BCM chicks problems

[enola]

Fused toes are not an incubation problem, they are genetic.

 

[donrae]

I don't know anything about fused or otherwise funky toes, sorry.

I do wheaten Marans are supposed to have white/pink shanks/skin, aren't they? So you may luck out and get some wheatens, even though you wanted black coppers. I'm not sure how good the quality would be, again that's a wait and see kind of thing.

Unfortunately, buying chicks is often a learning curve. You wind up getting birds that are less quality than you'd anticipated, but use it as a learning opportunity and make different choices next time.

 

[Country Marans]

Well, poo. I guess they'll just have to be egg chickens, then. I don't want to have to operate on any more chick feet. I'll take another look at the Marans standard to see about the wheatens, though.

 

[donrae]

You can always raise them up to point of lay and sell them if you're not happy with them. If they lay decently dark eggs, folks love them and are usually willing to pay a decent price for those dark egg laying hens. Re-invest that money into more chicks or hatching eggs

 

[enola]

Very good advice above!

 

[donrae]

Yeah, I like to remind folks that it's okay to sell birds they aren't happy with. With our "pet-oriented" world of forever homes, lots of folks think it's immoral or something to sell an animal once you've had it for so long.

 

[Country Marans]

Wow, that sounds like a great idea! Actually, a relative has been wanting some chickens, I bet she'd love to have them!

Plus I checked with the APA, and the wheatens do have pinkish-white feet! WHAT a relief! If it wasn't for you, I would have really been freaked out when some of my chicks molted out brown instead of black, thanks you guys!!!

 

[Country Marans]

Hey, if anyone is still watching this thread, can I get opinions on another Marans thing? I really like the golden cuckoo Marans, but they're few and far between. Is there any way to breed two colors together to get a golden cuckoo, or do they just come from other cukoos?

 

[enola]

Make sure you check out the egg color if you are after dark chocolate eggs. The cuckoo marans I had 5 years ago didn't lay a dark egg at all. I actually had RIR hens that laid eggs as dark as the cuckoo marans hens.

 

[Country Marans]

Wow. I guess it just goes to show how hard it is to get good breeding stock. Really, I was interested in them for their autosexing function.... Maybe once I get ten million dollars from breeding chickens, I can afford one or two chicks from Greenfire farms. I think I found that you can take a Wheaten and a Barred to get Barred roos and black hens, then you breed those two together and there is a 32nd chance of a gold cuckoo popping up. Chicken calculators are handy.