Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[ashandvine]

I have never had that problem. My Marans get bigger than all the other chicks quick. I feel that marans need more protein than normal breeds of chickens. All my chickens actually get higher protein, but Marans in general need more. Try upping it with some eggs or something. I up mine with spent barley (very high in protein) at about that same age they are still on starter. So really I am no help.... but give them some eggs.

I know this was from a while ago but I want to know if higher proteins are ever bad for chickens like they are for water fowl? The littles here are on a grower/crumble but its a lower protein to accommodate the ducks and geese here. I will supplement if I should. I know they get 'meaty' so it would make sense to supplement. Spelt? Where does that come from? I have safflower here.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote: I imagine too much of anything is not going to be good. But I supplement with extra protein nearly every day.
Some things I feed are:
scrambled eggs with shells and all (when I get dirty eggs I save them for the chickens)
boiled chopped liver
meal worms
canned cat food
table meat scraps
cut up and boil fish scraps when my husband catches fish
cottage cheese that sat in the fridge too long
and on and on.. it is usually something different every day.
Right now I am giving them chopped up boiled pork chops. They sat in my fridge and I forgot to cook them until a day late...so chickens!

Oh and I almost forgot.. every day they get a big scoop of black oil sunflower seeds. My birds cannot free range to catch their own bug proteins so I gotta bring it to them.
Hope that helps... wait.. was that more info than you asked for?

 

[DMRippy]

Quote: Are you asking about the spent barley? It is what is left after they make beer. I get it from a brewery in town. FREE.... they just have to throw it away and it makes great feed.

 

[3riverschick]

Spelt? Where does that come from?
--------------------
Spelt is a primitive wheat. Basically it is wheat before 1950 when scientists started hybriizing wheat. Wheat is a grain which picks up and keeps both sets of DNA when two strains are crossed. The book, Wheat Belly explains all this. From the 1700;s thru 1950 folks basically ate spelt. That's one reason you don't remember a lot of pot belly people from your grandmother's generation. After several instances of hybridizing, the number of chromosomes in wheat became so large, the human body began to react against the wheat instead of utilizing it like a feed. One result of this reactive situation was that the body started to put on belly fat. This is why folks who work so hard to lose weight often have a belly fat they just can't seem to shed. Drop the wheat, use spelt instead and lose the belly fat.
Modern wheat also tends to make folks sleepy after they eat it. Spelt isn't known for this effect. There are several companies like Red Mill who sell spelt, but unless you are growing it, it looks to me like it would be too expensive for chicken feed.
Best,
Karen
Spelt doesn't raise as high and fluffy as modern wheat flour. But it has a warm nutty flavor which is very enticing. If baking with spelt, just use an old-time cookbook printed before 1950. I use the Settlement Cookbook , 1941 edition. I believe the earlier editions reach back as far as circa 1900.

 

[Arielle]

Thank you so much. I am trying to read most of this thread but its slow going. The pics in the begining are great. I have another question:
Does the eye color on the littles mean anything? Has anyone followed their young long enough to know if they green/grey eye colors indicate gene traits or grow up to have melanizer or straw coloring... you know the drill.

Great question. I have no idea. I just check eye color when they are over 6 months. Intersting questions--hope someone has been paying more attention than I have.

Quote: ANimals will not grow to their full potential if they do not get the amount of protein they need. I feed my ducks seperately from my chickens when they were growing up. As adults my muscovy are off in the woods digging up leave litter looking for goodies and later stop by the layer pellets for a fillup.

If you short the chickens, they will not grow as quickly as they should. If you feed too much, they will grow to their genetic maximum but not more.

 

[Arielle]

Spelt? Where does that come from?
--------------------
Spelt is a primitive wheat. Basically it is wheat before 1950 when scientists started hybriizing wheat. Wheat is a grain which picks up and keeps both sets of DNA when two strains are crossed. The book, Wheat Belly explains all this. From the 1700;s thru 1950 folks basically ate spelt. That's one reason you don't remember a lot of pot belly people from your grandmother's generation. After several instances of hybridizing, the number of chromosomes in wheat became so large, the human body began to react against the wheat instead of utilizing it like a feed. One result of this reactive situation was that the body started to put on belly fat. This is why folks who work so hard to lose weight often have a belly fat they just can't seem to shed. Drop the wheat, use spelt instead and lose the belly fat.
Modern wheat also tends to make folks sleepy after they eat it. Spelt isn't known for this effect. There are several companies like Red Mill who sell spelt, but unless you are growing it, it looks to me like it would be too expensive for chicken feed.
Best,
Karen
Spelt doesn't raise as high and fluffy as modern wheat flour. But it has a warm nutty flavor which is very enticing. If baking with spelt, just use an old-time cookbook printed before 1950. I use the Settlement Cookbook , 1941 edition. I believe the earlier editions reach back as far as circa 1900.

