Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Bangarang64]

Hi Everyone!
Hope you are all doing fabulous!
Guess what??????? One of my girls gave me an egg yesterday!!!!!! FINALLY! It took 'em long enough, geesh!

Congrats!
How long did it take? More than 6 months?

 

[Christie Rhae]

Hi everyone!
So I did cull my BCM boys. Marans are very nice meaty birds! These guys were huge.
I have a funny story.
My husband cannot handle killing the birds. He is a softy. So since this is my project I do the processing. I got a new feather plucker that actually cut my time in half. So I was home alone quietly going about processing these birds. Alone with my thoughts.. and dead chickens. While turning one of the birds to get it placed just right on my plucker the headless bird must have sucked some air into it's lungs and then when I turned the bird again it made a "squaaaaaakkkk...." sound. Apparently the voice box was intact. Well it scared the crap out of me!! Alone, quite, dead birds...and one comes alive!!! lol...I was cracking up at myself afterwards. That noise made me come out of my skin!

I soaked these birds in a salt and sugar brine. Cured them and decided to cut them up for easier use. Two I kept whole. And into the freezer...



I ended up keeping one. I also kept a blue cuckoo and a split for silver blue copper. Just for fun. Not sure if I am going to use them or not but just couldn't bring myself to cull all of them.
I am still searching for really good BCM to get a start with. I have a good lead. But now I am wondering if I should just wait another year. I have a huge laced blue ameraucana project that I plan to start next spring. This was my first year hatching a lot of chicks. I have tons of them growing out still and realized what a pain it is to find places to keep all these birds while they grow. I have about 100 birds right now and they eat easily 2 bags of feed every week. Feed costs 25.00 a bag here. So $50.00 a week to feed these guys. After I finish culling all my cockerels and selling pullets I should be down to 50 birds. But this process of hatching, growing out, culling seems to be a year long process. But if I get better marans soon then I would be that much more ahead...instead of waiting till next year...hmmmm
And... I am talking to myself. lol

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Hi everyone!
So I did cull my BCM boys. Marans are very nice meaty birds! These guys were huge.
I have a funny story.
My husband cannot handle killing the birds. He is a softy. So since this is my project I do the processing. I got a new feather plucker that actually cut my time in half. So I was home alone quietly going about processing these birds. Alone with my thoughts.. and dead chickens. While turning one of the birds to get it placed just right on my plucker the headless bird must have sucked some air into it's lungs and then when I turned the bird again it made a "squaaaaaakkkk...." sound. Apparently the voice box was intact. Well it scared the crap out of me!! Alone, quite, dead birds...and one comes alive!!! lol...I was cracking up at myself afterwards. That noise made me come out of my skin!

I soaked these birds in a salt and sugar brine. Cured them and decided to cut them up for easier use. Two I kept whole. And into the freezer...



I ended up keeping one. I also kept a blue cuckoo and a split for silver blue copper. Just for fun. Not sure if I am going to use them or not but just couldn't bring myself to cull all of them.
I am still searching for really good BCM to get a start with. I have a good lead. But now I am wondering if I should just wait another year. I have a huge laced blue ameraucana project that I plan to start next spring. This was my first year hatching a lot of chicks. I have tons of them growing out still and realized what a pain it is to find places to keep all these birds while they grow. I have about 100 birds right now and they eat easily 2 bags of feed every week. Feed costs 25.00 a bag here. So $50.00 a week to feed these guys. After I finish culling all my cockerels and selling pullets I should be down to 50 birds. But this process of hatching, growing out, culling seems to be a year long process. But if I get better marans soon then I would be that much more ahead...instead of waiting till next year...hmmmm
And... I am talking to myself. lol

Christie, you kill me!!! You aren't talking to yourself. I also cull my own birds. Seems to me it takes WAY too long for them to stop interacting with me. I'm a throat slitter. Find it VERY distressing how long they keep looking at me. For a few minutes, I'm convinced I've done something wrong.

It is VERY convenient that Marans grow as fast as they do. Decent bird for the table even at 16 weeks.

 

[laughingclown]

Well i finally passed my state exam. My brain is fried.
Gnite e everone. Going to bed zzzzzz

 

[DMRippy]

Well i finally passed my state exam. My brain is fried.
Gnite e everone. Going to bed zzzzzz

 

[Christie Rhae]

Christie, you kill me!!! You aren't talking to yourself. I also cull my own birds. Seems to me it takes WAY too long for them to stop interacting with me. I'm a throat slitter. Find it VERY distressing how long they keep looking at me. For a few minutes, I'm convinced I've done something wrong.

