Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[pinkchick]

Hello everyone! I'm new here and I am embarking on a few projects with the FBCM. I am basically a back yard chicken fancier and have never shown birds etc. My goals are to improve on and maintain the flock's breed quality and to breed a few blues on the side for fun (2 separate flocks). I first acquired my lovely FBCM chicks from a lovely breeder who was right under my nose and didn't even know it! She has been working hard on improving her flock to the French standard. The lines consist of a mix of Davis/Jean/Presley and a line(s) from the Netherlands. The line from the Netherlands is hopefully going to improve the leg feathering and the egg colour. Her Roo was fabulous, almost the size of a turkey! And the hens all had a nice large size, everyone with seemingly really well balanced amounts of copper. It's important to note that while I will be sticking as close as possible to standard for the breed's benefits, so far I am amateur breeder and even more so with this breed. I have and am continuing to read as much as I possibly can on this lovely breed so hopefully some of you won't be too hard on me as I am here to learn from you all!

So I have currently from that flock 8 chicks which are 2 weeks old now. I'm thinking I have possibly 5 or 6 girls and 2-3 boys. I have kept in mind that its hard to sex these guys at a young age, but that some of you are quite good at it I do have 1 clean legged girl or boy (thinking girl) which I won't cull but keep her in my laying pen for eating eggs. So I'll be watching these birds to see who will be my main breeders for the FBCM. They're all well put together so far and have nice heavier feathering on the outer leg as toe.

My other project which some of you may want to bash me for is trying to get a few blues out of it for my keeping and viewing pleasure. Blues are hard to come by in my neck of the woods. At least I think so. I may not have ended up in the right place to find any local blue chicks. But I did acquire 3 nice looking blue splash chicks which are about a week older than my black coppers. However... These splash chicks are from a silver cuckoo Roo and a Blue Copper Hen. My question is, how easily can I breed out the barring on this line to get my solid blue coppers? As of now, the 3 splash chicks look the same and I have no idea on their sex. At 2 and a bit weeks they all have the tales, one has a slight smaller comb but all pale coloured. Anyways so if I have a pullet and breed her to a black copper male, I should have solid blue females and blue cuckoo male offspring correct? If so, can I then breed the solid blue females back to the black copper male and hope for more solid blues and splashes? I know there could be more blacks on the mix. I measly understanding of barring genetics tells me that these splash pullets are barred but the white hides it, so that's why I think I'll get the solid girls.

So on the other hand, on the off chance that I have 3 cockerels, they would not have the barring but would they carry it to their female offspring when crossed with a black copper hen? What would my procedure be? Breed splash cuckoo Roo to black copper hens, hope for blue or splash cockerel male and then breed that to black copper females?

So sorry for the long and confusing post!! Again this line would be for pleasure only and not for mucin into the line that I intend to keep pure! Thanks for any advice offered!

If one of the Splash chicks is a pullet.....use her with a Black Copper male. The barred roosters will pass on the barring gene to everyone of their offspring, the female can only pass it on to her sons. The daughters from this cross will be non barred and blue, but they carry the copper genetics and it may or may not show up correctly on the bird. It could take backcrossing to a Blue Copper male or Splash Copper male for a couple years to get the copper right, a Black Copper male would also work but the blue or splash would be best as far as the blue color is concerned. Also, not to mention that I believe from crossing the 2 varieties that the offspring from the cuckoos will still carry a silver gene and I am unsure how that will play out in later generations.

All of your chicks from the Silver Cuckoo male carry one copy of the barring gene and you should very well see signs of it when they mature. I believe when crossing a BCM or Blue Copper to a Cuckoo is where the Golden Cuckoo variety comes from..
Hoping that someone who works with them will come by and give us the low down.

 

[pinkchick]

Aloha,

Perhaps is the blue egg gene dominant over the chocolate color egg gene?  Then, if the hen lays blue, you know it's hapa, but if it lays chocolate, then you know it's pure.

The question remains, is the blue egg gene dominant over the chocolate egg gene?

kden, puhi

Blue is said to be dominant because if it is there it usually expresses.

Blue is dominant over white, Brown is dominant over white. When both blue and brown are present the egg will be olive or green colored.

The birds that will lay a green egg from Ameraucana crossed to the Marans are the birds with the peacomb. The peacomb gene and the blue egg gene seem to be very closely linked in the great parking lot at the DNA superstore of the bird, the blue egg generally does not happen without the peacomb. Single combed birds from this cross will lay a brown egg, it is said that sometimes the single combed birds from these crosses can lay a green egg, but that chance is something like only 3%.

The birds in question are not pure regardless of their egg color, they have too many other visuals that show us they are not.

 

[rkalgren]

Just got my first pair of Marans two weeks ago. They are about four weeks old now and are Golden Duckwing in color. I can't wait until they get old enough to breed. I understand that the Golden Duckwing doesn't breed true, is that correct?

 

[Brada Puhi]

Pinkchick,

You would make a great biology teacher!

Aloha, Puhi

 

[gilavina]

Hey Kim,

Had some unexpected stuff come up yesterday, so photos were cut short. I got a couple, but they were wild and not wanting to stay still. The first bird broke my art light, so this is just total crap lighting that is yellowy colored, but will give you an idea of the copper I'm getting on some of my girls and their body type. They're 8 weeks old now. I'll shoot for more photos hopefully tomorrow if I get out of work on time. The leg feathering will be a slower process for me this year as I lost two of my best feathered girls, but I'm getting there after the hit I took over the last two years in not hatching out as many black coppers.

