Let's talk Cuckoo and WHITE marans... breeding strategies...

[Blarneyeggs]

Here are some of the Cuckoo eggs from my pullets that just started laying they are the brown eggs between the dark olive eggs and the white egg with a few bluish green ee eggs underneath.
The 4 eggs on the far left are from my younger solid black marans girls. They are laying darker than their momma! Flash kinda washed everything out grr.

My goodness you've got some dark eggs.

 

[flgardengirl]

Hi thanks. The cuckoo ones will need some work getting them darker for sure. I just have to figure out the best way to go about it lol.
I'm really liking the younger black marans girls eggs they are really a little darker than the pic but still have this reddish tint to them which is really neat. My blue marans that I used to get my blacks don't really have a red tint to their eggs whatsoever although they do lay dark for blues.

..so kinda strange to get the reddish dark eggs lol.

 

[flgardengirl]

My Lone White Girl, she's filling out a little since I switched roos in that pen. Sadly, still no eggs.

She's gorgeous!! She does have those street sweepers going on

 

[flgardengirl]

Flgardengirl~ Do you sell eggs or chicks from your solid Black Marans? I am looking for some that are truly black and not just over melenizied (spl?) I have hatched many that claimed to be blk. just were not and I hear you have the true thing!

Hi I'm not selling any yet and am not even npip. I am just working on getting a good flock of blacks built up and getting them up to some sort of a standard. None of our solid black or blue males or females show any coppering when mature and the egg color is decent on the girls. I am going to keep breeding them for a few years before I sell any.
I have had some of my blues before I ever got any other kind of Marans so have really been working with them the longest and still had a hard time in getting blacks from blue x blue. Then when I did they would be female and not male. I finally got a black male and was so happy
I don't care what the BBS genetics say, it seems kinda hard to get blacks from blues x blues when it comes to the solid colors. I have heard this from other breeders as well so I know its not just me. Come to think of it I don't get many splashes at all from blue x blue matings either hmmm. Also, I have only got male splash -never a female. Maybe they are aliens lol.
I really only wanted to get good solid blacks in order to use them for other projects since they are so versatile but they are really turning out to be neat birds and really pretty. My black girls could use some size. My black roo is really huge now so hopefully it will start rubbing off. He is not the most amorous roo for some reason even though he is young, maybe he has "low T" like in the testosterone commercial haha.
~OK back to the cuckoos and white thread lol. ~

 

[DMRippy]

I got a pullet egg from my new batch of cuckoos and it was a pretty even color of a 5

not spotted like my hens. So EXCITED to see a pretty egg and nice color. Looked more like one of my Copper Marans eggs. Can't wait to see what the others will lay

 

[Hens and Roos]

I got a pullet egg from my new batch of cuckoos and it was a pretty even color of a 5

not spotted like my hens. So EXCITED to see a pretty egg and nice color. Looked more like one of my Copper Marans eggs. Can't wait to see what the others will lay

yeah!!! My girls have started to lay this past week as well- looks like I have 3 out of 4 cuckoos looking at the eggs and the color is different for each one so far.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

She's gorgeous!! She does have those street sweepers going on

Thanks, it means a lot, now she just needs a boyfriend… well, if she has good eggs. With the Solstice right around the corner, we should find out soon!!

 

[flgardengirl]

Even if she doesn't lay dark, just find her a nice white boy..she is too pretty not to breed plus whites are not exactly real common. If you can't find a white roo try and find some eggs from someone with white Marans. Separate the darkest eggs from the lighter ones when you hatch. Put up a barrier or place them in plastic baskets if you have to hatch them in the same incubator. I have two separate foam incubators that I use as hatchers so I can keep the darkest eggs separated.
Mark all the chicks from the darkest eggs (colored zip ties on the legs or however you mark them). Pick the best roo from your darker eggs then mate him to your white hen. Do the same with the next batch and mate her best male chick from the darkest egg color back to her etc.. This is how to get dark egg coloring. I have truly found that the egg color the roo comes from matters as much as the hen's egg color.

These are BCM eggs from some of my darker layers (Cheepa's line) but this is how I did it. These are a little dirty but they are going in the bator and I will still separate out the roos from the darkest egg and use them back to the darkest laying hens.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Thanks, this is great info. I have an order in for some White Marans eggs in the Spring. Perhaps I'll have another coop by then to keep them seperate. Right now she's in with my Orpingtons.

 

[flgardengirl]

Mother to son and *father to daughter seems to work better than brother to sister in my experience. Once you get your line going, try it that way and see what happens.

*corrected due to being brain dead & tired today LOL