marans egg color

[hdowden]

thats what we are thinking. i'm gonna try and find the ad (off of ebay) might take me a few mins

 

[hdowden]

if they knew the eggs were gonna be that light they would have never bid on them but again will have to try and find the ad

 

[hdowden]

i'm gonna have to wait till my mom gets back from lake chales to get the ad info

 

[hdowden]

heres what the eggs were supposed to look like...

 

[flgardengirl]

ok my parents received an order of marans eggs that are like a 2-3 on the scale for them. the seller says the pullets from those eggs should lay eggs that are 7-8 on the scale. is that even possible from such light eggs? the pics that said seller has posted are all 7-8 on the scale kinda upset that the eggs received were lighter than the advertised eggs

I have some girls that regularly lay an 8-9 and there is no way they ever lay a 3 or 4 or even 5, even when heavily into the laying cycle and they lay all year except the hottest months (July/August in FL). The most they lighten down to is a 6-7 and hardly ever unless its just some funky egg lol. Sooo yeah, I think they are full of it.

 

[flgardengirl]

the eggs advrtised were dark like the top two on the right. these look more like welsummer/production red type eggs to me...

If you want to try and work with these, mark the chicks that come from those two darkest eggs and maybe the next two darkest eggs (with separate bands than the first two very darkest eggs). If these are indeed Marans, and grow up to be dark laying (hens) and look fairly correct then you will have them marked for egg color. Then you can either breed them together (if you get males and females) or find some others that either lay dark or come from dark eggs (in the case of roos). Breed the male from the darkest egg to the female that is laying darkest. When you get chicks from these, then breed the male from the darkest egg back to the mother etc. Or you can do it daughter to father. I personally use whoever is from/laying the darkest.
If you want marans that lay really dark as well as look correct for the standard, then it is just as important to mark birds for egg color as for appearance etc. I have 2 separate hatchers that I use so I know who is who and only set the darkest of the dark from my flock/s. It is a much longer process when you are also weeding out for apa standard as well as egg color but you will get there.