Marandaise{origins of the dark brown egg {

[heritagehabitatfarms]

so what is the other forum that Resolution posts on that several ppl have mentioned???

 

[redhen]

thanks for all this great info! I have alot of reading to do..

 

[Resolution]

OK everything written earlier are detailed notes- natural history or ethnozoological history that leads up to this final note.

Please ask questions if you don't understand something but don't curl over and pretend that anything I've written here is over your head.
There are online dictionaries and you can always print out the ridiculously long and laborious threads to further digest at your leisure.

The gist of what has been written is this. If you want to increase the egg pigmentation of your Malay ( should produce darker redder eggs than it does, due to incorrect breeding) Penedesencas, Marans, Wellsummer, Barnsevelder you need to practice Backcrossing. * as defined in earlier writings on this post.

Start with a female line that you know absolutely are full sisters. Save one or two of their full brothers.
Locate an unrelated rooster that you have personally hatched from a dark egg.
Pair this rooster with the first female from your well represented female line.
Select out the darkest eggs from her first clutch.
Hatch them. Select the rooster from this clutch that has hatched from the darkest egg.
Breed him back to his mother.
Repeat the process again and again for 8 consecutive generations.
If for some reason the original matriarch dies, replace her with her closest relative.
Her full sister is the best candidate but remember- you are taking two to three steps back everytime you outcross to even a related female.
Once you have arrived at the eighth generation, you can now breed the progeny interse, that is brother to sister.
Or, better yet, breed them to the close relatives of the mother. You can keep any of the birds not used for breeding but I would send them off to save room and prevent confusion.
You really want to just be as conservative as you can be. This means you set up separate enclosures. Your breeders don't get to run loose. You have to feed them like wild junglefowl and care for them as if they are delicate hot house flowers. This means no crumbles, no mashes no pellets- just whole grains and an animal protein infused pellet.
Mazuri makes an exotic pheasant extruded kibble and of course my company makes an extruded zoo pellet that's 70% more nutritious.
The French feed cockles as their mystery ingredient and lots of crustacean meal- pieces of shrimps and such left over from cooking -so close to the sea.
But for you - inland its too risky to put out material that may become a disease vector. Great genetics help. You can nevertheless, select breed towards that point using blegh stock.
We've experimented with different breeds and it is almost always the same result. We end up with better egg shell colour when we backcross- provided that is what our founders -that's the trait we are isolating and encouraging through selective breeding.

Yes- each generation of roosters is another generation bred back to the original matriarch. By the 8th generation his mother will also be his great great great idk how many grandmother.

 

[smileyfacecat]

How interesting!

 

[Resolution]

Ok- I can't even read that stuff. Its so dense my head hurts just looking at it.

Here's all you need to know about where the dark russet egg shell originated:

In King Solomon's day they referred to Sri Lanka as Tarshish. This tear shaped island was famous for the mystery surrounding it.
Indeed, Sri Lanka was, until recently, the only place where Cinnamon grew.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon has been known from remote antiquity; the first mention of a particular spice in the Old Testament is of cinnamon where Moses is commanded to use both sweet cinnamon (Hebrew קִנָּמוֹן, qinnāmôn) and cassia in the holy anointing oil; in Proverbs, where the lover's bed is perfumed with myrrh, aloe and cinnamon; and in Song of Solomon, a song describing the beauty of his beloved, cinnamon scents her garments like the smell of Lebanon. It was so highly prized among ancient nations that it was regarded as a gift fit for monarchs and even for a god: a fine inscription records the gift of cinnamon and cassia to the temple of Apollo at Miletus. Though its source was kept mysterious in the Mediterranean world for centuries by the middlemen who handled the spice trade, to protect their monopoly as suppliers, cinnamon is native to Sri Lanka. It was imported to Egypt as early as 2000 BC. It is also alluded to by Herodotus and other classical writers. It was too expensive to be commonly used on funeral pyres in Rome, but the Emperor Nero is said to have burned a year's worth of the city's supply at the funeral for his wife Poppaea Sabina in AD 65.

