Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[flgardengirl]

I used a dark egg gened bcm roo over blue ameraucana hens. I get dark olive eggs from the f1's this way and I don't have to do any more crossing for better egg color unless I want to. I did recently do an experiment with crossing some back to male OE's and some back to that dark egg gened bcm roo. The peacombed girls from that experiment should start laying any day now so will see what comes of those double bcm crossed OE's soon.

ETA: Here is a pic of an olive egg from bcm x ameraucana cross. The olive is 'painted on' kinda like the bcm egg coloring. There is a brown layer underneath the olive...kinda cool! Some eggs look green with brown speckles from the underneath brown color.
A wierd thing from my bcm roo x blue ameraucana hen crossings is that every chick I've hatched (over 35 so far) have been black or black coppered colored..NO BLUES and No dark blues. Wonder what happened to 50% blue %50% black? Very strange.

 

[flgardengirl]

My muscovy duck just hatched out one lonely baby. She had more eggs but something got all but one of them. She has been taking the one little baby all over the yard and has taken over the patio for her 'brooder' area lol. It is so cute! I love baby ducklings. I hope this one is a girl. Last time she hatched 11 ducklings and only 2 were females!

 

[Lotsapaints]

I'll let you know how it works with a hen from a dark egg crossed with a lighter egg male but not till late fall early spring...I used a beautiful Golden guy with my best hen even though he hatched from a 4 egg and the sellers always say the eggs were lightening up......but I culled all the hens from that hatch because the eggs they laid were barely 4's when they started and in 6 months never got darker.....I just hatched a test group from Mr Frog (my other Cuckoo cock) from the same hen and he came from a 7 egg just like this hen lays looks like I have 2 Goldens and 2 Silvers 3 with feathered shanks so I have a group to choose from for the next step as my eggs are way down right now from the heat and I see feathers in the pens...I'm planning on crossing a son to mom and maybe trying a set of 1/2 siblings to see what happens......trying to get feathered shanks and good egg color as these birds are big and beefy. I will try and get some pictures of my Blue and Silver Birchens they are starting to look pretty good and I hatched out some Salmons looks like only 1 pullet and 3 roosters and they came from the rooster that won at Newman.....they are growing out nicely also. I just get so impatient trying to get starter stock but I do love the babies from the test hatching of my Mr Splish I have a couple with potential and crossing a Splash with Black Copper sure does get that nice lacing and beautiful blue I'm really liking my blue birds..........

 

[flgardengirl]

Here is a pretty good representation of the egg coloring that I started out with when I first got Marans. I had several from different sources but mostly all in this range of colors. I kept the roo from the darkest of these eggs and crossed to the hen from the darkest eggs.

Here is the little roo I decided to keep and use. I crossed the hen and roo from the darkest eggs that I originally bought from others, to get him. If that makes any sense lol.
He has his faults like a little too much copper in the chest etc. but I was shooting mostly for egg color. I have used him in my bcms and blue copper lines to improve egg color.

Okay then I used the above little roo (above) crossed to my darkest laying hen, Cheepa (also his mother), to get this little roo that is from my avatar egg. He is the cornerstone of my dark bcm egg flock now. He has a short back, too many points on his comb and high tail etc. etc. but that is something I am working on without sacrificing egg color. He almost wasn't born because he came from a pullet egg that I originally stuck it in the refridgerator for a week because someone had told me that pullet eggs wouldn't be fertile LOL. I am glad I decided to try anyways almost all her pullet eggs from that batch hatched. I mated him back to Cheepa, his mother and have a few little pullets and a some males growing out now that so far, have longer backs.
His egg

Darkest-Egg Rooster like I said, not perfect but somewhat okay and something to work with. He was young here and still growing out his saddles etc.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
I would love to hear the responses to this question as well.

 

[Lotsapaints]

flgardengirl
I've always thought your egg color is wonderful and knowing how hard it is to get birds close to the SOP I think yours look good and gave me hope to try with mine......I've been hatching now forever it seems (a year and a half) and have only kept very few to try and breed from....Thanks for posting those Son to Mom eggs it gives me hope now if they will hatch out without any DQ's it seems you never know what might be lurking around in the woodpile until you start crossing them back.......

 

[ChicksterJo]

Oh my, flgardengirl, your eggs are beautiful!! (every time you put pics up of them I

)

 

[jeremy]

Some updated photos of my two Marans.

Ponyo.

Ponyo being a "jungle chicken".

My Black Copper, she's harder to photograph than Ponyo so these aren't the greatest pictures but you get the idea...

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
Ponyo looks like she is a chunker and lovely coloring at that!

 

[Raven1]

Nice copper on your girls!