- Apr 30, 2013
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Thank you, that was very useful infoOne of the easier things with Marans in my opinion. Get yourself a rooster that has great shank and outer toe feathering and maybe even if he has a couple no-no feather stubs on the middle toe and cross him over your best feathered females.......or visa versa...find a female with the good shank and outer toe feathering and maybe even a couple no-no feather stubs on the middle toe.
In my personal experience with clean legged or lightly feathered birds......you have to have atleast one of the parent birds that has great shank and outer toe feathering. It can take alot of test mating and crosses to improve the leg feathering but it can be done.
It is very important to have the good feathering to start out working with even if it is just one bird.
3 genes are involved in leg feathering, 2 dominant and 1 recessive. The 2 dominant genes control the amount and type of shank feathering they get....such as one of the dominant genes produces Langshan shank and toe feathering and the other Brahma shank and toe feathering and the recessive gene is for clean legs.
When 2 birds (even if they have fully feathered shanks and outer toes) are crossed and a clean legged bird is produced in the offspring, both parent birds each carry one copy of the recessive gene. This does not mean that the parent bird is not useable just understand that every now and then you will get a clean legged bird when crossing these 2 particular parent birds together, they will also produce feather shanked birds.....just remember that they (the offspring) get that one copy of the recessive gene no matter what. Keeping notes on who you breed to who and what they produce will help you know who carries what so that you can avoid those crosses later and hopefully avoid getting birds that have the issues you are trying to get away from.
Try not to cross birds together that both have an issue. For example, if you cross a rooster that has only 2 shank feathers on each leg to a pullet that has 4 feathers on one shank and 3 feathers on the other shank or she has just same as the rooster......you will get offspring that mimick their parents.
On the other hand....if you take that same pullet from above and cross her to a rooster that has GREAT shank and outer toe feathering........you will get some chicks with good feathering or better feathering, you will also get some chicks that have the crappy crap that you are trying to work away from.
Hope others come by to give you their advise and or opinions about how they breed for it.
To touch on the blue being in the background and every now and then a blue pops up. There must be a blue bird there now and currently being bred or a blue bird cannot be produced. My guess is that the breeder has a blue bird that is so dark blue that the blue actually appears black. I have for very near 5 years been working with Blue Coppers and been working with this very dark blue that appears black. I had a male (was suppose to be Black Copper) that was dark blue- looked black and I used him as the patriarch rooster in my Marans, it can still be tricky from time to time discerning the very dark blue from the black. Blue can vary, from a very light blue... to the so dark it looks "black" blue. When these very dark blue birds are bred to a black bird they can produce more blue birds that appear black and not knowing how the blue gene works or how to spot it on maturing birds, it is very easy to think they are all black birds. If this young gal came from Black Copper parents....guaranteed one of the parents is not Black Copper, but Blue Copper. When the breeder thinks one is just popping up every now and then, it's only because the shade of blue came through a lighter blue so it was noticed. 
