Lavender marans project

[Doublete]

Questions:

Picking up lavender marans chicks...
looking to continue the marans quality with the lavender color.
I am of the understanding they were creating using bcm over a lav orp.

Soooo.. do I wait til they grow up... pick the best of the group... cross them together and then cross the best of THEM to a black (birchen or copper?) marans. I could pick a bcm with the least amount of copper...

 

[nicalandia]

Questions:

Picking up lavender marans chicks...
looking to continue the marans quality with the lavender color.
I am of the understanding they were creating using bcm over a lav orp.

Soooo.. do I wait til they grow up... pick the best of the group... cross them together and then cross the best of THEM to a black (birchen or copper?) marans. I could pick a bcm with the least amount of copper...

Why just stop with "Black/Lavender"? How about Lavender Copper Marans? How about Lavender Salmon Marans? have some contrasting colors

 

[GaryDean26]

Questions:

Picking up lavender marans chicks...
looking to continue the marans quality with the lavender color.
I am of the understanding they were creating using bcm over a lav orp.

Soooo.. do I wait til they grow up... pick the best of the group... cross them together and then cross the best of THEM to a black (birchen or copper?) marans. I could pick a bcm with the least amount of copper...

I worked with Marans for 5-6 years. I worked with my original line for 3 years. I believed it was a good line but every time I would point out common flaws and ask what others were seeing and what they did to improve the quality they told me that my flock was junk and that I need to cull everything I had and start over. I didn't do that but in the 4th year I did get stock from some of these people that claimed that they didn't have flaws. Guess what? They were full of themselves. I worked with stock from 7 different breeders and I only found one like that I like half as much as my original line. Quality in Marans is not automatic. Some of the problems that I saw were 1) small eggs, 2) hens that laid fewer than 160 eggs in their first year of production, 3) pullets that didn't start laying until there were more than 8 months old 4) black coppers with white undercoats 5) black coppers with white tips feathers of with more than one inch of positive white (i.e. wing feathers, tail feathers, shank feathers 6) Black Coppers that were carrying extended black, wheaten, eB and other recessive color flaws 7) high tails, 8) narrowbodies, 9) weak hocks, 10) heart problems in males, 11) curved backs, 12) upward sloping backs, 13) short backs, etc... The biggest criticisms was always egg color. My flock would start laying a nice #5 to #6 but would lighten up to as much as a number 3 after laying 5 eggs a week for 3-4 months. Others tried to reduce the number of eggs their hens laid to one day on one day off so the color wouldn't fad as fast and most claimed their egg color never faded, but ALL seven lines we worked with (even the ones that swore up and down that egg color never faded) did. THe hens that only laid 3 eggs a week would take twice as long to fade color since they were laying half as many eggs but anything that can lay at least 4 eggs a week in their first year of production was useless to me and a cull. Others claimed that their eggs were a #8, #9, or even one person swore up and down that they were getting a #10. When I questioned him on that informing him that the Marans Scale only went up to a #9 he told me I was told by others that the eggs were a #10. So...it should be too surprising that of the 7 lines I got that most started out laying a #4-#5 eggs. The ever best lines I found would get about 6 out of 8 hens laying a #5 and about one out of 8 hens laying a #6 and about one out of eight laying a #7. I kept probably 100 Marans hens to laying age and only ever had one hen that laid a #8 consistently at the beginning of her laying cycle. We breed her for three years and every year at the beginning of the season she would pop out about 4 #8's then her color would fade to a #7, then a #6. She laid 5-6 eggs a week (and they were XL to Jumbo) and most of the laying cycle they would hold a #5-#6. I would have to go through 1000 hens to find another hen like that.

So Marans Quality is not something that requires a lot of hard work. It requires line breed and lot of culling. Crossing the Marans to other breeds ruins them. I know a man that spent 5 years trying to regain the dark egg color in Marans after an outcross and was never able to get it so he culled his flock. A color that is created by outcrossed to other breeds like the Orpington would probablly require about 20 years of line breeding to get back to the quality that the line had before it was crossed. The Lavendars are a Project variety. The goal should be to improve quality because they are not up to par with other varieties.