Karen,

Love the details on wheat.

I haven't tracked down the Wheat Belly book yet; I'm always looking to learn more about our foods. The sleepy feeling also goes along with years of eating the wrong carbs, causes overreactive insulin swings. Love Red Mill--good flax seed source too. I don't eat a lot of wheat products just because of the high carbs my body over reacts to, but I love that my kids may be healthier by eating spelt instead of the more common wheat flours.

Too expensive to feed the chickens, but maybe other sources have this available in bulk.

For my non-freeranging birds, due to breeding pens, I also feed chopped grass (1/2-1 inch) as well as their feed.

 

[blackbirds13]

This is fascinating! I have got to look into this more.

 

[ashandvine]

What incredibly quick and complete answers. The funny part is that I knew spelt was a grain but I wasn't sure where I could find it... outside maybe a whole wallet grocer... I mean whole foods

I wonder about spelt from the brewery. We have micros here and I was part of a club. I never thought about saving it for anything other than compost before. Brewers yeast is very good for MANY reasons, especially for the geese, so I will ask around and see what I can get.

Christie: mine do free range but they also get table scraps like yours and most recently the buffet of Japanese Beetles that have invaded. My son loves the job of going out in the morning while the bugs are groggy and pushing them into a jar. The chickens RUN to get these, even the littlest Marans. Chicken keep away is funny no matter how big or small they are.

So, the eye question remains an unknown... alright.
Now, what about tails and toes. Tails should be short as far as I understand the SOP and so I am looking at my littles and trying to choose the heaviest girls with short tails. (I still see black viking ships) Cockerels have almost no tail at all right now. (I now see them as miniscule ostriches in all black) They do have nice long necks though!
Toes need to be long. If the outside toe is short is this a fault or DQ?
BEAKS? I know nothing about those.

 

[blackbirds13]

What incredibly quick and complete answers. The funny part is that I knew spelt was a grain but I wasn't sure where I could find it... outside maybe a whole wallet grocer... I mean whole foods

I wonder about spelt from the brewery. We have micros here and I was part of a club. I never thought about saving it for anything other than compost before. Brewers yeast is very good for MANY reasons, especially for the geese, so I will ask around and see what I can get.

Christie: mine do free range but they also get table scraps like yours and most recently the buffet of Japanese Beetles that have invaded. My son loves the job of going out in the morning while the bugs are groggy and pushing them into a jar. The chickens RUN to get these, even the littlest Marans. Chicken keep away is funny no matter how big or small they are.

So, the eye question remains an unknown... alright.
Now, what about tails and toes. Tails should be short as far as I understand the SOP and so I am looking at my littles and trying to choose the heaviest girls with short tails. (I still see black viking ships) Cockerels have almost no tail at all right now. (I now see them as miniscule ostriches in all black) They do have nice long necks though!
Toes need to be long. If the outside toe is short is this a fault or DQ?
BEAKS? I know nothing about those.

Hey! what's up?

I am looking at the Marans I have left and think I will not make any culling decisions for about another month as I am still not positive on the sex of one or two but leaning towards ROO. If they are like the ones I have left they are still feathering out so unless they have obvious faults I'd wait and watch. I have a couple males I am thinking might be early culls as their feet are still pretty white/pink looking while other have darkened up quite a bit - one is that guy that was already sporting color on his hackle and front neck-breast area - he may be an early cull....
I have one guy that is nice and large, good red comb and nice feathered shanks and toe...I'm hoping he's my keeper as I know he hatched out of those nice dark ebay eggs. I have a female that is really really small - almost the size of my 3 week old Legbar chicks. She is just not growing, she is feathering out and she is super dark all over. She was never really white anywhere but gray when she hatched. She is one of my Bev Davis chicks...
Just watching and waiting for a bit. Last year was my first with Marans and I have to admit that at about 12 - 17 weeks is when I did most of my culling decisions. There were a few I culled early because of slow growth - size, slow feathering but I had to wait until I was sure I knew what I knew to look for. I'm looking right now for size and growth rate. I am sure that others have more pointers on what else to be on the look out for as they grow. Some stuff you just have to wait for.

 

[Arielle]

double post.