Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[gilavina]

Quote:
Hmmm...ok..I think I am following you on that....what would happen if I were to try and enhance the lacing on her instead of going for barring, but trying to maintain that pattern only with the blue...? The lacing type pattern she does have is not clean like you would see in a lot of laced birds. I found another pic of her closer up, this is when she was a bit younger, but her lacing is still pretty much the same. I don't know if it any of what I'm trying to do is possible or even logical, but I really do like her..and would love to see what i could do to improve and clean up the color and etc.

ETA: I seem to always somehow pick things that aren't easy, but I like a challenge

I also got to thinking about your post. I would think that she has to have birchen behind her because of what that guy was breeding for. He was using birchens to work on developing lemon blue patterns and this was one of the sport chicks from that project.

 

[geebs]

Evening PINK!!!!

 

[geebs]

Pink???? whaaa????????

 

[pinkchick]

Mouth was full.....sorry! Having French chicken strips for dinner. Yummy!

Waiting for someone to get back to me about their Welsummer Eggs that are suppose to be shipped tomorrow. Almost ready to get Math Ace's eggs all tied up to ship tomorrow too!


and I'm hatching babies!

 

[cpartist]

Pink...your box is packed. 2 Blue Copper mama's, 4 Blue Copper daughters,
and one BCM. (+7 BLRW and one Wellie). Here are the 7 eggs I'm sending on the
right. They have been laying since Sept/Oct. The eggs on the left are marked
marked 12/19 and were a couple of months into their cycle. Todays eggs are 5 months in.
I'm GEEKY that way, saving eggs from different points in their cycles

.

Outside on porch, with flash:

Outside on porch, no flash:

I thought the comparison was interesting because the eggs do not look that much
different in either pic, but the egg carton is clearly whiter/brighter w/ flash.

The single egg is a BCM (I think...haven't identified them all yet).
Blue Copper egg machine Mama's are second from the end, flanked by her daughters
who is most like hers, but soooo small still on the right; and another BC daughter on
the left who sometimes lays a darkie and sometimes a lighty with spots. Hers occasionally
have that plum coating as well. Her "sprayer" is a little off

.

 

[Mountain Mel]

I wonder if cpartist' shipment will go "corner-to-corner" as quickly as Pinks' shipment got to Maine.....

 

[cpartist]

Actually eggs I've sent to WA and CA have taken 2 days...Some I've shipped
within FL 3

I think it's because the ones that go far FLYYYYYY instead of ride

 

[VillageChicken]

.what would happen if I were to try and enhance the lacing on her instead of going for barring, but trying to maintain that pattern only with the blue...?

The challenge is you don't have any corresponding roosters with the pattern do you?
For lacing to be clean and complete you need a pair of the Pg pattern genes, plus what ever other modifying gene is there for the lace type you are going for.
I cannot tell from the picture what pattern is present - penciling, or lacing. In some pictures it looks like there is a bit of each present, plus what looks like autosomal barring in the tail.

So there are some gene missing from the necessary "pairs". You may get what you're looking for by just doubling up the Pg gene. But since you don't have a rooster that carries it, you'd have to breed one first. Since your hens are blue you could cross them with a blue birchen Marans, but crossing to solid blue is risky because you could introduce the "gold" gene that would take away the white head and neck from your girls and replace it with tan or copper. This would also happen if you use Copper Blue.

A regular Silver Birchen Marans would work too. And then you'd have to cross the rooster with the best pattern back to your hens to try to double it up in the offspring. The challenge is that often the pattern doesn't show well on roosters, so it might be your best guess which ones carry the Pg gene. I think you'd be able to tell though which ones do and which ones don't. Genes in most purebred birds are carried in pairs, but one of the genes in your girls' pair of Pg genes is "switched off", or is replaced with the "non-pattern" gene. Because of that, your hens' offspring cannot all have the Pg gene because when she donates half her DNA to the offspring, some of them will get the switched off non-pattern version and some will get the active Pg gene that gives the lacing. So only half your roosters produced will have Pg. Of the ones with pattern, it doesn't matter if he's black or blue since your girls are blue aren't they? If they are not all blue, then you'd want your roo to have the lacing in blue.​

 

[aussieheelr]

Ok I'm going to call this my first offical attempt... I've set 10 of my own BCM's eggs on 2/27 that makes hatch day around March 20th

I tossed a couple in last fall after my girls just started laying, had been laying for about 2 weeks then, and one partialy develped with Nil from the other.
Good vibes please

 

[math ace]

Quote:
PINK You are gonna so love cpartist's BLRW. They are drop dead gorgeous!
I

get the computer screen wet with drool every time I think about them.
The roos are so beautiful there is NO Way you could eat the the Extras. . .