Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[DMRippy]

My first splash chicks....


This one has the best feathering. The other splash has lightly feathered legs and the Blue has NONE.



I don't understand the genes on the feathered legs. The roo is very LIGHTLY feathered and the hen has no feathers, one chick has great feathers... go figure.

 

[math ace]

I am NOT a splash person, but I like this boy.....

 

[heath_elisha]

The Big thing that I wanted to see new photos with, I still can't see... SO.... You need to look.
Check this boy for Wry tail. See if his tail seems to be leaning toward one side. You need to judge the boy when it is out of the wind and at a natural pose.

Wry tail is a DQ. If he has it, you are going to want to select a different rooster for breeding puposes.

I looked through the pictures- no butt shots- but I will say that he doesn't have one. His tail from the back is w i d e open and perfectly centered. Most of the time he is on high alert with the other older birds around him. When I go near the pen, he is always alert too. Sometimes it is hard to get a good shot of his natural calm posture. His neck is always stretched out and neck feathers poofed up lol But as far as tail goes- I think it is a real nice example of a marans backend- but what do I know

 

[Wynette]

heath_elisha - the blue pullet's eyes are too dark. She is a pretty girl, though!

 

[Oil Patch]

I am new to the thread but really like some of the information. I thought I had posted a chick bio but evidently my forum skills are lacking. I Keep about 60 layers and a few roosters. My current flock consists of Black Coppers, Buff Orps, Golden Buffs, Black Australorps, and Ameraucanas. The black Australorps and Golden Buffs are to give to friends who need replacements or want to start keeping chickens. My favorite is the Black Copper but I always have a soft spot for the buff Orps. I have a few Black Copper males and three Ameraucana males. My plan is to breed for "Olive eggers" from both sides to see which gives the best egg color. I also have 27 purchased Black Copper eggs in the incubator, The pictures of the chickens are very helpful and I hope to have specimens that nice in the future.

 

[Wynette]

Thanks for posting pics! I don't mean to be nasty, and I am not an expert, but to me, the black copper male has some issues...his tail it too upright (should be 45 degrees), his back is much too short, his underline is not as rounded as it ought to be, his breast is too flat, and shanks are too dark. However, he does have excellent color balance, and shank feathering is really good! Would love to see the splash in profiel - he appears to have much better type. Again, I'm not an expert, and I hope I have not upset you, as that was not my intention.

 

[Wynette]

I don't understand the genes on the feathered legs. The roo is very LIGHTLY feathered and the hen has no feathers, one chick has great feathers... go figure.

Rippy, member Barngoddess has had this same experience. I don't know how closely she is tracking what she is finding, but perhaps you two could compare notes on this?

 

[Margitas]

Thanks for posting pics! I don't mean to be nasty, and I am not an expert, but to me, the black copper male has some issues...his tail it too upright (should be 45 degrees), his back is much too short, his underline is not as rounded as it ought to be, his breast is too flat, and shanks are too dark. However, he does have excellent color balance, and shank feathering is really good! Would love to see the splash in profiel - he appears to have much better type. Again, I'm not an expert, and I hope I have not upset you, as that was not my intention.

Just bad pic , he have no upright tale just this how i get him, also he only 7 mo old still lot to fill.He's father much better just on molt.
The Splash may better but his older too,BCM i have from Marans OF MS and direct import long tail.
I will add more pic after the molt to see the diff.

 

[Wynette]

Just bad pic , he have no upright tale just this how i get him, also he only 7 mo old still lot to fill.He's father much better just on molt.
The Splash may better but his older too,BCM i have from Marans OF MS and direct import long tail.
I will add more pic after the molt to see the diff.

Yep, he'll fill out quite a bit more. Will enjoy seeing pics of parent stock!! Thanks again for sharing!

 

[BarnGoddess01]

My first splash chicks....


This one has the best feathering. The other splash has lightly feathered legs and the Blue has NONE.



I don't understand the genes on the feathered legs. The roo is very LIGHTLY feathered and the hen has no feathers, one chick has great feathers... go figure.

I got this awhile back from VillageChicken. I hope he doesn't mind me reposting it for you here ....

"The feathered shanks have two loci. Technically they are called pti-1 and pti-2. Marans shank feathering is found at the pti-1 allele. pti-2 is for cochin type feathering and is an additional gene that gets added to pti-1 for the heavy cochin feathers.

It gets confusing because at the pti-1 locus there are THREE alleles. So it would be like if at the skin color locus, there were a third variation for pink skin.

At pti-1 there is the recessive (no feathers) gene, a Langshan type gene and a Brahma type gene. Langshan - outer toe feathered, Brahma - adds middle toe feathered. So any one of these 3 genes can be present at this allele. Actually since almost all genes are in pairs, you can have any TWO of these 3 genes at the pti-1 allele.

So you can have the recessive clean shank gene paired up with a Lanshan type - that would be heterozygous for Langshan type feathering.

or clean shank gene with the Brahma type - heterozygous for Brahma type feathering.

You can even have the Langshan paired up with the Brahma type.

The phenotype (what it looks like) is not always predictable or consistent. The heterozygous Lanshan could have very light feathering. The heterozygous Brahma type actually LOOKS like the homozygous Langshan type. This confuses many folks in the Marans world. In other words, if your bird carries one clean shank gene, and one feathered shank with middle toe feathers gene, it might have perfect Marans lightly feathered shanks. But paired with a genetically correct marans that has two Langshan type feathering genes, you will produce sparsely feathered shanks, and middle toe feathers from two "correctly" feathered parents.

Add to this mix the fact that there are known recessive inhibitors that suppress feathered shanks even when the feathering genes are present. So you may have parent birds with correct pti-1 Langshan genes, but if they each have one recessive inhibitor gene (you need two recessives for them to work) you will find offspring that are clean shanked."