Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[PGRanch]

The only thing I can see not to like is if he has white under the hackle. I like the heavy shank and toe feathering, this is what I breed for here, I would check the hock feathers as he might be trying for some vulture hocks. What color is his shanks and toes ?

What are shanks?

I can take more photos later.

 

[snowbird]

What are shanks?

I can take more photos later.

Shanks are the legs before the toes

 

[snowbird]

Hi Wynette
Man, that sucks about those roos

So, is the thinking that the Wheaten is where the WF is coming from? I don't have Wheaten to compare to but do they have the WF and are they supposed to have it? Do Wheaten also have white wing tips as chicks?

In my mind the Marans of all colors except the White is bothered with unwanted white in wing and tail. I think the white is a workable fault if anyone is willing to cull and go to more of a controlled flock for a while to help .

 

[snowbird]

Just a couple of lines on the color of down the chicks have. If you get a chick without considerable amount of white, most likely if it is a male it will have too much copper and be mossy, same for female. If they do molt out you will still have the fault hiding waiting to come to the top. If I have BC chicks again in the future I will cull all the black and brown chicks.

 

[snowbird]

Something for folks with limited breeding pens. There is nothing that says we have to breed all of the matings at the same time. Lets do some single matings and keep some good records and mark every chick and see if it helps with eliminating some of these faults.

 

[VillageChicken]

Just a couple of lines on the color of down the chicks have. If you get a chick without considerable amount of white, most likely if it is a male it will have too much copper and be mossy, same for female. If they do molt out you will still have the fault hiding waiting to come to the top. If I have BC chicks again in the future I will cull all the black and brown chicks.

I was going to say just the other side. If you have a chick (like that "splash" one in the previous page) with SO much white, you are probably going to get a very dark, overmelanized chick. I don't think that chick is a splash, it's an BC that will be completely black if it's a hen (unless it has a white wing feather or two). For me I see more white in chickdown means less copper.

Unless the chick is completely black, or has rusty brown on the face, I find the best BC I am getting are coming from the chicks with the least amount of white in the breast and belly. Instead they are black with gray and a bit of white. Less white in the face is usually better for me too.

Completely black chicks (including legs all the way to the toes) and the brown chicks are definite culls. These are caused by unwanted genes in the mix.

 

[elless]

In my mind the Marans of all colors except the White is bothered with unwanted white in wing and tail. I think the white is a workable fault if anyone is willing to cull and go to more of a controlled flock for a while to help .

Hi Don
OK, that makes sense that it would be across the breed colors. Please forgive my questions, as I think it's probably been beat to death over the years but I'm new and trying to get a handle on all this white feathers/white fluff talk. Is it suspected that the white feathering seen in baby wings that usually molts out (did on mine) is caused by the same gene as the white fluff/downy feathers in wing and tail? Do you know if any scientists (universities) have done any genetic studies with Marans on this white fluff subject? Would be cool to know if it could be tested for up front and then possibly know the chance that a particular bird has to throw it. It seems (from what I've gleaned on this board) that even a bird not showing this white fluff can still throw chicks with it which suggests that it's recessive. Do I have this correctly? It sounds like you have done a lot of breeding and culling to get to nice birds without this WF, and its still showing up in your breedings but less frequently? I would assume so. I'm wondering even with heavy, heavy culling, will there always be crop ups of this WF issue?
I have found this

Finally, the off-white remexs or the white feathers are to be banned of the body.

Such subjects, possibly affected by the parasitic gene (mo) or (pi) must rigorously be eliminated especially if these genes remain present after the first adult melting.

It is impossible to identify easily the chicks which have an abnormally white down notably on the head. Moreover, this fault, contrary to others, seems to show relatively few difficulties for the selection, since at the end, it almost disappears in its totality.

under "To distinguish correctly the Brown-red variety"
here http://marans.eu/ncuiang.htm#NCUI

I'm assuming that they are referring to white feathering and possibly the last paragraph is referring to the white fluff under feathering. Do you know what the "parasitic gene (mo) or (pi)" is referring to? I'm not familiar with this terminology.

Thanks! Lisa

 

[snowbird]

I was going to say just the other side. If you have a chick (like that "splash" one in the previous page) with SO much white, you are probably going to get a very dark, overmelanized chick. I don't think that chick is a splash, it's an BC that will be completely black if it's a hen (unless it has a white wing feather or two). For me I see more white in chickdown means less copper.

Unless the chick is completely black, or has rusty brown on the face, I find the best BC I am getting are coming from the chicks with the least amount of white in the breast and belly. Instead they are black with gray and a bit of white. Less white in the face is usually better for me too.

Completely black chicks (including legs all the way to the toes) and the brown chicks are definite culls. These are caused by unwanted genes in the mix.

Hi Roger, I have found from my experience that the Black and brown chicks are culls. I like for the chick to be Black with white around the head some on the chest and even some on the wing. I would rather work with the overmelanized that come from the white chick down . I believe if we just culled the Black and brown mix chicks we would be going in the right direction.
I believe our Marans here have a different Genetic makeup since here there are white legs showing up in the BC. In the males last year I only worked with the med. slate and Dk. slate legs. I used no light slate or white leg males and only had a handful out of several hundred.

If you remember the chicks from the male that was throwing the black and brown chicks I cull all over 400 of those and they went for food. Last year I hatched out over 300 pullets from the BC I have had for several year and most had copper hackle and these were from Black overmelanized females. The male looked like the Jeanne male from Elliss on a post recently.

They really need your expertise on the thread.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Oy! My computer has been out of action all day so I've missed making timely responses.

I combine blue coppers and black coppers in my blue breeding program but I can see that the resulting blacks are not quality blacks. (I see that with my Ameraucanas and Silkies as well.) So I don't call the blacks out of blues "black" even though they may look black and I keep records. I use blue to blue when I can but I am not averse to using a quality "black" in my blue program knowing the result will often be too dark blues. I have yet to use a splash in my breeding program but I would like to because my blues are too dark. (Marans and Ameraucanas.) But I haven't had a splash worthy of the breeding pen yet. I do have them in my Silkie pen so I'll play with those and see what I can learn.

All this said, the reason I said I'm not sure I'll continue with Black Coppers is because I don't have enough good stock that is pure "black copper" to move forward with. I would have to pollute my black coppers with blacks from blue coppers. I've been advised this isn't wise and my own eyes tell me that's true.

 

[snowbird]

Barb, Will give you some free info. on breeding the different color varieties of any breed when I see you at Columbus.