Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[flgardengirl]

Just a little food for thought. Where did the BTbuff come from all at once. Look at the shanks on these Marans males on my monitor they are white . Any one that has hatched some Wheaten and grew them out can tell you these have wheaten influence. I would want to believe the person that has been involved with wheaten rather than someone that has most likely ever seen one in person. Too many opinions on here that are just not true.The best policy is ask the people that have worked with any particular color that you are interested in working with in the future. Lot of posters just throw out what they have heard to be true and have no idea if it really works.

Both BTB and Wheaten have pale shanks. I have had wheaten almost as long as I have had BCMs. Got them the same year in fact. I've had blues and bl coppers the longest. I have a few poorly colored BTB that came from the bayhorsebonnie line of BCM which were supposedly a good line probably in 2008/2009 before she sold them all. I also have a barred BTB from a different breeder.

*edited to say: BTB have a black in the wing when you spread it out. See btb wing herehttp://frenchmaransclubaustralia.yolasite.com/notes-on-breeding.php
Vs.
Wheaten will have the cinnamon wing triangle as everyone knows.

http://maranschickenclubusa.com/BlacktailBuff.html to see shank toe criteria for btb.

*Really no one can say what is in a chicken by someone just throwing up a photo. You can give them a few things to go on but that's it. Unless you get them tested genetically you don't REALLY know what's in the mix and how it will express itself. Sure you can test mate to get an idea.

For example: I have an Olive Egger cross (BCM x Ameraucana) who could pass for a very good BCM female. She even lays a #6 egg and has a straight comb etc. If I put her pic up and her egg everyone would say yeah that's a PURE BCM. Sooo good thing I can tell the difference and keep her in the laying pen.
Many people do not know the difference especially with the BCM vs Wheaten males so early on (and even still on ebay lol) you see questionable crosses being advertised as this or that pure Marans.

 

[gilavina]

Hey Lynette! I always seem to miss you being on the thread! How's everything going for you? Got anything cooking in the incubator? Feeling any better?

 

[flgardengirl]

Hi, I'm great!! I have been pulling out stuff from the greenhouse and getting it planted out in the yard the last few days. I have also been potting up seedlings and getting the garden going before it gets too hot. I will probably not hatch another batch for a few weeks but then will start with some blacks and black and blue coppers. My little black chicks have grown so much already! One of the ones I thought might be a roo (via feather sexing) seems to be getting an awfully long tail all of a sudden LOL! Probably a girl :/ I am not sure if the feather sexing method will work with the black ones that I have. 4 of the lav orps babies that I hatched got real long tails and the other 7 have no tails whatsoever grrrrrr. So help me if I get 7 roos lol. I only hatched a bunch more to get more girls

 

[gilavina]

Hi, I'm great!! I have been pulling out stuff from the greenhouse and getting it planted out in the yard the last few days. I have also been potting up seedlings and getting the garden going before it gets too hot. I will probably not hatch another batch for a few weeks but then will start with some blacks and black and blue coppers. My little black chicks have grown so much already! One of the ones I thought might be a roo (via feather sexing) seems to be getting an awfully long tail all of a sudden LOL! Probably a girl :/ I am not sure if the feather sexing method will work with the black ones that I have. 4 of the lav orps babies that I hatched got real long tails and the other 7 have no tails whatsoever grrrrrr. So help me if I get 7 roos lol. I only hatched a bunch more to get more girls

wow, sounds like you are busy! I just moved my first seedlings out to the greenhouse yesterday and have another chunk of seeds to start hopefully this week. At the end of the week there is the exotic sale down in Kansas, so hopefully I don't end up finding something I can't live without. I'm working as well on lining up some work with an old classmate from highschool. He has a handyman/construction business and am going to be getting his help with building the pens I wanted to last year. Some parts of it are a two person job, so I'm really looking forward to getting that done!
You'll have to post some pics of your wee ones! Would love to see them

 

[flgardengirl]

I will try and get to it soon! I got a peek at the little black ones running around with the black broody momma. Two have clean shanks! The broody and the male are heavily shanked. One of my black girls in that pen has feathered shanks that do not extend all the way down the toe so I'm betting those two are from her. She has a huge body, big as the roo but she is not tall as him so if they are huge and black I won't be too disappointed and will just have to breed back to one with heavy feathering.

