The leg and beak color looks more like cuckoo Marans to me but the feather pattern looks a bit to tidy for a cuckoo. I’m not really sure what I would call it. Are they laying? If so what is the egg color
Bresse are dominant white so I think a Ayam Cemani rooster and White Bresse hen will make a version of a Zombie. Not as common as using a leghorn but a similar look
They are both dual purpose breeds so I would guess that the first generation hybrid would probably do pretty well because of all the hybrid vigor. F2 and beyond would likely be all over the place in consistency as all of the genes mix together. They are both French breeds so maybe they have some...
Yep, now that I started the Bresse flock I don’t know that I’ll be doing a lot of Marans SOP breeding but definitely want to make some room for some nice dark layers in the breakfast egg crew
I don’t have a lot of first hand knowledge of standard breed Marans. 2 1/2 years ago(before I knew any better) I bought 12 BCM hatching eggs off Craigslist because they were the cheapest I could find within a reasonable driving distance. I put them in a home made incubator and 8 of them hatched...
I typically aim for 16 ish weeks to get them off the feed bill earlier. I did a batch at 14 weeks because I was going on vacation and wanted to take care of it early to make things easier on the chicken sitters. I don’t recommend 14 weeks it hit between molts and plucking pin feathers was...
10 week weight in for the Bresse and I’m very happy with the results so far. They really do look to be growing much faster than my olive Eggers that were in the incubator at the same time. It’s hard to describe but just handling them they feel more fleshy than to OEs. The OEs feel real bony like...
Thanks for sharing that video. It came across my Facebook feed yesterday and I didn’t have time to watch a 1/2 hour video so I scrolled past it. I needed a reminder. Now I need to try Bresse. If all goes well I should be setting eggs in late February or early March and do it first cull sometime...
At sundown all the cockerels went to their own tractor to sleep. We had a bit of drama in the main coop tonight. I think Smokey finally decided she was done brooding her 2 remaining pullets. The pullets were trying to find a spot on the roosting bars and tonight momma didn’t clear a spot for...
The jack-o-lantern carving is going well.
No issues with the cockerels yet. Everyone is just hanging out beside their own tractor and enjoying the sunshine
Thank you, I normally don’t get too worried about the chickens wondering in the corn but the are harvesting that field. They aren’t super close to my house yet but close enough that we’re getting all the noise and dust every time the combine makes a lap.
I decided to try letting all the cockerels run together in shared space. I started by letting each group have the run while the other group was inside their tractor for a day. Today I leg banded one group so I could easily identify which tractor the belong to if I needed to separate them. When I...
I like wide body birds for several reasons. Wide males make better table birds, and are easier to get your hand inside the cavity during processing. Wide females can more easily pass eggs and are less prone to getting egg bound. They can also cover more eggs if you let them hatch eggs. The trade...
I moved the extra cockerels from the main coop into a chicken tractor. There was however one mistake made. One of them got loose and ran into the neighbors corn field. I chased him a couple rows in before deciding that it might be better to stop the chase and hopefully he will come back on his...
When I butchered my first chicken I was a pretty nervous about it. I had cleaned the fish I caught as long as I could remember so I thought it wouldn’t be any different. When the day came it did feel different at first.
As soon as I make the first cut everything just seemed pretty normal to me...
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It all kind of depends on your goals. If you just want a few chicks to replenish your flock and put some of n the freezer then you might get lucky in the first generation and get exactly what you are looking for. If your trying to put a breeding program together with predictable looking...
A black Sire and blue Dam would result in 50% black 50% blue chicks. You can’t really expect to fix the hackle color in one generation but it would definitely get you closer and might result in a few chicks that look correct but it would likely take several generations to really lock in the...
Thanks, my first round of olive Eggers were a bit disappointing because they laid light green. I was still super excited about getting any eggs at all but I paid extra for olive Eggers and they laid the same color as the less expensive Easter Eggers. I put a Marans rooster over them and the...