Before the foundation of Cairo, Alexandria was the Mediterranean shipping port of cinnamon. Europeans who knew the Latin writers who were quoting Herodotus knew that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the trading ports of Egypt, but whether from Ethiopia or not was less than clear. When the sieur de Joinville accompanied his king to Egypt on Crusade in 1248, he reported what he had been told—and believed—that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile out at the edge of the world. Through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon was a mystery to the Western world. Marco Polo avoided precision on this score. In Herodotus and other authors, Arabia was the source of cinnamon: giant Cinnamon birds collected the cinnamon sticks from an unknown land where the cinnamon trees grew and used them to construct their nests; the Arabs employed a trick to obtain the sticks. This story was current as late as 1310 in Byzantium, although in the first century, Pliny the Elder had written that the traders had made this up in order to charge more. The first mention of the spice growing in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwini's Athar al-bilad wa-akhbar al-‘ibad ("Monument of Places and History of God's Bondsmen") in about 1270. This was followed shortly thereafter by John of Montecorvino, in a letter of about 1292.

Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon (known in Indonesia as kayu manis- literally "sweet wood") on a "cinnamon route" directly from the Moluccas to East Africa, where local traders then carried it north to the Roman market.

Arab traders brought the spice via overland trade routes to Alexandria in Egypt, where it was bought by Venetian traders from Italy who held a monopoly on the spice trade in Europe. The disruption of this trade by the rise of other Mediterranean powers, such as the Mamluk Sultans and the Ottoman Empire, was one of many factors that led Europeans to search more widely for other routes to Asia.

Portuguese traders finally landed in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) at the beginning of the sixteenth century and restructured the traditional production and management of cinnamon by the Sinhalese, who later held the monopoly for cinnamon in Ceylon. The Portuguese established a fort on the island in 1518 and protected their own monopoly for over a hundred years.

Dutch traders finally dislodged the Portuguese by allying with the inland Kingdom of Kandy. They established a trading post in 1638, took control of the factories by 1640, and expelled all remaining Portuguese by 1658. "The shores of the island are full of it", a Dutch captain reported, "and it is the best in all the Orient: when one is downwind of the island, one can still smell cinnamon eight leagues out to sea." (Braudel 1984, p. 215)

The Dutch East India Company continued to overhaul the methods of harvesting in the wild and eventually began to cultivate its own trees.

In 1767 Lord Brown of East India Company established Anjarakkandy Cinnamon Estate near Anjarakkandy in Cannanore (now Kannur) district of Kerala, and this estate become Asia's largest cinnamon estate.

The British took control of the island from the Dutch in 1796. However, the importance of the monopoly of Ceylon was already declining, as cultivation of the cinnamon tree spread to other areas, the more common cassia bark became more acceptable to consumers, and coffee, tea, sugar, and chocolate began to outstrip the popularity of traditional spices.

The Dutch Period in Ceylon is a term used synonymously for the period, and the area of Ceylon or Sri Lanka that was controlled by the Dutch from 1685-1798 and their rule.

In the 1600s, Sri Lanka was partly ruled by the Portuguese invaders and the Sinhala Kingdom, who were constantly battling each other. Although the Portuguese were not winning the war, their rule was rather burdensome to the people of those areas controlled by them. The Dutch were engaged in a long war of independence from Spanish rule. In that background, Sinhala King (Kandyan King) invited the Dutch to help defeat the Portuguese. The Dutch interest in Ceylon was to have a united battle front against the Iberians at that time.

After the Sri Lankans betrayal of the Dutch, the Dutch invaded parts of Sri Lanka. They retained an area as compensation for the cost of war and gradually extended their land. The Dutch gained control of the coastline, but later the colonial English rulers succeeded them. The Dutch and English each ruled for approximately 150 years.

I won't go into why cinnamon was so valuable in ancient times. It should suffice to say that medicinal herbs and spices were in great demand and short supply.

Wild Ceylon Junglefowl

Since ancient times, the enigmatic Ceylon Junglefowl has been symbolic of this fabled island and of cinnamon itself.
The Ceylon Junglefowl was first introduced to the Egyptians during the 16th Century B.C. (!) and we can discuss this and the origins of the Fayoumi at some future point on another thread.

