Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[3riverschick]

The business hen (the latest hatch) - Page 106

Herbert Winslow Collingwood - 1910 - 191 pages
http://tinyurl.com/84b7nkr
"CONTROLLING SEX.—No one, so far as the writer knows, has yet solved the mystery of controlling the sex in breeding poultry. Many theories have been advanced, the chief of which is the one that the shape of the egg may be used as an indication of the sex. For instance, long eggs will be more likely to produce cockerels, and round ones pullets. The claim that mating young males and old hens will result in producing more pullets and that old males mated to pullets will produce more cockerels has been tried repeatedly without establishing the claim. It has been claimed that the season of hatching influences or determines the sex, the general belief being that the early hatches appear to contain a larger proportion of pullets than do the late hatches. All these and other theories of sex control have abundant verification in specific instances where they have proved true, but in as many other instances the reverse has been true."

 

[3riverschick]

How to raise chicks: including revision of facts about white diarrhoea -

Page 50
Prince Tannat Woods - 1912 - 117 pages
http://tinyurl.com/762sw3m
"Sex of Eggs.—There is no known way of determining the sex of the chick by the appearance of the egg. The theory of foretelling the sex of the future chicken by the formation of the egg is centuries old. In the writings of Horace, long eggs are mentioned as certain to produce males. The position of the air cell has also been supposed to indicate the sex. Several well known writers of recent years have expressed the belief that long eggs or those having wrinkled ends would produce males and that the smooth, round ones would hatch pullets. There is absolutely no foundation for this belief, as may be easily ascertained by making a few test hatches.
Several English writers, and more than one American, attribute the control of sex chiefly to the condition of the male bird, and they apparently base their theory on good ground. Briefly, it is to the effect that when the male is full of vigor early in the season cockerels are likely to predominate in the chicks from his pen. Later in the season, as the male's strength and vigor (sexually) decreases, the number of pullets in his progeny increases. However, when the male bird apparently remains equally healthy, strong and vigorous throughout the entire season, it is a common thing to have a majority of cockerels early in the season, while later on pullets predominate.
From the same flock, with as vigorous males as could be obtained, the writer has had nearly two-thirds cockerels early in the season, while later, in June and July hatches, from 90 to 100 pullets have been obtained from a hatch of 150 chicks. This, however, does not prove or disprove the theory, and it is highly probable that other elements, which we do not understand or appreciate, enter into the question of control of sex in the offspring. It is a well known fact that usually the generative organs of the male undergo considerable change at different seasons and the testes of the cock are usually largest and best developed at the height of the breeding season, which generally is in April.
There are many theories and methods proposed for the regulation of the sex of chicks, but thus far none seem to prove dependable when put to the test. It is a fact well known that some families are prone to produce females and others equally prone to produce males. This will apply to some breeding birds and some matings, and this may prove the true solution of the control of sex in so far as we can regulate it. If you have a male bird or a particular mating that gives you a larger percentage of the desired sex in the chicks, you will do well to continue breeding it or from the same line as long as you can successfully, and take whatever sex of chicks you get with as good grace as possible. It is not probable that anyone will discover any infallible rule for the control of the sex of future chicks, either by selection of eggs or by handling and management of the breeding stock."

 

[BarnGoddess01]

My 7 and a half week old BCM in the basement crowed for me this morning.

 

[gilavina]

Holy Crap Barb! They've grown a TON! I can't believe its been that long already!

 

[joymac]

I'm gonna definitely vote its now a Dwayne as well. If that's a girl, its the butchest girl Marans I've seen

I like the looks of him a lot tho. Is he from true solid blue stock or is he from blue copper stock?

Most likely blue copper stock according to the breeder.

 

[gilavina]

Most likely blue copper stock according to the breeder.

i kind of figured that might be the case....true solid solid blues are not easy to come by

 

[pinkchick]

Morning Everybody! 40 minutes and 2 cups of coffee later I can finally post something, but I only get to type a couple of letters at a time and then the screen freezes, empties and I get to try it all over again. Hmmmmmm.
This is really cutting into my BYC time in the mornings, messes up my whole attitude for the day I noticed yesterday. Poor hubby got the brunt of it.

Anyway,




3riverschick~ Very Interesting info you posted, thanks for sharing it.


Vicki~ LOVELY TEST EGGS!



Welcome New Marans Friends!

 

[pinkchick]

 

[DMRippy]

Pinkchick and Debbi too.... I don't know if this will work, but if you go to profile tab and then edit account details, then scroll down and you will see a drop down menu in the site preferences. It is set to Rich Text Editor try the BB Code editor... it will look more antiquated but might help. Also turn off the carousel on the home page, That has to be eating up bandwidth.

There has to be a way to turn off lots of the fancy stuff to speed up your connection.

There are all kinds of things you could turn off, avatars, signatures, all those little thing take megs of bandwidth and you may have to operate with just the basics sorry. I hated dialup. I used it at my husbands house while I was in school. I would just leave and go home to cable Internet. We upgraded to U-verse and I love it. I know it is not available all over. That was a requirement when we bought the farm... had to have some kind of high speed Internet.

 

[Avalon1984]

Hello fellow Maran friends!

I was trying to search for an answer for my questions but haven't been able to yet, so I will turn to you. I have 2 breeding pairs of Black Copper Marans and I startet incubating their eggs. They were fertile and developed well but didn't hatch. 2nd hatch went the exact same way. Are the chicks having a hard time getting through the thick dark shell and hence hatching rate isn't great, or do they need different treatment than other chicken eggs? I did eggtopsy on all eggs and the chicks looked wonderful- just never hatched

Am I doing something wrong? I had other eggs in the incubator with them and they did fine.