 

[ckvchestnut]

If one of the Splash chicks is a pullet.....use her with a Black Copper male. The barred roosters will pass on the barring gene to everyone of their offspring, the female can only pass it on to her sons. The daughters from this cross will be non barred and blue, but they carry the copper genetics and it may or may not show up correctly on the bird. It could take backcrossing to a Blue Copper male or Splash Copper male for a couple years to get the copper right, a Black Copper male would also work but the blue or splash would be best as far as the blue color is concerned. Also, not to mention that I believe from crossing the 2 varieties that the offspring from the cuckoos will still carry a silver gene and I am unsure how that will play out in later generations.

All of your chicks from the Silver Cuckoo male carry one copy of the barring gene and you should very well see signs of it when they mature. I believe when crossing a BCM or Blue Copper to a Cuckoo is where the Golden Cuckoo variety comes from..
Hoping that someone who works with them will come by and give us the low down.

Thanks so much for your helpful comments! So these 3 Splash birds' mom was a blue copper so could that help them with the copper in the first place and being me one step closer to getting a nice copperingnon their offspring? I prey I have at least one pullet in there! Make my life SO much easier. I would just cull her barred boys as you have said, and that is what you've said. I'd be focusing mainly on getting blue girls out of that flock so would never have to worry about the barring on them. A blue cuckoo boy wouldn't be that bad but then neither would a splash. If I cross the splash boy with black copper females all the boys would be solid right? Ya I guess now my main question would be could the barring ever be bred out or would all future generation babies from these 1 barred gene birds always carry the 1 gene?

 

[Brada Puhi]

If one of the Splash chicks is a pullet.....use her with a Black Copper male. The barred roosters will pass on the barring gene to everyone of their offspring, the female can only pass it on to her sons. The daughters from this cross will be non barred and blue, but they carry the copper genetics and it may or may not show up correctly on the bird. It could take backcrossing to a Blue Copper male or Splash Copper male for a couple years to get the copper right, a Black Copper male would also work but the blue or splash would be best as far as the blue color is concerned. Also, not to mention that I believe from crossing the 2 varieties that the offspring from the cuckoos will still carry a silver gene and I am unsure how that will play out in later generations.

All of your chicks from the Silver Cuckoo male carry one copy of the barring gene and you should very well see signs of it when they mature. I believe when crossing a BCM or Blue Copper to a Cuckoo is where the Golden Cuckoo variety comes from..
Hoping that someone who works with them will come by and give us the low down.

Aloha kakou,

So the barred feature that Pinkchick is talking about appears to be a sex linked gene, like colorblindness for humans. The male has an X chromosome and a Y chromosome, but if this gene appears on his only X chromosome, the allele will be expressed, even if the barred gene is recessive. For the females, She must inherit this recessive gene on both of her X chromosomes, in order for the barring to be expressed. Do females ever express the barred feature?

that all sounds good and dandy untiI remember that Pinkchick said that males pass it on to all their offspring(every time?), which means that it isn't a sex linked gene?

I also wonder why females can only pass it on to their son


What do you think Pinkchick?

Aloha, puhi

 

[DMRippy]

Ok I am not pinkchick but i do know the roos carry 2 of the same genes. That to allows roos to have double barring. The hens determine gender they carry one of each. If humans are xx female and xy male it is the OPPOSITE in chickens. Roos are xx and hens are xy. I know those are not the right letters but i cant think what they are and i cant look them up.

The barring gene is on the x genes for example. If the hen is barred she can only pass the barring to the male chicks. If the roo is correctly barred he would pass it off to 100% of the chicks.


Vicki NICE!

I have a black copper growing out that i am really liking. He has about the same coloring in his hackles. Nice even color too. He has not stared to ge much color all over but it looks like the same color as his hackles.

 

[gilavina]

Ok I am not pinkchick but i do know the roos carry 2 of the same genes. That to allows roos to have double barring. The hens determine gender they carry one of each. If humans are xx female and xy male it is the OPPOSITE in chickens. Roos are xx and hens are xy. I know those are not the right letters but i cant think what they are and i cant look them up.

The barring gene is on the x genes for example. If the hen is barred she can only pass the barring to the male chicks. If the roo is correctly barred he would pass it off to 100% of the chicks.


Vicki NICE!

I have a black copper growing out that i am really liking. He has about the same coloring in his hackles. Nice even color too. He has not stared to ge much color all over but it looks like the same color as his hackles.

Thanks lady. I held back three cockerels from this first hatch. 2 black birchen and one blue copper, but not sold that I'll keep him. He's getting into the dinosaur phase, so hard to tell if he'll get the chunky type he had before. The second hatch has quite a few cockerels, but haven't sorted them too carefully yet other than for obvious factors. Hopefully will get to sorting those more soon. They are about 5 weeks behind the first batch. I'm also collecting eggs for the third hatch since the temps are running pretty mellow for June. I didn't notice until I posted the photo that the girl on the right was dirty. I thought I'd gotten them brushed off well enough (caught them while they were dust bathing in the sun), but obviously missed some.

 

[DMRippy]

I will put his pic up on fb if you can look at him.