Veddah tribals cooking a meal
In the course of much more recent times, within 17th Century A.D. – during the heyday of European exploration and colonization, enterprising Vedda (aboriginal people of the island of Sri Lanka) began the long and arduous process of select breeding a unique fighting gamecock found nowhere else in the world. Even though they were Sri Lanka’s original inhabitants, the Vedda found themselves increasingly marginalized. They were losing ground within Sri Lanka, as rival cultures from southern and north Eastern India warred over who would rule over their island. There was little real stability of regimes from one century to the next and the Veddah were true forest people. In fact, the Veddah were the last survivors of a nearly extinct peoples that once lived from Southern India all the way to Indonesia. The Veddah are related to Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals and had lived in the region since the dawn of humankind. At any rate, no sooner had the Veddas’ loyalties played out with one master, the next warring faction would conquer and subsume all that the preceding kingdom had accrued. The Veddah were increasingly seen as subhuman savages.

Sri Lankan Cultures from Left: Singhalese; Kandi Aristocracy; Malay ethnic
As Europeans arrived and established powerful trading industries based upon spice, tea and other Sri Lankan commodities, the Vedda were quick to find a niche to maintain relevance with the latest most powerful cultures to conquer their island.

Veddah man with Dutch Expatriot

Aristocratic Dutch and later British spice traders and their work crews took up the sport of gamefighting and gambling as men were given to in that era throughout the world. Trends would come and go with the value of fighting game stock. The wealthiest amongst these men purchased the best birds and like rare gun and race horse collectors of our present day, men of means began seeking out the most exceedingly rare stock. Lineages that came with great fanfare and records of unfettered triumph in the pit. Of course the more ambitious men sought out those rarest of fighting games that belonged to the King of Kandy himself. The Vedda provided these birds at no little this risk of peril, for this particular jeweled gamecock belonged only to the kings of Sri Lanka, and even then, different kingdoms within the island guarded it jealously as invaluable treasure. These gamecocks could not be owned by Sri Lankans much less European colonialists and so a brisk black market trade was soon under way. This very rarest and most exquisite of the fighting cocks were rumoured to have plumage like the finest silk and satin bedecked with precious jewels- and so on. The best of these games were known for their brilliant coral red or pink legs and fierce fighting disposition. Their fighting capacities were rumoured to be as hot as flame-hot as the most pungent and spicy cinnamon oil. They were often dobbed with the oil to accentuate their resplendence.

Though it was known by the Veddah as the Parakrama Bahu gamecock; the white variant called Kirikoraha gamecock, the Dutch would rename the splendid bird the King Kandy. It was not a particularly large bird, no heavier than a Fayoumi. Its plumage reportedly 'glowed like garnets and rubies' with facial skin ' the deepest blood crimson'; though as I understand it, a cockerel with a blazing yellow face was even more highly prized. This unusual trait was inherited,no doubt, from the wild Ceylon rooster's comb. This may seem an unlikely trait but we see remnants of the Green Junglefowl's characteristic electric blue comb on the face of every Silky Fowl.

By the time the Dutch had shoved the Portuguese from Sri Lanka, the entire population of this precious game fighter belonged only to Prince Mahastana, selectively bred exclusively for his use. According to legend, it had originally been developed by Vedda mystics in the Sitawaka Kingdom a few hundred years earlier (also within Sri Lanka) under the dutiful tutelage of Malay ethnics.

Malay ethnics have been in Sri Lanka for many thousands of years. They are an Austronesian people, originally from South East Asia. They conquered Indonesia some ten thousand years ago. Subsequently, Austronesians traveled along the coasts of southern Asia from the Philippines to Sri Lanka (and eventually all the way to Madagascar -they were also the ancestors of the Polynesians). The Austronesian always carried dogs, pigs and most importantly domestic fowl- on their special outrigger canoes. In this instance, the Ethnic Malay (what the western Austronesians were known as before the term Austronesian was coined by anthropologists in the 20th century) carried Indonesian Fighting Games to Sri Lanka and Southern India. These Bankivoid Games were primary ancestors of the Indian prototype of the Asil.
These Indonesian Games were also a primary ancestor of the Ceylon sired King Kandy games.
Whereas the female proto-Asil of India and Pakistan were paired (deep in antiquity) with Grey Junglefowl sires to produce yellow skinned/legged Asil;
In Sri Lanka, the female Indonesian Game were paired with Ceylon Junglefowl sires to produce pink skinned/legged King Kandy Asils.

