Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Debbi]

Mornin' Vicki!

Yes, it's another 45* morning here. I'm dressed up in a sweat shirt and pants! I'm going to take a trip over to the Amish community today or tomorrow, to see if I can get them to butcher a bunch of birds for me. The thought of plucking all those birds makes me ill. And no, I don't want to skin them, the skin is the best part!

I was trying to imagine making a chicken plucker out of an old washing machine. Put some of those rubber fingers on the agitator, and put that baby on the spin cycle! Wonder if that would pluck them, or blend them?? Oh yuck, can you imagine THAT mess??!!

Kind of like a big "Bass-O-Matic" from the old SNL shows!

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
That sounds like a solution for a butchering problem indeed. That'd be nice to have an amish community close by for things like that and to learn new things. I too hate plucking birds....its one of the more disgusting things I remember doing growing up...that smell just does me in. I do skin...I don't usually eat it, so its no loss for me. Plus it goes way faster

 

[pinkchick]

Hey Ya'll! Hope everyone is doing great!


Debbi~ You are too funny girl!

Got a question for anyone who can answer................................
My 2 and a half year old hen Chloe is almost finished with her molt.....she is a Blue Copper, well she was until this molt anyway.

Now that she is almost done and all of her feathers have come back in...........she has lost almost every bit of her copper hackles, they have come back in just blue. What's up with that? Anyone ever had this happen?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Debbi]

Hey Kim!

I haven't had a blue copper molt yet, but my older BCM hens that had hardly any copper on them, molted and then grew more copper in. I was looking for one of them the other day, and I didn't recognize her at first, because she never had that much copper before. She was standing right next to me!

 

[pinkchick]

Yah...I have seen them get more copper but never seen them lose what they had. The only copper she has now is right above her eyes and around the base of her comb. Weird is all I can say.




Okay.....another question for ya'll.................................


My original Blue Copper hen who is turning 4 years old is turning white around her eyes, ears and the base of the comb and her face down. Is she just showing her age....or what? Haven't seen this before either. Thanks again!

 

[marquisella]

A black copper Cockerel won Grand Champion, Best in show at the NY state fair show last week, over 1200 birds. It was owned by Angela Faulkner from Sayre ,PA

How exciting.....

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
wow...that is pretty exciting indeed! Know where we could get a peek at the winning bird?

 

[marquisella]

Quote:
wow...that is pretty exciting indeed! Know where we could get a peek at the winning bird?

Nope, I was there and didn't see it, although I kinda rushed through the coops. I didn't know any Marans were there..

.

 

[flgardengirl]

Quote:
That sounds like a solution for a butchering problem indeed. That'd be nice to have an amish community close by for things like that and to learn new things. I too hate plucking birds....its one of the more disgusting things I remember doing growing up...that smell just does me in. I do skin...I don't usually eat it, so its no loss for me. Plus it goes way faster

Wow I wish we had some cool 45* mornings! It has been a lot nicer here lately though. I can go out and feed and water all the animals without breaking a sweat, due to less humidity now lol.

That would be cool to have some Amish that would do the slaughtering, I'd be glad to pay to save time and get a bunch done all in one shot lol. I don't eat the skin either so we just skin them out rather than pluck and I don't wanna buy a plucker. At least our family used to do a lot of duck, grouse, geese, and pheasant hunting so dh is really pretty quick with the skinning since he always did it lol.

It doesn't really gross me out once they are already dead I just don't like the killing part of killing our own birds because I mostly like all of them, even the naughtier roos lol. Once they are dead though, I have no problem skinning them etc. Back in college my best friend and I had anatomy and physiology right before lunch hour so we'd be playing with the human cadavers and then go to lunch and joke about it haha.

 

[flgardengirl]

Quote:
wow...that is pretty exciting indeed! Know where we could get a peek at the winning bird?

Nope, I was there and didn't see it, although I kinda rushed through the coops. I didn't know any Marans were there..

.

Hope someone can get some pics from Miss Faulkner. Would love to see what a Grand Champ BCM looks like. Its so exciting that a Marans won the title. Is this the first time a BCM has won Grand Champion since they were APA approved?