Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[gilavina]

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How's the hatch progressing along as the day has gone along?

 

[jlgoinggreen]

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Nice pics HappyMtn.

How in the world do you guys candle these Marans eggs. I've tried and tried since last year and never can see anything. I have a candler that I bought when I bought my Genesis that works great on my other eggs. I posted asking for advice and was told to use an LED flashlight, so I also have used my husband's really strong LED flashlight. It also works great on my other eggs, but not these marans. With this incubation one of my marans eggs was a little lighter than the other ones and I think I saw an air sac on that one, but that was it and on day 7 only. Since then I can't see anything on any of them.

I use a small but very powerful "tactical" flashlight. I could candle all my marans eggs, 6,7 and 8 on the marans' scale. I had to go into a totally dark room, and make a little round thing for the egg to sit on and the flashlight to shine into so the light wouldn't leak around the edge of the egg.

OK.... not to sound stupid, but what is a "tactical" flashlight and what is the little round thing you made. You need to spell these things out for us nursing mommas that have baby brain. LOL

 

[Nimby Chickens]

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I'm going to keep hatching them- now that I figured out which eggs are the favs. Fav x cochins are awfully cute too.

There were eggs from an adorable mille fleur d'uccle x cochin crossing up on ebay! I would have bought them right away but my bator is not ready.

I want some weird mongrels! <3 Send me a PM when you get 6+, I wanted faverolles but was worried about them getting picked on! This essentially solves that. XD

 

[VillageChicken]

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Ethics

I personally wouldn't even have thought of it... But ppl who cheat... cheat.. I can't see what would be to gain in lying about something in a competition as it hurts only yourself in a true assessment. That is just me... I never did understand cheating at anything....

If you aren't enough without it... You will never be enough with it... (ribbons, trophies, accolades or whatever in life)... Persue happiness....not accolades... They only get you remembered for a moment.
character... I hope that is how we are judged... by the character and not the product... At the end of the day... we are all buried in the same dirt.

My thought on cheaters is that they don't value their own character... They have nothing to lose.... If you have no value in yourself you are more likely to do anything to gain false recognition... I guess it is a self asteem issue in my mind....

I hope that my eggs are so good that ppl can cheat and it has no effect.

Try harder ya know!!!

Geebs,
I really appreciate what you said...thanks

I can't imagine someone cheating this way... I mean just imagine: you cheat and win and afterward someone comes up and says "Wow, those are great "wheaten" eggs, when can I buy some of those dark ones from you to help darken my line of Wheaten's eggs?" Oops.

 

[aussieheelr]

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Exactly. Cheating doesn't help the person out any. A ribbon/trophy is nice, but the birds prove themselves

The names we all know in the Marans Breeding didn't get their names in our heads by cheating anyway... a lot of hard work and word of mouth/personal testamonial.

 

[Ivywoods]

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I use a small but very powerful "tactical" flashlight. I could candle all my marans eggs, 6,7 and 8 on the marans' scale. I had to go into a totally dark room, and make a little round thing for the egg to sit on and the flashlight to shine into so the light wouldn't leak around the edge of the egg.

OK.... not to sound stupid, but what is a "tactical" flashlight and what is the little round thing you made. You need to spell these things out for us nursing mommas that have baby brain. LOL

My tactical flashlight is a very, very, very bright little flashlight that I use with defensive handgun training. You can get them a number of places, including online.

The little round thingy.... I can't remember what I used... I think it might have been the round piece of cardboard from the inside of a roll of toilet paper. You just need something that will conform to the shape of the egg so the light doesn't leak out around it.

Work with it a little sometime with some of your eggs you are not trying to incubate. I'm sure if you get a small but bright enough flashlight, in a totally dark room with some kind of "round thingy" to keep the light from the flashlight from shining around the egg instead of through it that you will be able to candle your eggs. I couldn't see very good details, but I was able to see the difference between where the chick was and where the air sac was, or if the egg was totally "clear."

 

[snowbird]

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I will pm Walt about it. I think the 2001 SOP is the one I got from the Library.
Are the SOP books produced every year or only every so often?

Lisa, with the initial cost they are not published very often, I would think mabye around 10 years . Don

 

[Debbi]

Good mornin' all! Finally back amongst the living. The last two weeks have been a real trying time here.

Pink, your eggies went into lockdown last night, here's to hoping some of them survived.

First, the builders that were supposed to refurbish my 12 x 15 shed into a coop informed me that it would cost around $6,000.00!

NOT going to happen! I just think they didn't want to do it, hence the high price.

Two days later, I awoke to a loud humming noise about 5am. It was my new incubator and it was the fan! Transferred all eggs (my 7 and Pink's 14) to the Little Giant. Thankfully, I had fired it up the day before for hatching my 7 eggs. Tore into the new bator and replaced the fan with an old computer fan, and a lot of jerry-rigging! Got it stabilized and put Pink's eggs back in.

Two days later, severe weather hits and we lost power for about an hour!

Temps got down into the 70s, but we hoped it wasn't for too long, and went on with the incubation. Only one of my 7 eggs hatched and I had to help it out. Another crooked neck runt.

Finally some good news, my daughter had her baby boy, and he is healthy and sound, even after she was in a car crash after some idiot on a cell phone smacked into her!

In the meantime, my external modem on my computer went out on Feb. 22, and I finally got the replacement yesterday!

Please keep your fingers crossed for me that my Pink eggs hatch, at least some of them!! The one that had the dent in the small end seems to be fine, no leakage anyway, and all are in lockdown now. After all the stress they had gone through, I didn't bother to candle, so now I'm just holding my breath! Sorry to rant, you've all had these problems too. I know this group understands!

Now...if spring would just hurry up and get here, hold the twisters, and quit raining!!

So glad to be back!

 

[pinkchick]

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DEBBI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WELCOME BACK MY FRIEND! Lady, we are definately exchanging phone numbers in case anything like this ever happens again....you got me?!?!?!?

Congrats! On the new grand baby!!!!!!! I saw photo's of him already...

Precious!

Sorry about all the stuff going on..............

I wouldn't be worried too much about an hour power outage....no sweat man, try 19 hours without power and a 12 hour long outage while you are in the middle of a hatch. One hour....those babies should be just fine.

FYI.....Poularde had some late hatchers, I think day 23, so keep your eyes peeled.....I've noticed the last 2 hatches that some of late ones can start to shrink wrap.

Sorry about your eggs that you put in and very sorry about the little one with the neck issue. Any idea what's up with that?



MORNING EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!

 

[math ace]

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I have tried the candle wax and super glue tricks before and had no success. On my last hatch, I used scotch tape on one cracked egg and masking tape on another. BOTH HATCHED

Hoping you have as good of luck with that cracked egg as I did !