The exotic sale sounds cool! That is for plants right? We have some neat sales down in Miami and Orlando a few times a year. I try to go to the one at Fairchild Botanical Gardens, they have the neatest stuff! I love plants about as much as chickens there is always something new to learn and some oddity to obsess over that pops up lol.

Good luck with building your pens. I hate building, I just like moving the chickens into them haha. I am building yet another BCM pen. This makes 14 chicken coops lol. Not to mention ducks, guineas, geese, and chick brooders, and rabbit hutches. I think we need more acreage now! DH is like don't we have enough pens yet? This is where tall plants come in handy and I just keep on planting/ or setting pots/stuff around them all and he kinda forgets about them lol.

 

[gilavina]

I will try and get to it soon! I got a peek at the little black ones running around with the black broody momma. Two have clean shanks! The broody and the male are heavily shanked. One of my black girls in that pen has feathered shanks that do not extend all the way down the toe so I'm betting those two are from her. She has a huge body, big as the roo but she is not tall as him so if they are huge and black I won't be too disappointed and will just have to breed back to one with heavy feathering.

The exotic sale sounds cool! That is for plants right? We have some neat sales down in Miami and Orlando a few times a year. I try to go to the one at Fairchild Botanical Gardens, they have the neatest stuff! I love plants about as much as chickens there is always something new to learn and some oddity to obsess over that pops up lol.

Good luck with building your pens. I hate building, I just like moving the chickens into them haha. I am building yet another BCM pen. This makes 14 chicken coops lol. Not to mention ducks, guineas, geese, and chick brooders, and rabbit hutches. I think we need more acreage now! DH is like don't we have enough pens yet? This is where tall plants come in handy and I just keep on planting/ or setting pots/stuff around them all and he kinda forgets about them lol.

haha the chicks sound like they are doing really well! And great job camoflaging the pens!

The exotic sale is animals, small livestock like goats, etc. But about 95% of the sale is poultry, pheasants, geese, ducks, guineas,peafowl, pigeons, doves, quail, and occasionally people bring in totally different things you don't see often, like chipmunks, and other rare animals. They also have caged birds, like parakeets, etc, poultry hatching eggs, chicks, ducklings, supplies,incubators, cages, etc.

I don't enjoy building all that much either mostly because I don't ever have too much time off in one lump sum, but what I was thinking was to get all the materials on hand that I need and premeasure and cut them, and assemble what I can, then get help with the parts that takes two people, then finish them off myself. I don't think it would take too much time at all to get the bulk of them done. I'm having problems already with the neighbor again treating us like this is a petting zoo and bringing over strange people and lifting kids over the fence to see the goats, and etc. I will not be held responsible for any injury, whether its from the goats or them dropping the kids. They are trespassing and this is after having a conversation that made it beyond clear. I also had to make it clear that it is never ok to tease and taunt the animals whatsoever. This is the same neighbor that's just come over and cut random limbs off of trees, just to assert some sort of dimented authority over the property.I feel if its already starting and its still cold out, I want them built asap. I have a neighbor to the south that is having the same types of problems, so we work together on stuff. He runs a landscaping business and said he'd come up when the ground was dried out from the rain and snow and grade the land to prep for building with his bobcat. I also have another neighbor that hauls rock and am planning on asking if he could drop a load of river rock or larger gravel up on the drive and see if my other neighbor will haul it down with the bobcat. Then I want the pens built along the fenceline on the two side the neighbor has access to and will be a nice barrier that is 6' and with a dark screened back that will give privacy to the animals and us. Its getting so bad,that something just needs to be done. Plus, if the bonus is that I have some awesome new pens, then Fantastic!

 

[mchlldickson]

Hi everyone! I just got my first BCM (well second, long story!). Her name is Winnie, and I'm so excited to have her! Here are some pictures! Shes 2 weeks old!

