Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Too Much TOO FAST again !

Is the BEETLE GREEN sheen good or bad ? ?

PUMPKIN eye Color - - - good or bad ? ?

Are we looking for light, medium, or Dark Orage eye color ? ? ?

Beetle green is good.

Pumpkin eye color is good.

Light color for a male and darker for a female although some females do have lighter colored eyes, as said before, it depends on the melanizers.

Bev

 

[shesaredroan]

Wynette,
Thank goodness for folks who are willing to experiment!!! We'd all be 'stuck in the mud' without 'em.
Will be thinking good thoughts and wishes for yours and all others 'soon to be' hatches...........I believe in universal positive energy.
Chris

 

[Braclin]

Quote:
Too Much TOO FAST again !

Is the BEETLE GREEN sheen good or bad ? ?

PUMPKIN eye Color - - - good or bad ? ?

Are we looking for light, medium, or Dark Orage eye color ? ? ?

Beetle green is good.

Pumpkin eye color is good.

Light color for a male and darker for a female although some females do have lighter colored eyes, as said before, it depends on the melanizers.

Bev

Probably a dumb question, but my girls have a purple sheen on their feathers is that good/bad /common place? Their eyes are like a dark orange. 6mos old. Im gonna try and take some good pictures, but they are crazy girls,lol

 

[ruth]

Quote:
Wynette, what I see is a hen with extra coppering in breast area and she does have a pinched tail. Notice the brown soft feathers below the vent, That is what you usually get when they are mostly brown as young started chicks. I have some justlike her.

I thought the photo just had a bad case of red tint due to lighting - everything looked reddish/brownish. Wynette, are the feathers under the vent area really brown or just the photo? And I can't tell if her coloring is copper or red - I assumed copper (though it looked dark red) But I do have a question. Based on the dark roo, posted below by Wynette, who, to me, seems too dark and not enough copper - if bred to a dark red female - wouln't you get more chicks that are too dark? Of course, "too dark" is like beauty - in the eye of the beholder. I'm favorable to copper - but more like a recent issue copper penny - not the shiny metalic new copper penny look or the old dark red/brown copper penny - but the somewhere in the middle "copper" coloring.

I'm trying to figure out who to breed to whom and what is the "preferred" color. I have some that are very dark, what I would call mahogany, and most are definitely "copper", some are more "gold", and some I would call "red". I also have a question about how far the color should come down the chest on the hens. I read somewhere that the judges prefer more color and are awarding ribbons to the hens with the extra color (even if it's not part of APA - which I've lost track of whether or not it is mentioned in proposed APA). I posted a pic of a hen a few pages back that had what I thought was "mossy" on it's chest and I think Don called it something else.

What I do know, is that there has been so much "detail" pointed out lately that we have to look for/breed for that I'm losing track of it all. I do wonder if any bird will ever conform to the "total picture" and if most don't, then why is it the "standard" and not the "rare exception of perfection"???? For the life of me, I can't figure out how something like leg color can go from "dark slate" to "white" in proposed standards. I mean that is literally a difference of black and white. Seems like every time I think I know which birds should be used in a breeding pen, I learn something different that rules them out. Good thing I've got at least one of each.

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
You are quite right. Years ago when I was developing a particular birchen line I had so much of that melanizer that the eyes were black and so were their combs. It's probably from these birds that I have some black copper females with no color in their hackle feathers. I lost the silver in the hackles completely in the females and had to do my further breeding from an older female with lighter egg color.

Bev

Bev

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Hi

I think it's a good idea to post faults so that everyone can learn. No one has a perfect bird and we are all working to improve the birds.

Bev

 

[ruth]

Quote:
He's gorgeous!!! Great comb too!!!! I only have one roo that looks like him - what I call dark mahogany. His eyes are also very dark blood orange color.

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Hi Don

We are all waiting for the new copy to come out which I hope will be before Christmas, they would make a wonderful Christmas present.

Bev

 

[Wynette]

Quote:
It's so much fun to experiment, Chris! I always learn so darn much when I do this! It also shows some of the genetics for each bird used that you may not have otherwise found. I, too, believe in positive energy!!

 

[Wynette]

Ruth, those pics of my "too red hen" could be looking like they have a reddish cast due to the lighting not being natural, I'm just not sure. To be honest,

when I saw all that red coming into her chest, I immediately, psychologically, put her in my layer pen, and then physically put her there when she was at POL. I haven't really looked that closely at her, truth be told! My bad! I just knew I would not use her, because I breed for solid black chests. Not that I always GET THEM! But, that's what I breed for, and she is far from what I would want to keep in my breed pen...personally. But, it'll be interesting to see what the dark boy does for her offspring, if anything.