Marans Questions

[Chicken_overlord]

Hello!

I'm in the process of attempting to start my own breeding flock of blue copper marans. My rooster is a splash marans that came from Alchemist farms. I also let a hen hatch out a few chicks from a rooster and hen that my mother-in-law has that came from the same lines. These chicks hatched from beautiful dark chocolate eggs and I ended up with a blue and splash pullet to add to the breeding flock. I also purchased a five BCM chicks and lucked out with them all being female. I gifted two to my mother-in-law and kept three.

However, It became clear as they grew that they are not from high quality stock. To my untrained eye, they do seem to have decent body shape. Otherwise, one female has proper feathering down her legs, but has no copper hackles. The other two have the copper, but the leg feathering only goes mid-way down their shanks. My first bcm hen also laid her first two eggs and, unfortunately, they are a terracotta color. The guy i purchased them from showed dark eggs that he was hatching chicks out of, but he could have just selected the best eggs to show off for the ad pictures.

The splash and blue pullets are maturing well (they're only half the age of the bcm pullets), but the splash only holds her tail slightly above horizontal when excited, but usually has it pointing down.

Anyway, my new marans breeding flock clearly has some flaws. Any advice on what to do? I'd hate to start from scratch, but I can probably find a local breeder that sells hatching eggs next spring from higher quality stock. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Debbie292d]

I sort of went through this, and still do, with breeding high-quality silkies. There are different things I look for than you, but the principle is the same. Either we can try to grow those things out or into them, or get rid of that bird or birds and get better ones. I'm 65, so I don't have all day to try to breed things into our out of birds, and wound up selling several hens and roosters that I had paid good money for, via hatching eggs.

Then I bought more hatching eggs and kept the good, sold the not so good. In the end, after about five years, I still have issues with particular ones, so I'll be after a couple of buff chicks or hatching eggs in the spring.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Hello!

I'm in the process of attempting to start my own breeding flock of blue copper marans. My rooster is a splash marans that came from Alchemist farms. I also let a hen hatch out a few chicks from a rooster and hen that my mother-in-law has that came from the same lines. These chicks hatched from beautiful dark chocolate eggs and I ended up with a blue and splash pullet to add to the breeding flock. I also purchased a five BCM chicks and lucked out with them all being female. I gifted two to my mother-in-law and kept three.

Hatch out more numbers, Marans are cull heavy flock.

However, It became clear as they grew that they are not from high quality stock. To my untrained eye, they do seem to have decent body shape.

Study up on the Marans SOP.. Type is most important. Most everything else is an easy fix with the correct balance. We have a Marans thread here that is full of information and great people to help...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...er-marans-thread-breeding-to-the-sop.1122465/

Otherwise, one female has proper feathering down her legs, but has no copper hackles.

She's overmelanized and needs to be paired with a Cock that's overcolored in the chest. This will produce correct hackles in her progeny.

The other two have the copper, but the leg feathering only goes mid-way down their shanks.

Pair these two with Cock that has no chest leakage or very slight, but has correct leg feather or slightly heavy.

My first bcm hen also laid her first two eggs and, unfortunately, they are a terracotta color. The guy i purchased them from showed dark eggs that he was hatching chicks out of, but he could have just selected the best eggs to show off for the ad pictures.

There's no guarantee what color progeny from dark eggs will lay. Find your best Cockbird with a dark egg gene and set you darkest eggs from your best hens.

The splash and blue pullets are maturing well (they're only half the age of the bcm pullets), but the splash only holds her tail slightly above horizontal when excited, but usually has it pointing down.

This sounds good... we want low tail angle, no higher 45 degrees

Anyway, my new marans breeding flock clearly has some flaws. Any advice on what to do? I'd hate to start from scratch, but I can probably find a local breeder that sells hatching eggs next spring from higher quality stock. Any advice is appreciated!

My thought here is your trying to do too much, too soon. Like said above, Marans are a cull heavy breed. I would suggest studying the breed SOP and making sure you got good Type first and foremost, hatch a lot, and cull heavy. You can work with what you have, or start over, that's your choice but you need the best Cock with dark egg gene you can find, he's your foundation if he's got correct body structure. Most everything else is fixable with the correct pairings.

I don't claim to be any sort of expert here as I've only been working with my Marans for 4 years and they're not perfect.

 

[wrathsfarm]

@BlueTheBrahma

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

I agree with what @wrathsfarm has said. Some pictures would be helpful, that way we could advise some pairings. If you hatch your darkest eggs over a few generations, the egg colour will gradually improve. I’d rank these as your priorities: type>egg colour>feather colour>eye, leg colour/feathering.