It is VERY convenient that Marans grow as fast as they do. Decent bird for the table even at 16 weeks.

Oh I know it takes forever! I think that is why my husband won't kill them for me anymore. We watched videos on youtube but now looking back I realized that the video I used to show him how to slit the throats edited out the twitched and flapping part. So my husband slit the throat but the bird kept moving so he thought it was being tortured. And he had nightmares...lol. Poor guy. I tell him to go for a motorcycle ride with his big tough friends while I kill the chickens. ahahahahah!!!

Killing an animal is still a very new thing for me. I feel like I have to be able to do it if I am raising all these birds, but it is not easy. My pulse is racing every time. But I know my birds are raised well and fed good food. I know that they are not mistreated. Can you tell I am still trying to convince myself? lol. Just didn't grow up doing this kind of thing.

I hang them upside down with the head reaching just into the bucket. I wear heavy rubber gloves. I hold my hand over their eyes and tilt the beak away from the throat and then slit. I actually hold onto the bird until they stop flapping. I cannot look, I just put my head down and hold on till they stop. I feel like since I hatched this bird, fed it, cared for it, and have to kill it that I should keep my hands on it until it is gone. Sort of complete the whole process. Man it is weird to kill an animal.... just weird.

A lot of people I know think I am totally cracked. They think it is so gross and chicken in a grocery store is so much better and cleaner. I tell them not to be a hypocrite. I say "oh you don't eat chicken?"

 

[Hens and Roos]

I am trying. Today I finally moved 5 of my blue copper Marans into individual pens so I can figure out whose laying which color. Of course, now that they are moved and all freaked out, they will probably stop laying

. I've been seeing some #4 eggs in the big pen where they all were, but some that weren't that dark. As soon as I figure out which ones are laying the darker eggs, then I'll pair them up. Then I've got to do the same thing with the black copper Marans, but not all of those are laying yet. And I've got one blue and one black that are already being broody! They haven't even been laying that long. I am one who does not like broody hens and I think I will work on breeding that out, if it is possible!

I won't being starting any incubating of eggs until probably mid Dec so we get chicks hatching on New Years Day. We won't be hatching out any Marans, we came home today and found our splash cuckoo rooster- Hilarous dead in his run

. We aren't sure if he hit the fencing and broke his neck or possibly had a heart attack. My DD and I were just talking the other day of needing to get better hens for him as our current ones have waves and twists to their combs. Looks like we will be culling these hens as egg layers and now will have to decide what we will do. We will be able to use the extra space for dividing out breeding groups come Nov.

 

[heath_elisha]

Well i finally passed my state exam. My brain is fried.
Gnite e everone. Going to bed zzzzzz

 

[maryhysong]

Hi everyone!
So I did cull my BCM boys. Marans are very nice meaty birds! These guys were huge.
I have a funny story.
My husband cannot handle killing the birds. He is a softy. So since this is my project I do the processing. I got a new feather plucker that actually cut my time in half. So I was home alone quietly going about processing these birds. Alone with my thoughts.. and dead chickens. While turning one of the birds to get it placed just right on my plucker the headless bird must have sucked some air into it's lungs and then when I turned the bird again it made a "squaaaaaakkkk...." sound. Apparently the voice box was intact. Well it scared the crap out of me!! Alone, quite, dead birds...and one comes alive!!! lol...I was cracking up at myself afterwards. That noise made me come out of my skin!

When my kids were really little once I was processing a big batch of young cockerels and a friends daughter, about 12 yrs old volunteered to help. When I reached up to pull the lungs and such out of one of them it crowed as I grabbed the lungs. Scared the snot out of both of us. Then I was laughing because of the look on her face. She didn't come back to visit my house for a long time.

 

[Hens and Roos]

When my kids were really little once I was processing a big batch of young cockerels and a friends daughter, about 12 yrs old volunteered to help. When I reached up to pull the lungs and such out of one of them it crowed as I grabbed the lungs. Scared the snot out of both of us. Then I was laughing because of the look on her face. She didn't come back to visit my house for a long time.

That look had to be something! My DD(she's 12 years) doesn't care to help with the processing part- has no trouble eating the chicken later but my DS(10 ) and DS(7) are right there on top of things and like to look at all the parts and ask questions.