Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Christie Rhae]

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OMG so cute!!

 

[pinkchick]

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Yep-Yep...cute as can be! Love this photo! Absolutely adorable!

 

[Wynette]

Dears - I like the type on roo #2 much better than #1, but #2 also appears to have white fluff at the base of his tail. I like his color balance, length & angle of back very much. His shank feathering is incomplete, but that's easily correctable by breeding to hens with heavier shank feathering.

I can't see his eye color or beak color, but assuming they are correct, I think you have a nice one there to my amateur eye! Does he have any copper in his chest? He should have no more than 10% there.

I have a hard time seeing anything bad about #2, as his comb appears to be perfect, and I'm a HUGE COMB SNOB!

ETA: Illia - Thanks so much - wow, that's just crazy weird!

 

[DMRippy]

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(got him to eat bread out of my hand the other day

he just need some girls now)

 

[pinkchick]

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I like your #1 boy best out of all 3 of them. He may be a tad to dark but he is the nicest bodied bird overall, IMO.

 

[marquisella]

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Yep, vulture hocks are a good "mockery" of a second pair of wings

THis is a photo from Feathersite of a pair of Sultans. Since Vulture hocks are required in Sultans, these are large and easily recognizable.

The ones I've seen in Marans are not so large. In chicks, the feathers are softer, the same length with none of them growing longer than the others. Marans should have more fluffy type feathers at the top of the legs, that grown around the leg, not hard feathers growing down & back like that.
You can see that if they were not quite so long, they could be confused as leg feathering by those who are not familiar with them.

I hope everyone takes this as a learning experience. If Vulture hocks show up in breeding, future breedings have to be decided upon with more care so that siblings who are carrying the recessive gene aren't bred together, or at least bred knowing what they are doing to avoid them if its possible.

 

[Illia]

Here's a Marans with vulture hocks.

He was that one with fused toes/webbing too if anyone remembered.

 

[Dearsrock]

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I like your #1 boy best out of all 3 of them. He may be a tad to dark but he is the nicest bodied bird overall, IMO.

Thanks! My fav too Just to clarify, you mean dark as in too black or not enough coloring? Renee

 

[Wynette]

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I like your #1 boy best out of all 3 of them. He may be a tad to dark but he is the nicest bodied bird overall, IMO.

Really? Interesting! To me, his back is much too short and it appears that his eye color is too light as well....but again, I'm for SURE no expert.

 

[fowlman01]

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My Marans were the ones viciously attacked with VULTURE HOCKS and to clarify NONE of my birds have them!!! I removed all my picture for fear of further attack from Don. I will just have to pick and chose my birds based on MY opinions and if that dose not improve the breed you can thank Don for running a newbie off this thread.

I hope my post didn't come off as vicious. I posted with the intention of educating and I was hoping it was just a bad angle issue with the photo.
I've seen many posts and photos that people have put on here and other sites where they are showing very over feathered birds and bragging out it. Vulture hocks come with extreem feathering so we need to know how to recognize it. I don't always read posts here every day, and I think by the time I saw Don's post, the pictures were gone so I can't comment to that.

This is educational and not meant to hurt anyone's feelings, but I think that cockeral has vulture hocks too. I would need a couple more pics to be certain, but it sure looks like it. In addition it has what the French call "cuffs" which is overfeathering of the feet. The Marans calls for "sparse" feathering in that area.

I have never found Don to be mean in his posts, but he tells it the way he sees it. If a person does not know they have a problem they can't fix it. Vulture hocks are not always stiff as in the sample illustration. That is an extreme example. They are that way in the breeds that are supposed to have vulture hocks, but usually birds that are not supposed to have them have lesser examples of the feathering and it does not look like primary wing feathers. Almost every Dark Brahma bantam has vulture hocks to one degree or another and I have seen it in many other breeds..
BTW: it is not particularly easy to eliminate.

Walt