Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[geebs]

Wow it must have worked..... you can stop staring now!!! lol...

Uh Oh... it worked too good..... I am hearing only crickets... DRAT!!!!

 

[Lotsapaints]

Geebs are you boiling eggs again? I have some pullets with their first eggs they need a band aid.....I need a picture of one it's a swirl art I love the colors and they wait for me to leave so I can't tell who it is...those French girls they are naughty ones

 

[Illia]

geebs check your PM's.

Reminds me I need to go with a round of more photos tomorrow though.

Nice eggs though. . . Still waiting on my girls to give me their peak color though. I have no clue when they'll start to lighten up, but right now I think they're levelling off - They've been getting darker with each egg since they started oooh a month ago or more.

 

[geebs]

Sneaky Illia... very sneaky... You rock!!!

No I grabbed an old photo... I didn't know Illia was bringing out the big guns.... I would boil eggs but I am afraid I would hurt myself... I fear I may have damaged my retinas...

 

[geebs]

Illia... The dark ones seem to take longer... I think there is less of an oxygen exchange.. The trick I have found to hatching them is number one... use a broody... Number two.. Only use uniformly dark eggs for the hatch... They seem to take longer... 23 to 25 days... don't ask me why but that is the experience I have had... I only hatch super darkies with other super darkies... and I am usually hatching specifically for males when I do this... not that I throw the females out but my goal is the darkest for the males... (gotta have good genes for SURE) on the males.

 

[Illia]

My darkies that didn't hatch weren't fertile in the first place.

That was the problem.

As for the roo genes thing - Certainly! I'm keeping a 5-point combed, poor colored cockerel and a too many point-combed, well colored cockerel as well as a very mossy, heavily feather shanked cockerel to use, and once I get offspring from all of them - I'm letting the hens grow up, compare egg darkness, etc - Then keeping the cockerel who passed the good genes on. LONG waiting process, but worth it.

 

[geebs]

Yep... I am in the same snail race... Are your wheat BD? or W???

 

[Illia]

Bev Davis. Never knew Wade had his own Wheaten line. . .

So far my ONE girl who's laying has a pretty good egg color - it is the same color as the average Black Copper egg around here. My previous, passed on Blue Wheaten laid slightly lighter, heavily speckled eggs.

Still waiting on my other two Wheaties to lay though. One girl is due any day and the other, my perfect one, is due sometime later. . .I'm likely to only collect from the two who aren't laying though. The current layer has a lankier body, darker chest coloring, and really tall comb. Oh and her tail is pretty long and high set.

 

[geebs]

Super... what is the cross??? you said you have one that is 1/2 bev davis... what is the other half?? presley?? I like the speckly egg but I don't know that they win at the shows....

ya wheaton and blue also.

 

[Illia]

1/2 Bev, 1/4 Presley, 1/4 Wade.

He's only about 6 months old right now, and only crowed only once or so, and has yet to even learn how to dance or mate (he's very laid-back and quiet. . . Typical Marans cockerel in my opinion)

Course, I do realize that it is kinda pointless to call him "half bev, half presley" and so on, as the original breeder didn't touch the bird. . . but still, it is so I can keep track of what breedings I do myself.