Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Wynette]

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Pink...he's not my boy - I did hatch him, but he's not my line. He's close enough for me to "borrow" occasionally!!

 

[Wynette]

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Okay, so if this boy has too much melaniser, what would your thoughts be on crossing him to a girl I have that's a bit mossy? She's pure W. Jeane, and I sort of hate to mess with that mossiness at all...except this girl lays a gorgeous egg, and she's kept her dark egg color ALL SUMMER LONG - when the rest have faded a bit. Hers are consistently dark. She's not SUPER mossy, but most definitely she's got way too much color in her chest. I'll post a pic when I can, but would a cross of her to a boy like this with a bit much melaniser be a good cross?

 

[geebs]

That is a good use... I would do that... I would single mate her and hatch only her eggs then the experiment would have one result... I might hatch some other white egg or green egg beside it as a control.

 

[snowbird]

Wynette, I myself would not breed this Mahogany colored male to a female with too much color. I would breed him to a gold colored or light copper female and single mate. This is the way I do mine with good results.

 

[geebs]

Well at least snowbird agrees with me on the point of the color balance.

 

[snowbird]

Will also say I have used a male colored with a female with yellow or straw color and had real good luck. I know the xperts all say do not use the light colored fowl but in my breeding program I find that it is not true. This is just my own experimenting with my own fowl that is all I can report.

 

[snowbird]

I have to say something else here. I wish they would have included all three of the Hackle colors in the standard as they all three will come out of the BC. The Mahogany color is my Favorite though.

 

[geebs]

Snowbird makes a good point about the lighter hackle and the melaniser correction in the cross but you also make a good point about the egg color and the "mossy" as Res has pointed out and I found to be true myself tend to follow the dark egg which you yourself, Wynette, pointed out... This is a reason for the Experiment.. You may well be able to improve egg color in the flock... My guess and this is of course a guess that is why we use the word experiment is that the offspring may have some "mossy" characteristics as young but may well be corrrectly colored as adult therefore giving you the cake and eating it too. Or in this case egg and eating it too~

Snowbird I don't know if you are aware that you can edit your posts by using the edit button on the bottom of your post that way you are not posting over and over below yourself.... Therefore adding more informatin to an already existing post... Please disregard if you are already aware of that.

Pinkchick you crack me up!!! beauty drops... ha ha.. WOW!!! you are a three dimensional wonder!!!

 

[Wynette]

Interesting points, thanks for the feedback. Looks like what we need to do is single mate to the mossy girl, AND another single mating with him to a more correct girl and see what we get. Funzies!

 

[TurkeyMountainChickens]

Wynette -

When it comes to chickens, AND is one of my favorite words!

Be sure to post pics of the chicks!