Getting back on track here, Ethnic Malays brought the best Indonesian Games to the royal court of the Sitawaka kingdom at some point in 16th Century A.D. The Sitawaka were highly suspicious of foreigners, especially Ethnic Malays. Consequently, Vedda mystics were entrusted with the husbandry of the Malay's fighting games. As nature would have it, wild Ceylon Junglefowl males ended up breeding with the Indonesian (Bankivoid) hens. Very few chicks hatched and those that did were often very diminutive. Others took after their mothers- the large, lanky Bankivoid Games. Those that took after the fighting game in size were given one name and select bred using one regime. Those that were very small were given a different name and select-bred in a different direction. Wholly white individuals were quite common in these hybrid strains and at that point in the development of the domestic fowl, it was considered very unusual. Lineages bred from larger stock refined through recombination with Asil would eventually become the primary founders of the Malay Fighting Game but that is a different topic altogether.

From what is described from 17th Century -the selection regime utilized by the Vedda to produce the King Kandy was quite complex.
Firstly, a Ceylon JF was persuaded to mate with a Bankivoid Gamehen.
Secondly, an F1 female (Ceylon X Bankivoid Game) was bred to a male Bankivoid Gamecock.
Subsequently, the next generation of progeny were produced by pairing F1 males (Ceylon X Bankivoid Game) on F2 females (Bankivoid Game X Ceylon x Bankivoid Game).
Apparently, this had a tendency to decrease fecundity problems- as hybrids between Ceylon and domestic fowl are only partially fertile with ~ 50% of males being fertile and~ 5%-10% females being fecund. This selective breeding- termed staggered selection amongst half siblings tended to not only produce fully fertile progeny within a few generations, it also led to the phenomenon of dark russet eggs. Evidentally the Ceylon Junglefowl hen's aptitude to produce spotted, blotched and freckled eggs was passed on in her hybrid progeny and accentuated through backcrossing.
Any hen produced through this staggered selection process that happened to produce a dark russet egg was crowned queen. Every one of her eggs would be hatched, and the darkest eggs were coveted like sapphires. In the event that a male chick hatched from a dark russet egg, it was bred back to its mother. Each generation of new male progeny would be bred back to the 'queen' until whatever generation produced hens that almost invariably produced russet eggs.
The King Kandy was reputed to be the greatest of pit fighters but its life span was almost invariably cut short- dieing within a year or even just a few months of life- an unfortunate trait the Vedda attributed to its supposedly divine origins. This high mortality was probably due to the high% Ceylon JF genes. Ceylon JF are exceedingly vulnerable to pulloram and other bacterium common in domestic poultry yards. Typical domestic poultry are largely immune to these bacterium and so act as carriers and reservoirs, so any exposure to Asil or other fighting games would lead to the death of the King Kandy. It should be noted too, that the King Kandy Game was often outcrossed onto larger games. This introgression served to bank the multiple generations of select breeding thateventually led to the creation of the King Kandy Asil (White Asil) and the original Malay.



Dutch Spice Traders carried this rare fighter (most likely the King Kandy Asil vs the original King Kandy wild type game) from Sri Lanka to the Netherlands where it would be mated with new generations of beloved local if otherwise unexceptional lines of European and NE Asian domestic hens. As the Langshan and Cochin were quite popular at this time in Europe, it was just a matter of time before the King Kandy Asil and original Malay genes introgressed the East Asian stock leading to the creation of the Barnesvelder. If one looks carefully, they can recognize characteristic patterns of the Ceylon Junglefowl female in the plumage of the Barnesvelder hen. The more striking resemblence the Barnesvelder has to the Ceylon JF is to be seen in its chicks and juveniles. Look for the unusual barring and russet pigmentation.

