should be you and not hubby selecting the birds unless he is as well educated as you are on what a good chicken looks like.

They should have orange eyes. The shanks are usually slate or pink, the soles of the feet should always be white as Marans have white skin, not yellow. Though the original Marans could also be feather legged birds, British breeders preferred the clean legged version, and thus feathered legged Marans are now mainly found in France. The Australian Poultry Standard recognizes both feathered and clean-legged and the Marans Club of America only recognizes feather-legged birds.

This being said your birds may lay dark brown eggs even if they are not fully Black Copper Marans if they are mixed with a Marans of a different color.

What I did since I am planning on breeding my own flock was to purchase a large order from a commercial hatchery (about 25-30 sexed female birds) and sold off most of them until I had only 9-10 left with the best characteristics out of the group. This left me with a fair set of genetics not great but good genes to work with then I went and got a very well bred cockerel to breed to the girls. You can expect to pay more than $50 for a quality chicken so my method has alleviated the costs of trying to by a flock of show quality birds for hundreds of dollars.

As to your specific breed and desires I would be happy to ask around and see if anyone I know has Black Copper Marans. I don't keep any myself but if I can locate someone who does I'll pass along thier info. Always remember to inspect the animals you are going to be spending big buck on. There are millions of sub-par chickens out there and while I never advertise poorly bred chickens as anything but there are many unscrupulous folks out there.

Edit to include useful resources: http://www.bevsmarans.com/index.html http://maranschickenclubusa.com/

Where do your BCM have white feathers and how old are they? It's very common for juveniles to have white flight feathers as they feather in, and they molt out of them as they mature. Not related to egg color at all.

donrae said:

Where do your BCM have white feathers and how old are they? It's very common for juveniles to have white flight feathers as they feather in, and they molt out of them as they mature. Not related to egg color at all.

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I had 3 of my Black Jersey Giants arrive as chicks with white tips on the ends of their wings and one that had an entirely white feather. As they reached about 3 months old they lost those feathers and are now entirely black so donrae's experience jives with mine. I was hesitant to bring that up as I would not want to provide false hope to you but you may find that as they mature the color becomes correct.

Well that's good to know that those feathers may not stay. The white feathers are on the underside of the chicks neck and on its chest. It's probably not going to matter anyways because I'm pretty sure they are both roosters and I don't want roosters. I bought five chicks and every single one is a rooster

Sorry about your misfortunes. Have you tried going to your state's thread to see if anyone on there could recommend a reputable BCM breeder with quality birds?

Sweetie, fbcm do have white feathers as they go through juvenile molts. When they get full set of adult feathers, then, no white feathers. I can not speak to other varieties, only fbcm. Bev Davis website has good info, as does the French website. An APA SOP is a good investment.

I hate windows 10 , for some reason it willnot let me spellcheck the post below, sorry. Karen, Former Director of Archives, Marans of America Club
Hi,
If I wanted some high quality FBCM here's what I would do. First I would check the results from the National meet ( Newnan, Georgia, and the three of the biggest shows in the USA. For instance, The National Poultry Shows in Columbus, OH, Northeast Poultry Congress in Mass. , and the Bluebonnet Classic in TX. I would see who had won with FBCM there in the last 3 years. Then I would surf over to Marans Chicken Club USA and see the results of the egg shows. If the results aren't on their website, query a Club officer where you can find them. look for someone winning in FBCM multiple times over a 2-3 year period. Now take the 2 lists and compare them. Look for the same names on both lists or folks with related birds from the same strains on both lists. Then I would take my short list and start asking around. This time of year is a good time to look for started birds. Honestly, I hear your frustration. Been there. 5 times I tried ti start in Golden Salmon Marans and failed due to the same issues you are having. Then I moved to Light Sussex and loved them until severe weather patterns lately here in western PA forced me to move to the lovely Chanteclers next year.
I has always tried to start with egg or baby chicks with the same awful results you had. In Sussex, I started with a trio of "started birds". Chicks old enough to ahe been checked for sex and quality by the breeder. Success!! I will always tell folk to spend the little extra to get started birds. Or this time of year perhaps retiring breeer. High quality birds just not needed by the breeder anymore because they already have enough descendants from them. Just get a trio. If you get breeders now, you can still hatch your own chicks this year! Let the breeder know you are founding flock and need birds which can be bred together. Related but not too closely.