Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[gilavina]

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yikes...I don't envy dusting guineas or turkeys at all! Glad you survived the scratches...they can really hurt!
I love the visual imagery of Sassy karate kicking a cat!

I haven't been online as much since I'm trying to take advantage of the weather before it turns cold. It has cooled off here now, but brought plenty of rain with it....so now I'm dealing with mud. Its always something that makes it hard to get going on building new pens.

I am honestly surprised at how many birchens I've got this year. I culled quite a few cockerels that weren't coloring in how I would like them to, but most of the cockerels I left are doing pretty well. Hard to tell since they still have tons of growing to do. I figure if I keep checking them every week for progress in coloring that I will be able to keep thinning things out. If I had to guess I would say I have about 8 birchen cockerels left now. I probably had about 30 throughout my different hatches. I've got quite a few pullets too, but have to wait for them to color in some more.

 

[flgardengirl]

Guineas are evil! I have a huge scratch on my stomach from one. Next time I will just fill up a balloon with dust and bomb them haha. Really, I should try the ivermectin next time. I think it would kill about every kind of parasite inside and out.

WOW you do have a lot of birchens!! Not fair - you get to pick and choose LOL! I am thinking that the silver birchens might be smaller in general than the black coppers. Mine seem to be so far...except fat Sassy she eats all day long stealing the cats' and dogs' food if she gets half a chance.
She is gonna be a big girl. I bet the silver birchens would be good for someone to use who wants to have a bantam marans project. I do have one blue girl (not birchen) who is gonna be bantam size hmmm... I have NO MORE ROOM for any more projects lol and surely no time. I will keep telling myself this

We have had a lot of internet and phone drama here lately. I could of got on the internet on my phone last week while the other was down but dd was showing me how the cat ,ahem, 'knocked her phone into a glass of tea' because she laid it across the top of the cup, (who knows why she would do that) but anyhow, yup, she goes and drops mine in there while she is showing me grrrrr!!!! She gets the dunce cap! SOOOOO, I had to get a new phone and it was very lucky for her that it was way past time for upgrading my old one lol. The only good thing is, I do like this new phone better but haven't really figured it all out yet. Mostly just playing 'words with friends' LOLOLOL.

 

[pinkchick]

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Thanks!

Her beak will be fine and it will grow back sooner than you expect. I have a layer (not a Marans) whose beak needs to be trimmed atleast 2x a year. It grows very fast, gets very long and has very sharp curve, gets so bad she starts to loose weight if I let it go to long.

 

[gilavina]

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Ivermectin might be a good solution indeed....

don't worry...last year I didn't have the luxury of being choosy on the birchens at all...I had to just roll with the punches and hold over all that I hatched...which was 5 I believe...I lost one of them and so at the beginning of the year I was down to 4....so you will get there too. I just can't wait to have more people to talk to about them that are also raising them. I had thought about doing a bantam marans project but am abandoning that idea the cockerel I have is a total jerk...I don't keep mean ones, so he's going asap. Along with a ton of others. I am culling down pretty severely I've decided. I have all my birds (minus the youngest pen down on paper and am working on my list of ones to go. Either they will go to a layer pen, a friend's layer flock, or they will be off to freezer camp. This last fall I wasn't 100% sure what direction I wanted to go in for color varieties, but now that I've decided I need to make them line up with how much space I have until I can get the rest of my breeder pens set up.

That's pretty funny about your daughter...well...not really. The same cell phone fate twice. haha. I just downgraded my phone to something simpler because I decided I didn't really need all that technology when all I really do is text and make phone calls.

 

[pinkchick]

Thanks for the kind words about my girls everyone. I love having da' blues.

 

[gilavina]

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I'm right there with ya. I would love going out and greeting girls like yours everymorning too

Still think you might be drawn into the birchens? I know they need tons of work, but I think they are worth it

 

[ChicksterJo]

Quote:
Thanks!

Her beak will be fine and it will grow back sooner than you expect. I have a layer (not a Marans) whose beak needs to be trimmed atleast 2x a year. It grows very fast, gets very long and has very sharp curve, gets so bad she starts to loose weight if I let it go to long.

Thank you! Now is it normal for her molting feet feathers to be a little bloody? No bumblefoot or any mites. Her legs and toes look clean and she is scratching as usual, but one foot feather came out and the shaft end was a bit bloody.

 

[AspiringUrbaniteFarmer]

Hey flgardengirl,

Where did you get Marans that lay eggs THAT dark?! Gorgeous!

 

[chilldood47]

are those silver campines

 

[chilldood47]

i breed silver campines , silver spangled hamburgs golden campines aussie game bantams anconas and ancona bantams