 

[Runawaylobster]

Just a little food for thought. Where did the BTbuff come from all at once. Look at the shanks on these Marans males on my monitor they are white . Any one that has hatched some Wheaten and grew them out can tell you these have wheaten influence. I would want to believe the person that has been involved with wheaten rather than someone that has most likely ever seen one in person. Too many opinions on here that are just not true.The best policy is ask the people that have worked with any particular color that you are interested in working with in the future. Lot of posters just throw out what they have heard to be true and have no idea if it really works.

Maybe there are invisible forces promoting black tailed buff... ?? For myself I was offered 10 chicks that were called black tailed buffs from a gentlemen who said he had been working on them for 4 years now, and feels that he is getting close, how they will turn out, i really don't know? I also got 10 wheatens at the same time, then the chicks got creative and took each others bands off (I caught them doing it but it was too late to do anything about it) so i am faced with the problem of separating them again. They are now about 10 weeks old, and generally i can tell the boys apart because the wheatens are getting black body feathers, the girls are a different story, but so far all i can tell you is the BTB's seem to be darker and more even in color top to bottom than the wheatens. The BTB;s also have black feather lacing, some have way too much black i think and others seem to have about right... I have not had the need to separate them out officially yet so i am only giving general observations. Of course i have seen pictures of perfect specimens, but when faced with a mix and of course some may be poor specimens it is a much more daunting prospect. I received empty eggshells from their hatch and they are quite nice and dark, definitely not an 8 but much darker than a 4.

So long story short, maybe when i have numbered them all we can have a BYC spot the BTB competition .. The time is coming soon, most likely in about 2 weeks from now. If I was to say right now i'd guess only about 10% look like the pictures of what they are supposed to be) Really i only wanted BCM's but they were soo cute i could not resist them..

 

[pawtraitart]

Maybe there are invisible forces promoting black tailed buff... ?? For myself I was offered 10 chicks that were called black tailed buffs from a gentlemen who said he had been working on them for 4 years now, and feels that he is getting close, how they will turn out, i really don't know? I also got 10 wheatens at the same time, then the chicks got creative and took each others bands off (I caught them doing it but it was too late to do anything about it) so i am faced with the problem of separating them again. They are now about 10 weeks old, and generally i can tell the boys apart because the wheatens are getting black body feathers, the girls are a different story, but so far all i can tell you is the BTB's seem to be darker and more even in color top to bottom than the wheatens. The BTB;s also have black feather lacing, some have way too much black i think and others seem to have about right... I have not had the need to separate them out officially yet so i am only giving general observations. Of course i have seen pictures of perfect specimens, but when faced with a mix and of course some may be poor specimens it is a much more daunting prospect. I received empty eggshells from their hatch and they are quite nice and dark, definitely not an 8 but much darker than a 4.

So long story short, maybe when i have numbered them all we can have a BYC spot the BTB competition .. The time is coming soon, most likely in about 2 weeks from now. If I was to say right now i'd guess only about 10% look like the pictures of what they are supposed to be) Really i only wanted BCM's but they were soo cute i could not resist them..

It has been my experience that pure BTB chicks will be golden at hatch and will grow in buff colored feathered shanks where wheaten and wheaten cross pullets will grow in creamy colored feathered shanks and will hatch out pale yellow. If the chick hatches out golden but with a black dot on its head it's not pure for the BTB variety. It can be tricky to get pure BTB because not everyone makes sure that their hens are the correct genotype for this color variety. The columbian gene inhibits egg color somewhat so it's tempting for folks to use btb/wheaten cross hens to market their eggs.

 

[winniem13]

Not sure if you have gotten a reply yet, check out. The Copper Hackle Coop's website.  They show 8 and 12 week photos of pullets and cockerels.  They develop a lot of color during 4 weeks.
 http://copperhacklecoop.com/
Don't give up on him

I had him out in the sun yesterday and I saw some brown feathers coming in on his neck! He is getting a green sheen to his tail feathers so he is definitely black--I Think black copper!