Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[OSUman]

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Its Ohio State University for me a majority of my relitives have gone there including both my parents and 3 of my grandparents.

 

[geebs]

Hey Fitzgerald farms has them listed on their website.. They are super credible folks... I am sure they can set you up.

http://www.fitzfarmandpoultry.net/poultry.htm I hope you get some good ones... I have their marans through Cree... super nice.

 

[snowbird]

I see people saying they have unmixed lines of BC Marans and some only have a male and 5-6 female and say they have 2-3 pure lines. Even if you did have a pure line with all the rejects that we all get it is nothing to brag about having a pure line. To keep a line pure you would have to have several matings going at the same time to try and keep the health and vigor. Inbreeding has to be done with heavy culling going on all the time. I will never say that my BC are pure anything. I have been breeding the best to best trying to improve the type so they will meet any of the Standards. To carry on a line as pure you must breed several lines within the line to succeed. I worry that the newer people will read this info. that is not correct and end up with a bunch of just dark egg layers. This is fine if this is all you are working for as we all know.

 

[Wynette]

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I have a couple of hens from Fitgerald's - Beth & Dave are SUPER folks, great to work with, and excellent communicators - both are willing to give advice when asked in a considerate way - I really appreciate that in a breeder. Only issue I have with their stock is that eggs are matte...no glossiness to them, which (I think) is preferred. But, my slightly mossy girl is from them, and she's kept her dark color almost all the way through her cycle - she's been laying since February. I loaned her out to another BYC member who has a rooster of a different bloodline that's too dark...I don't know if the match will give us proper coloring or not, but this roo is fabulous in my humble opinion, so I thought we'd do a test mating. Should be interesting!

 

[geebs]

Keep us posted with the results.

 

[Wynette]

I'll do it! I'm not setting eggs until this weekend, so it'll be spring before I really know results, but I'll definitely post pics!

 

[Debbi]

Ok folks, newbie question here

At what age do your Marans start to molt? Is it an age thing or does it relate more to a weather/season thing?? I've had feathers dropping in the run, but yesterday, it looked like a snow flurry of feathers! These guys will only be 11 weeks old this Thursday. No one is looking bald, no one looks to have mites, and I did Sevin dust them and the coop. Is there such a thing as a pre-molt? Or a juvie molt??

 

[snowbird]

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This is a Juvie molt and can happen between 12-20 weeks usually.

 

[Debbi]

Thanks Don, that sets my mind at ease!! When I first saw all the feathers, I thought something had gotten one!

Does the weather changing have anything to do with these molts?

 

[snowbird]

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I do not think so on the Juvie Molt. It can happen anytime of the year depending on the age.