Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[sewandgrow]

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Morning! I put my waterer on a block of wood. 2x4 when they are little, and a 4x4 piece when they get bigger. Helps some, but they still manage to get the shavings in there.

There are those pipe waterers you can make with PVC pipe, or the nipple type waterers where you fill one bucket to water several brooders. I just clean out the waterer 3 times a day for now.

x2 but I make my kids clean the waterers! DH and I do the 3 gal ones as they are to heavy when filled for the kids to carry. DH was looking into the pipe waterers to see what that would take- to busy to get to far on though

I have been interested in checking into those pipe waterers myself for the brooders. I could do the 5 gallon bucket gravity feed low pressure with those I think. I used to have a similar set up years ago when I was into fryer rabbits. I had the tank portion of a toilet plumbed to feed a pyc pipe with little lick-it type waterers in each cage & it worked great. I had a float on the tank so it automatically kept filled. I am always cleaning water bottles & refilling them even with them up on bricks.

 

[sewandgrow]

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Another thing I have been thinking about & haven't gotten too. I pulled a free pattern off the web & was going to make a few & see if they worked. Since i am a sewer you would think that would be an easy thing,............Just getting me out to the barn sewing room is the trick. I don't know what I do with my time but it goes.....LOL

 

[sewandgrow]

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I have babies a couple weeks old showing some copper which makes me think cockerel but I won't know til grown. Some others that are Feb hatch are now starting to show copper but they are a different line of breeding so I think that must make a difference.

 

[StevenW.]

12 more days till my Marans eggs hatch!

 

[flgardengirl]

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Another thing I have been thinking about & haven't gotten too. I pulled a free pattern off the web & was going to make a few & see if they worked. Since i am a sewer you would think that would be an easy thing,............Just getting me out to the barn sewing room is the trick. I don't know what I do with my time but it goes.....LOL

I made my own aprons from a pattern someone put up here on BYC. They are very easy to make. I just had trouble with the stupid snaps LOL. I bought this stupid thing that is supposed to clamp the snaps onto the material and I don't think it worked right or I am an idiot. Anyhow, I ended up using sew on snaps. The first ones were two small and came unsnapped when the roo jumped on the hens. So then I went to sew on velcro. I love the velcro it is holding up really well!
I bought a bunch of new material the other day at JoAnn's for a tropical flowered quilt I am working on and got some extra so I could make a few more aprons and maybe try to make a diaper for my silkie hen. Diapers look way harder than aprons.....

 

[berkeleysprings]

good luck with your hatch ,hope u get some nice birds
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[PHarris985]

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5 more days until mine hatch

 

[berkeleysprings]

hatching eggs is nerve racking and hatching
shiped eggs is even more nerve racking
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5 more days until mine hatch

 

[Ivywoods]

Where's Debbi? She NEEDS to tell her friend about this chicken diaper thing!

 

[gilavina]

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congrats! i hope you have lots of luck with the blue birchens this time!!! and yay....blue wyandottes!! Sounds like we have a few of the same breeds and color varieties

Thank you. I have two baby blue birchens this morning

6 more birchen eggs to go but I am happy I have 2. With my other older bb girl now I have a total of 3. I just hope one of the new babies is a roo LOL!

Don't you have some birchen eggs set as well? When are they due? My blue wyandottes are the plain blue kind. Actually, one looks dark like almost black or is black (will have to see when I get him out of the bator) and one almost looks splash.

*****************Happy Easter everyone !!!****************************

Yeah..I do have some blue birchen eggs in the incubator and they are set to hatch...the 1st or 2nd I believe. Out of 24 shipped I have pulled two clear...and left two that looked like they either had started developing and quit or are just a bit behind the others. Its lookin good for the other 20 so far. I also have 12 blue wyandotte eggs in there from my own stock, all lookin good. They are plain blues as well...I will take blues in whatever shade and pattern they want haha

(I do have birchen, both blue and black in the wyandottes as well...they have become rare these days...just never see them anymore. But they are in bantams so far for me. i I have some lavender silver sussex I had ordered from a nice lady...every single one of the 12 is developing very well! I almost didn't want to candle because I was worried that I would find nothing, but then to find that made me happy. I think the key to these shipped eggs has been the fact that I got incredibly busy and had to leave them on the counter in eggs cartons for about 6 days before I could get them in the incubator. Luckily it was a happy accident. I also have some solid blue marans eggs from my stock in there as well as one of my blue marans project pen's eggs. they will be an F1 of blue birchens from the stock I already have. We'll see how it goes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! I have family coming into town tomorrow and staying with me for a week, so they will probably keep me distracted. When they leave it will be the day for the eggs to go to lockdown. So, I just need to not think about them until then.