Now, moving to the next stage in the development of the dark brown egg, we wade a bit further out- closer in time to the present, when the British controlled Sri Lanka's spice and tea commodities and trade. By this time the royal families of Sri Lanka were history and the value of the King Kandi had been eclipsed by a new strain of Asil called the Firecracker by British expatriates and by any number of local names by the local Singhalese. It was and is still known in its finest form as the Ayam Katai in Bali to this very day. This was a new composite between 'improved' that is- well bred lines of Indian Asil crossed onto Indonesian Bantams with King Kandy Asils sires. The Firecracker tended to be quite small, as bantams were all the rage at this point in time. There were larger versions as well and we can't know with any certainty, which strains made it onto the British cargo ships- winners of months long, sea-borne fighting competitions to be dumped surreptitiously into the marshy countryside in the Port of Marans. But if we look carefully at the Marans we can just recognize some of the Ayam Katai traits. The first trait that comes to mind of course, is the dark russet egg. The second characteristic is the red or pink leg. There are more similarities that I hope you can ascertain for yourselves and describe here.

In the photographs below, different stages in the development of specific breeds, which originated in Dutch and or British Ceylon - one can appreciate if they look carefully-
there are certain traits -not the least which being the dark brown and or variably spotted egg that are accrued from Ceylon JF ancestors.
If one looks more closely, other distinctive traits not exhibited in Red JF like laced plumage and specific comb types, leg colours, violet tail coverts- may become more obvious.

Stage 1. Initial Hybridization

Wild Ceylon Junglefowl male, note morphology of comb, wattles and gular lappet.

Primitive Game Hen analagous with Proto-Game carried to Sri Lanka by Malay Ethnics~6,000 years ago.
Ceylon X Game produces:

F1 Hybrid Ceylon X Gamehen (Onagadori Site photograph) note lacing and colouration of female

Stage 2. Recombination with backcrossing selecting from egg colour

A. King Kandy Garnet, (Parakrama Bahu gamecock) select-bred between F1 males and F2 females; Subsequent backcrossing through selection for red eggs.

bred with Proto-Asil female( photo Josh Del):

B. Produces:

Kandy White Asil, (Kirikoraha gamecock) note the morphology of comb, wattles and gular lappet.


Stage 3. Introgression of Stage #2 B stock onto East Asiatic breeds

produces (eventually through generations of careful selective breeding)

Barnesvelder from http://hillsidepoultry.net/ (!)
[/b]

Stage # 4. Introgression of Stage # 2 A. into 2 B.

Ayam Katai, Bankivoid Game with King Kandy, Indian Asil and Indonesian Game founders.

Stage 5. Recombination of Stage #4 stock onto large dual purpose Europeanized East Asian stock

Gatinaise

A. Local Fowl exhibiting traits, which belie Ceylon JF genetic introgression

Village rooster photographed in the street of Colombo Sri Lanka. Note the shape of the comb- the barely visible
'window' in the centre of the comb- vestiges of violet tail coverts, coral striped in the legs- and the small crest-
the Ceylon JF is the only species with a crest- however tiny and insignificant it may seem-note too the colour of the undercarriage
B. European Breed exhibiting traits which belie more distant Ceylon JF genetic introgression

French Marans coque, note colour of legs and undercarriage.

Partridge Wynadotte exhibits plumage patterns and colour of Ceylon X Game female. From Glen Stockdale Poultry UK.

The origin of the dark brown egg is not just the presence of a few Ceylon JF genes in the woodpile, but rather the exhaustive process of a specific form of selective breeding utilizing the Ceylon JFs unique genes- to produce richly pigmented eggs.

The Ceylon Junglefowl is possibly the least disease resistant of any of the Junglefowl species. The creation of one Firecracker probably came at the deaths of dozens that died along the way. Fertility was spotty until the seventh or eight generation- and there was no guarantee that the rooster produced had the fighting spirit either.
-So- we have the Ceylon JF, Cinnamon; the Dutch and later British Colonialists to thank for importing the genetics responsible for very dark eggs into Europe.

