Thanks for the pep talk...I really would like to get some nice Marans...I love the Blue Copper...I just don't have the room now...maybe someday....Don't worry, you are not alone. I started solely with hatching eggs as that is all that was available. Culled many of the chicks from entire hatches and started with about 10 birds total from 5 different lines (took about a year and a bit to get those birds). I test mated everything I held onto, crossed all the lines with each other to test them further, took notes, photos, banded and tracked everything I hatched. Each year I realistically held back maybe the top 2 or 3% the first two years, and about 5% the 3rd, and in the 4th and 5th years about 10-15% and did more test mating, more crossing of lines, culled adult stock that were not providing what I was looking for. This is my 6th year and due to circumstances limiting me on time and etc, I hatched a total of about 40 chicks. The photos earlier are from the first hatch of 10 I did. 7 out of the 10 are showing real promise, but wether they make the cut to the breeding pens will remain to be seen. There is still a ton of work to do, but it is possible to make improvements on hatching stock provided they do not have any disqualifications.
The forums here have people with some amazing experience and knowledge to help people move forward with birds, so if you feel like going for some birds again, ask around on here for where people got their start and feel free to ask for lots of advice. As far as advertising hatching eggs as show quality, I believe it to be rather misleading, particularly when most breeders might keep 10% of the stock they hatch out that actually meet the criteria of 'show quality'. No line is going to hatch out show quality 100% of the time, in fact, sometimes there might be a whole lot of crap with just a handful of birds that show promise and with as mixed up as the marans are from indiscriminate breeding (often the focus of making money taking priority), there's a whole lot of work to do. I hope you are able to find some that will give you a good start someday, I might be a bit partial, but think they are worth it.