I personally would let them all grow up, pick the best and set up your breeding lines from inside the group. I would not cross them to other varieties (i.e. Birchen or Black Copper). For the Lavender color, you are going to want a silver base and extended black primary color pattern. The birchen is silver based but is has the Birchen color pattern with you don't want. The Black Coppers are gold based, birchen, and have mahogany that you don't want in your lavendars. Progress is going to progress the fastest by working within the closed group. The easiest breeding plan would be to breed you best cockerel to the best pullets the first year. The rule of thumb is to only breed the top 10% of the flock. Two hens would be enough and make a nice trio. You can keep everyone else in a laying flock (but not breed them). In the second year you use two pens and put the best pullets (top 10%) back to their father and the best cockerel back to the hens breed in the first year. Then every year after that you put pullets in the pullet pen with a cock over 2 years old and the cockerel in the hen pen with hens over two years old. At the end of the hatching season, you look at the cock and the cockerel and keep the best (the loser can go to the laying flock as back up). You do the same things with the hens. If you have pullets that are better than the hens you move them to the hen pen if not you rotate pullets to the laying flock. You never keep younger birds unless they are better than older birds but then you get to that point you will rotate the older birds to the laying flock. I know ever successful breeder than only keep two hens and one cockerel in their two pens. Following the 10% rule, you would need to grow up 10 cockerels and 20 pullets every year to get two breeding pullets for the cock pen and one breeding cockerel for the Hen pen.

Hatching a lot and breeding a few is the only way I know to maintain quality in Marans. Good luck the Lavenders are beautiful. IN 3-5 years you should see improvements to start to come through if you follow a solid breeding plan.

 

[nicalandia]

A color that is created by outcrossed to other breeds like the Orpington would probably require about 20 years of line breeding to get back to the quality that the line had before it was crossed.

I vehemently disagree with you.

 

[Doublete]

Why just stop with "Black/Lavender"? How about Lavender Copper Marans? How about Lavender Salmon Marans? have some contrasting colors

I’m not taking this seriously and if you aren’t being helpful please don’t reply To my post

 

[nicalandia]

I’m not taking this seriously and if you aren’t being helpful please don’t reply To my post

Sure no problem.

 

[Doublete]

@GaryDean26 thank you!
That’s a lot of info and going to be a lot of work. I have friends with very good marans (8 eggs) that they work very hard to keep.

 

[ColtHandorf]

You realize @nicalandia has a ridiculously large amount of knowledge as it pertains to genetics in chickens and you just basically told them you didn't need or want their help? You have no idea how helpful Nicalandia is. Someone shouldn't need to apologize for being excited about genetics and giving you ideas for adding Lavender into other color patterns, but people being outright rude should. I personally am going to be trying for Silver-laced Lavender Orpingtons once my birds are old enough to breed. Patterned Lavender birds can be gorgeous as both Nicalandia and @The Moonshiner could both tell you in addition to telling you how to achieve it.

 

[The Moonshiner]

There's always different options when breeding especially project birds.
I'll give mine since it is completely opposite of the one poster above.
I would absolutely breed to marans and not stay "inside the group"
The group I'm sure has faults/flaws as well as lacking in egg color. Why in the world someone would work entirely within that group is beyond me. And I could surely see it taking many many years to get to decent egg color again.
I would find the absolute best marans you can find and use them. Solid blacks would be the obvious choice if you want straight lavenders. Birchen or BCM can be used but it means producing a lot more chicks and producing a lot of instant throw away chicks. I can get into that part later if you would like.
Anyways, pick the best lavender chicks and then breed to the marans to produce split to lavender offspring. Breed those splits together and pick the best lavender chicks (you'll only produce around 25% lavenders) breed those to the marans then repeat repeat repeat.
I would stay with your same line of marans without bringing in different ones all the time.
I have went through the same thing with Isabel leghorns using brown leghorns to make splits.
I watched others maintain using their first group of isabels without bringing in browns and they continued to produce the same flaws year after year after year and yes they did produce lots of chicks to pick breeders from.

 

[Doublete]

You realize @nicalandia has a ridiculously large amount of knowledge as it pertains to genetics in chickens and you just basically told them you didn't need or want their help? You have no idea how helpful Nicalandia is. Someone shouldn't need to apologize for being excited about genetics and giving you ideas for adding Lavender into other color patterns, but people being outright rude should. I personally am going to be trying for Silver-laced Lavender Orpingtons once my birds are old enough to breed. Patterned Lavender birds can be gorgeous as both Nicalandia and @The Moonshiner could both tell you in addition to telling you how to achieve it.

It sounded very sarcastic. Like what I was suggesting is not reasonable. So I took offense to it.