Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[BarnGoddess01]

HobbyChicken~

I am one of the few that run all 3 colors together.

I am a firm believer that if mamma nature didn't want them together, she would have kept them seperate from the beginning, but with that said, please keep in mind that I breed for Blue Coppers, so the black coppers are only here for what they can contribute to my blues.

I'm sorry ... I probably shouldn't but I just have to respond to this.

What does "Mother Nature" have to do with combining chicken colours? If we left it up to "Mother Nature" ALL the chickens would be mingling together and we wouldn't have any pure breeds at all - not to mention colours.

Humans are the ones messing with/controlling the genes; who gets to breed with whom, that decide what constitutes a "breed", a "colour", a "variety". There is very little natural about most of poultry these days.

 

[math ace]

Wynette and Barb, Next spring I plan to have a poultry seminar somewhere . I am accumulating fowl with DQ and faults and will exhibits them for anyone that wants to come and see.

COME SOUTH.... We will be WARM compared to rest of the US.... I'll keep the porch light on LOL...

 

[math ace]

I'd also like to be kept in the loop on this Don. Do you think there is a possibility of having it recorded for those that can't make it?

AMEN Sister! You Tube it PLEASE....

 

[hobbychicken]

I have a quad that I am going to be breeding next year that does not have the white feather problem. Well at least not yet that I can tell( they are 8months old) I do have one pullet that has no copper but I hope breeding to the roo will help on that. I also want to thank everyone for all the amazing info you give out . I will be asking a lot of questions as this endeavor goes forward.

 

[math ace]

That's what I was wondering about mostly, whether you add dog food or such things like that. I do feed a higher protein and try to stay consistent so I don't end up with birds molting about the time I want them to start being ready for showtime. I have what I call show row set up, where all my birds go to hang out til its time for show. It really does help a ton! I haven't done the over ripe banana however. What's the benefits of that?

Describe PLEASE....

 

[gilavina]

Describe PLEASE....

haha Show row is just show coops I've collected over the years that I have set up, and then have plywood fit to go over the top of the bottom layer and then lay down some tar paper and put the next set of show coops up and fill with a nice amount of shavings. I also will change out the shavings pretty often the week before the show. I also use this set up of pens if I'm working on comparing birds for culling. i need to get them set back up asap! I have a show in about 2 weeks and will need to get going on washing and housing them here in a few days where they can dry and stay nice and clean.

 

[gilavina]

On the white underfluff, around here for me I never bred with any stock that I hatched out of shipped eggs. Those were either sold as layers or went to freezer camp depending on cockerel or pullet. As far as the white in the wings or tail, I have culled really heavily for this. Any birds that have held onto their white after their juvie molt have to go. I don't care how much I love them, they go. In the last two years I've significantly seen a reduction of any white past about the 6 to 8 week mark. We'll see if this spring's hatches will do as well and carry on the progress

 

[hobbychicken]

 

[hobbychicken]

Here are the better pics. What do you think. Please be honest I can handle it

 

[math ace]

In 2009, I started my Marans flock. Since that time, I have hatched chicks from my own flock and chicks from other breeders.
I have kept records and taken pictures. I have culled and culled and culled. I have worked diligently to improve my flock with each generation of chicks.

I am one of the EVIL folks who run the blues and black coppers together.

I am truly only interested in black coppers. However, my original flock started with 3 blue and 1 black copper marans hens.

My roos are always black coppers. I keep which ever color hens that run truest to breed type. I would love to have the luxury of breeding black to black only. Unfortunately, after doing several hatches with my SINGLE black copper hen I failed to hatch a single pullet. That's right, my black copper marans hen threw males only - HENCE my reputation for hatching cockerel heavy hatches LOL...

Maybe one day, I will have the luxury of mating black to black ONLY... but not yet. Right now, I have 3 black copper marans hens that I will be hatching from this Fall. They are being bred back to the black copper roos. If I hatch some nice looking girls this Spring from these matings, then I will be able to start doing black to black breedings. However, the hen I like BEST out of all the hatchings from last year is a BIG BLUE Copper . . . . BIG BERTHA ( She weighs in at a whopping 7.5 lbs).... If she throws me some BIG BLACKS Pullets, they will come into the program. There is NO WAY I am culling a bird true to type with that kind of weight to her because she came from a black x blue crossing.

Like I've heard so many times before... My Feed Bill, My Choice... IF in the future, I learn the hard way that my flock is messed up because of my breeding practices, I guess I could always just switch my concentration to Blue Copper Marans only.