If you have Marans, Barnsevelder, Welsumer, Penedesencas- try backcrossing instead of line breeding and limit the oystershell - sprinkle it on top of the feed but don't provide it all the time.​

 

[kathyinmo]

Boy, I love this thread!

Do tell more! Thank you for taking the time to post this information!

 

[Bantimna]

Great info. I love this class.

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
Why limit the oyster shell? I thought it best to offer it free choice, rather than sprinkle it on the feed, or both. Does it affect the coloring of the egg?

 

[Resolution]

Quote:
Why limit the oyster shell? I thought it best to offer it free choice, rather than sprinkle it on the feed, or both. Does it affect the coloring of the egg?

As I understand it, yes, the more calcium in the diet, the less pigment the bird needs to produce to coat its shell. I know one breeder of Penedesencas - a Basque woman- that grows garlic in her garden that she encourages to bolt. The little popcorn seed shaped bulbils are what she insists give her eggs their glossy shine and produce the coffee tinted egg shells.
There may well be something to these claims. Many of the Marans and Barnesvelder breeders that I visited in Marans France and in Zug Switzerland -that enter their eggs into competitions- they had these garlic flower heads hanging up to dry and/or had them mixed into their grain mixture. I noted too that no processed pellets or mashes were provided-only whole grains and as mentioned earlier, biproducts of mollusc fishing and cooking. We cannot afford to risk giving the birds and their handlers botulism or have them suffer from nutrient deficient diets so the best thing to do is to procure the best extruded kibble for birds available mix it with whole grain- whole corn- whole wheat- whole millet- a few peas- don't use soybeans if you can help it though. Mazuri sells an exotic pheasant kibble you could mix 50/50 with a whole grain scratch mixture.
As for calcium- just put it out sparingly- as I understand it- increasing animal protein ( always increase animal fat when increasing animal protein levels) without increasing calcium in the diet leads to darker egg shells. To insure against soft shelled eggs and egg binding, bake egg shells in the oven until burned dark brown, grind up and apply just a few teaspoons per bird as a topping over special treats like squash guts and cooked vegetable left overs once a week or so. One can also increase the production of the pigments by supplementing the diet with raw garlic, fresh ground cinnamon, whole peppercorns and raw ginger. The trick will be to get the hens to eat these supplements. What I would do is crack open a big can of low sugar fruit like pears or peaches- cranberry sauce even better- mix in generous proportions of minced raw garlic, crushed red pepper, whole peppercorns, grated up raw ginger and a whole bunch of ground cinnamon, lastly mix in a whole cup of granola- or wild bird seed- or an inexpensive breakfast cereal- don't feed anything else the morning before- as in skip a feeding and then give them their spice stew. They'll get accustomed to it and it does bring them antioxidants and micronutrients they would normally never ingest in a henhouse or even free ranging in the garden- these are materials that wild junglefowl gorge on to rid themselves of parasites and maintain healthy gut flora.

so
1. increase animal protein- in a consistent, reliable and sanitary manner
if nothing else is available utilize a dried cat food- mix ~25% cat food into the dry ingredient feed mix.
2. increase animal fat- in a consistent, reliable and sanitary manner-put out a high quality suet cake or
fresh suet from your butcher or farm once every other week or so
3. increase the intake of antioxidant rich feedstuffs like cranberry, peanuts,garlic, cinnamon, pepper etc.
4. eliminate processed mashes, crumbles, pellets and replace with whole grain and an extruded kibble-(see # 1.)
5. revisit calcium supplementation regime - replace oystershell and calcium carbonate with nutritional sources- kale and dandelion during warm months- almonds all year round.

 

[kathyinmo]

Well, it can't hurt, so maybe it will help! Heck, it's worth a try, even if just to experiment with.

My Marans are still young, not yet laying. It'll be awhile ....

<<<< off to buy raw garlic, raw ginger, cranberries, cinnamon, etc..... >>>>