Bantam Marans adventure

[Heidi]

We are all waiting to see your new beautiful bantam marans chicks..... How did the hatch go?

 

[flgardengirl]

Yeah I was wondering how it went as well. Hope you got lot of cute little babies!!

 

[EweSheep]

Ditto!

 

[xyresicchick]

Hello all. Sad news, 3 of the chicks out of the 6 eggs did not make it to hatch. I don't know what happened, my incubator had a perfect hatch last time, and they were fine until the last few days. I just don't know why, but they all died without even pipping

I wonder if the shells were too hard or something.

There is good news though... and it is that there are now 3 BEAUTIFUL baby Marans Bantams in my flock!!!!!!!

And better news is that two of them are from the two darkest eggs!

The other chick is actually from the lightest egg (go figure) but at least I have the two darker egg babies to compensate... heeeheee.


I took a photo of two of the chicks last night. I didn't take the other out of the incubator yet -- not fluffy enough. but i will do a photo shoot of the 3 tonight

And now...

For your viewing pleasure...

 

[flgardengirl]

Congrats! Remember all you need is 2 rotfl... but of course they gotta be male and female! They are cute babies!! Are those spots on thier heads or just light reflecting? They kind of look like cuckoos in the pic.

ETA: Okay I just reread the beginning of the post and saw that cuckoos were a possibility duh lol.

 

[onthespot]

Looks like you have at least one roo, hopefully the one with the smaller spot is a pullet! Since the daddy roo has only one barring gene, it will be a real nail biter waiting for them to grow out!!! If the single gene boy ends up a roo as well, I would LOVE to be first on your waiting list to purchase him! Crossing fingers you get a pair, or better even, a trio!!!

Congratulations on your new babies. They are SWEEEEEET!!!!
I have a bantam (or at least small, half size) Copper Black Marans cockerel right now, plan to work on bantam CBM this year. If I can get mine going, would love to trade eggs with you.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Just reminding... I also still want some bantam marans who produce very dark eggs. Put me on the waiting list too!

 

[onthespot]

For what it's worth, my smaller CBM roo (and a pullet too) hatched from very nice dark eggs as well, around a six or seven or so.

 

[xyresicchick]

Thanks guys!

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW. Bantams Marans do NOT produce very dark eggs! maybe 5 or 6 on the color scale if you are lucky. nothing like the 8 and 9s of the LF Marans. I have one chick from an egg that is probably only a 3 or 4 colorwise.

I am mostly interested in Golden Cuckoo Bantam Marans. If you breed Cuckoo to a BC roo there is a slim possibility for GCuckoo in the f3s but it is so slim. So slim.

I want to work on egg color first, and maybe some olive eggers with my Bantam Lav Ameracauanas. Maybe! maybe!

As far as only needing 2, you ARE right... but I was still sad to find out about the dead ones though. I still had them in the incubator last night thinking "they should be hatched by now..." I even tried to listen in on the egg and no tapping, peeping, nothing. I knew then, but didn't want to give up yet.... So I left them in.

THEN I was having dreams all night that they hatched! And one time I dreamt there was a white chick from one of the eggs! ha! When I got up this morning I decided not to wait anymore. I gently took my tweezer to the hollow end and poked a hole. I peeled the end back and each and every egg was a completely motionless baby. no movement whatsoever. heartbreaking. I was looking forward to 6 babies. But you are right I only need 2. And if I get all girls at least I will have brown eggs.. And maybe I can try again hatching from this breeder (if they would be open to it). If I have all roos, theres the BYC auction pages and theres also crossing them to LFs!

So it's a win win situation in any way. Hopefully it WILL be a trio though. That would be perfect

As far as color goes, I think I have 2 cuckoo and 1 black. IDK yet, I am not as familiar with Marans chick colors yet. I will post more pics later tonight or this week when I get them and I am sure I will get input on this forum

 

[flgardengirl]

I think you will have a fun project.

So are all bantams created from large fowl? I have a blue marans that has been really small. She had a daughter who is even smaller than she is. Her daughter started laying eggs and is still very petite. About half normal marans size. I really don't think she will grow anymore. She isn't wierd or deformed or dwarfish just little. She is very sweet and full of energy. I am thinking about maybe trying to start blue bantam marans with her but all my males are large.