Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Spitman]

lovely! How many do you have all together? how many cockerels and pullets? Also...on the pullets, what color hackles do each of them have? I don't keep any of the gold hackled girls here, per Village Chicken's suggestion from a conversation last year on breeding the birchens.

 

[gilavina]

I'm not sure about putting the gold girl with the BCMs...I bet Don or Village Chicken might be able to give you the specifics on what the cross were to give you. I just have never tried it. I just use them as layers.

 

[chickeneyfoot]

Is it hard to breed feathers back into the legs? If they were hatched from feather legs-parents. She lays one of the darkest eggs and is a nice example of a marans. Should I breed her?

 

[gilavina]

Oh...and I forgot to ask Spitman....where did your birchens come from? They have nice leg feathering from what I could see!

 

[luvinbluechickens]

Thanks so much - seems like a fabulous idea, but not sure how one would go about it. Im a neophyte at the Marans project, and even my blues are quite the project! I lucked out that I started with a group of eggs from Helen Byers and the more I learn, the more I realize they were the best ones I've bought. The eggs I've gotten from other people were not dark in color. Id like to get some Bev Davis line blues if anyone has some that lay reasonable dark eggs! Thanks in advance,

Emily

 

[Arielle]

To all those chicken loving, stew loving cooks, how much meat is on a marans? ANd does anyone select for the meat qualities? Having raised a few broad breasted turkeys, nothing is as meaty, so I'm at a loss about the meatiness of the marans.

Quote:

I don't know about anyone else on here, but I select my Marans for their width and heft, so now that I'm a couple years into it, the boys have some nice meat on them when processed. I don't weigh them, but when I process the first lot of culls at about 16 weeks or so, they average about 4 lbs give or take I'd say, which is great for that age. Others I leave longer and use as roasters or etc are 6lbs or so I'd say. I don't tend to keep many boys around I'm not real serious about much past 6 months...so I can't really tell ya too much about them past what I have.

Gilvania, Are the Marans plumper on the meat than other birds?


To all. Is anyone selecting for meatiness?

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
Gilvania, Are the Marans plumper on the meat than other birds?


To all. Is anyone selecting for meatiness?

they are a typical dual purpose bird...and at least I think they make a nice meat bird, of course they are not going to be massive like some of the straight meat birds used for filling the grocery store, but they are good. The meat is juicy and tender. The only bird I've found so far that is even more succulent when roasted is Sussex.

Are you looking to sell the Marans processed or just looking for at home use?

 

[pinkchick]

Since I eat my excess cockerels that I can't or don't sell.....I definitely select for meat qualities in these birds. I love their table qualities. They taste great too!

 

[Arielle]

Probably both as I expect the number of roosters to out number the number of hens. If I want to breed and hatch chicks, well . . . you get the picture. Need a destination for most of the birds.

As marans are dual purpose, I wondered how much emphasis is put on muscle development for eating purposes.

 

[pinkchick]

Ok...here's the stinkers out of Gigantor and Big Boy. There were 8 from that pen that didn't have any cuckoo markings, and based on how they are growing out they look a lot like their papas when they were young. They are 2 1/2 weeks today. I gotta emphasize the fact that they are butterballs!

Ok...the first two....and blues. Cockerels are what I'm going with. If I had to guess I would say they are out of Big Boy...but we'll see as they grow. One of my main clues is that Big Boy is a splash and has a paler slate leg color that looked totally flesh colored when he was young like this...so I'm hoping they will darken up a bit, only time will tell



The other 2 blues from this pen's hatch. I'm going with pullets. These feathered in waay before any of the others and have thinner shanks, so I'm holding out hope!



Here's the blue girl on the left from above, check out the lacing already coming in! And bonus...all have really nice clean combs...so far

the next two are black cockerels I believe. It is possible one of them might be a really dark blue...still waiting to see how the feathering continues to come in



don't let that one squatting down in that last photo fool ya...he's the beefiest of them all. Little lead weight turd. He might kinda be my fave! He hangs out perched on my hand or shoulder a lot while I work on stuff. Comb's lookin nice so far!



here's the other boy in that pairing....love how wide they all stand even at this age. They all have on size 7 spiral bands already.

Last 2....a cockerel on the left and a pullet on the right is my guess. I could be wrong on them, but the one on the right was the first to feather out their wings and start getting a tail....also the biggest chick in the lot of 33. See the copper spot above the left eye on the right one. Anyone else have that? They were born with it.



and the last photo...a side view of the right one...just huge!

LOVELY!!!!!!!!