Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[sewandgrow]

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I am late & catching up..My computer went down & my husband had to fix it & it took awhile, poor guy......
Anyway Susie I love the look of the Lakenvelders too & was soooo tempted, as I am with many breeds....LOL I hope you tell us all about them as you get to know them. I passed on them only because I like BIG so I think I will go with Wyandottes & sell my Blue Andalusians. They are beautiful birds with beautiful plummage & the rooster is striking but I really like the BIG beefy guys best.
Good luck with your new tri & getting the "skunk smell" off your dog.....LOL

 

[flgardengirl]

If I was smart I would of made our new breeding pen coops with those self composting floors.
I am seriously thinking of getting one of those ride-on mower garden cart/trailer thingys and getting new gates and backing that thing right up to the coops. That would be a dream!!! We got the floors done on the breeding coops it will house 6 diffent love shack/coops in one long building.

The best part is we got recycled wood from Craigslist from a house they tore down nearby FREE. Took many truck loads to get it over here lol. Then the next day dh got some huge wooden crates from an aviation parts place that were full of bubble wrap, packing peanuts, and shredded newspaper too!! My oldest son and I built worm composting bins underneath the rabbit hutches and used all that shredded paper for our worm bedding. So Awesome!! Now I will have all the worm compost I want for my gardens this year instead of having to buy it. We made 2 vermicomposting bins 2x6 ft long each. I found a good pdf file on how to make them if anyone else has rabbits and want the link to the pdf file, I will post it.

 

[sewandgrow]

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Steve you have forgottrn to give credit to yourself for your hatching method. The eggs are only as good as the hatcher............. You did a fine job. What is your method???
Karen in California

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
I am late & catching up..My computer went down & my husband had to fix it & it took awhile, poor guy......
Anyway Susie I love the look of the Lakenvelders too & was soooo tempted, as I am with many breeds....LOL I hope you tell us all about them as you get to know them. I passed on them only because I like BIG so I think I will go with Wyandottes & sell my Blue Andalusians. They are beautiful birds with beautiful plummage & the rooster is striking but I really like the BIG beefy guys best.
Good luck with your new tri & getting the "skunk smell" off your dog.....LOL

I would love to see pictures of your Blue Andys and know who you got them through-you can PM me or find the Andalusian thread and post there

 

[Hens and Roos]

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We have one that is very nice and easy to use- DH just remove the snow blower off the front of the lawn tractor so now I can use it to clean a few pens out- we switch over to a different feed(used last year) now that we have turkeys and we thought we did the switch slow enough but some of our chicks/ens are getting watery poop. So I will be having to mix this feed with cracked corn of now until I can get back to the mill on Monday and pick up a few bags of the other feed we were using. I feed the younger birds(2 months and under) some of the turkey feed and that seemed to help with firming up the poop.

 

[BirdWalkFarm]

I am so excited about this Marans thread . I was able to buy some Marans today and really don't know much about them , plus being new to chickens period . My husband talked to a lady at the local feedstore that raised them . I was able to buy 14 chicks , all blues except two that are splash and one black . They are about a week old and seem to be very large .

Hope to learn as much as I can about this breed . Thanks all .

 

[enggass]

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Hey Kim. Thanks... I'm on day 23 and right now there are 2 more Wellies out in the 'bator and another zipping... Been zipping for a while now and I think may be upside down. Dying to go in and help out, but I know better. Also have another Marans pipped and can see a beak poking around inside... I have had 2 Marans with major pips, holes in fact, that never went any further. If the 2 current ones finish, that will bring my total to 9/10 Wellies, and 10/14 Marans! No bad at all, eh?

To answer your question, all 3 of Bill's eggs hatched. The Bill x Splash = Splash, Bill x Bill's Daughter(that's how you labeled it) = Splash and Bill x Bill's Daughter (Labeled No copper, feather shanked) = I'm not sure. It was either a Blue or a Black, but I was at work and my wife wasn't sure.

So far in my brooder I know have 4 Black, 3 Blue & 2 Splash! Nice selecion

Hopefully I'll get one more tonight sometime with the one that pipped. Seems as though these late comers don't have as much steam however.

All in all I am more than pleased. By the way, I think the 2 Wellies that are hanging out in the 'bator are both boys!

That's all for now,
Steve

 

[syble]

i'm not sure if i missed it but i noticed on an auction that was posted, a member said that you cannot hatch marans like you would a normal chicken egg. Sanding was required and such. I thought the only difference was the coating that made it difficult or impossible to candle. Can i get some clarification please?
Thanks
Sib

 

[snowbird]

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Best thing I can tell you is do not believe everything you read on the internet. I hatch a lot of Marans and see no difference if you have your incubator set up right. Don

 

[The Point]

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OMGosh! 111 degrees?!?!?!?!?! Holy Moly and we are still pipping and hatching....WOW is all I can say.

Congrats on the chickies!

Maybe that's the key to getting the slow pokes out of the shell??

Wow is right! Tannis, we need pics you know..

Here is a pic of my fried chickens. 2 Marans, an EE and an OE. I never thought I would be so happy to hatch 4 of 36 eggs. Also a pic of my new homemade bator, that works great, when you don't count the human involved.