you have got to love resesive genes... my origanal black marans only had feather stubs on one (of 3) of the hens... of the pure black i was hatching i was getting about 1 out of 10 chicks with feathers... it was those 3 hens that i used to cross with my Lav Orp rooster... only a couple of my F1's have feather stubs on there feet and i just hatched a Lav chick with what looks like full feathers on its feet... i am going to try to get pic,s later today... will keep a close eye on this one...
i hatched 2 out this week... bringing my total to 12...
My lav orp has a tiny bit darker head than the rest of his body. In general with the lavender orpingtons, I know the older generations in the lav orp project are darker lavender than the newer 'more finished' generations are. So it is reasonable to think it might be the same way with the lavender Marans.
How is your egg color going?
I have a black f1 hen that is laying #5 egg colored eggs. Her daddy is a lav orp and her mama a black marans hen (that lays very dark eggs). She looks like a combo of both but much more like her momma and is the size of the mom too and not near as fluffy as an orp. I am using an earlier lav orp project roo so he is smaller and less fluffy than the newer more correct lav orp roos, which is perfect for this project lol.
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lol thats about what i got... the roo i used was a 2009 hatch from the Hinkle's so he was not as fluffy as the later generations... the darkest eggs i am getting from my F1's are about a #5 to... im really hoping to darken up the egg color in the next Generation...