Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Runawaylobster]

KEEP her if she has good type.
Track her offspring and see what they produce.
Sometimes you will lose egg color when a new breeder is brought on the seen.
A couple of generations later, your color will be back...It is a good sign that the other three kept their egg color.

I never hesitate to take a risk on a female because they will at least benefit me with eating eggs. With the males, I am much more picker because I know I am only going to keep ONE roo per pen and a max of two roos per breed.

Thanks for the info, yep i'd like to keep her, i'm in this for the long haul so it will be interesting to see if i can get the egg color back. I try to keep two of each breed of chicken that i am working with but it is getting difficult, i have only 6 coops so i am going to have to build a rooster condo and even then it will be tricky .. thanks!!!!!

 

[AK FLOCK SWAP]

Here is my FBCM pr<<<How do they look ? Body wise,,,?

 

[KsKingBee]

I would like to thank those of you who do respond to our beginner questions here on this forum. As a former moderator on a beekeeping bulletin board I know how demanding it is to answer the same old question, some of them being laughable, over and over again especially when it seems like your efforts are not appreciated. I have been reading this thread for a couple of months now and have learned some but I have a lot more to learn.

We have returned to the country, bought the family farm, built a new home and all the outbuildings, and are 'new again' to keeping fowl. My DW is excited about our birds and wants to have a full rainbow of colored eggs which is what brought us to keeping Marans. In our search for good breeding stock we found someone fairly local who was offering to sell a quad of BCM that were being used for 4H and according to her placed very well in competitions. Later we found a BYC member who sold those birds to the person we bought them from so we know some more history behind the little flock.

The cock is a beautiful bird! and a great protector/provider for his hens. He finds food for the hens and calls them to come get it, even throwing it at their feet when they don't see it right away. He keeps the guineas from picking on his girls etc. Unfortunately we lost the one hen that had copper on her neck to the heat. She layed one beautiful dark egg before she died, of the other two hens one lays a very light brown egg and the other has never layed an egg. We are told she is ten months old. At this point we are feeling that we were taken advantage of or rather we are suffering from our own ignorance.

Stage Two

A dear old friend of mine of thirty plus years, had told us about BCM in the first place and gave us nine hatching eggs of which eight hatched for us. They are now three months old, six cockerels and two pullets, and what joy these birds are, friendly, inquisitive, always happy to see us coming! But we wanted more pullets so we got more eggs from our friend, his eggs are the very darkest eggs we have ever seen, but, the question I am getting to is the extreme variations we are seeing in our hatchlings. We have hatched two more batches, one is about seven weeks and the other is three weeks, so we have a lot of chicks to evaluate. Along this journey purity of breed has become very important to us, we want to help the breed and do not want to be producing birds with SOP violations.

We have homes for our extra chicks but can you advise us how to cull out the obvious or at least show us where to start? I know that most people just wait until the are mature but if we can cull some at a younger age it would surely help us and our feed bill.

 

[snowbird]

I would like to thank those of you who do respond to our beginner questions here on this forum. As a former moderator on a beekeeping bulletin board I know how demanding it is to answer the same old question, some of them being laughable, over and over again especially when it seems like your efforts are not appreciated. I have been reading this thread for a couple of months now and have learned some but I have a lot more to learn.

We have returned to the country, bought the family farm, built a new home and all the outbuildings, and are 'new again' to keeping fowl. My DW is excited about our birds and wants to have a full rainbow of colored eggs which is what brought us to keeping Marans. In our search for good breeding stock we found someone fairly local who was offering to sell a quad of BCM that were being used for 4H and according to her placed very well in competitions. Later we found a BYC member who sold those birds to the person we bought them from so we know some more history behind the little flock.

The cock is a beautiful bird! and a great protector/provider for his hens. He finds food for the hens and calls them to come get it, even throwing it at their feet when they don't see it right away. He keeps the guineas from picking on his girls etc. Unfortunately we lost the one hen that had copper on her neck to the heat. She layed one beautiful dark egg before she died, of the other two hens one lays a very light brown egg and the other has never layed an egg. We are told she is ten months old. At this point we are feeling that we were taken advantage of or rather we are suffering from our own ignorance.

Stage Two

A dear old friend of mine of thirty plus years, had told us about BCM in the first place and gave us nine hatching eggs of which eight hatched for us. They are now three months old, six cockerels and two pullets, and what joy these birds are, friendly, inquisitive, always happy to see us coming! But we wanted more pullets so we got more eggs from our friend, his eggs are the very darkest eggs we have ever seen, but, the question I am getting to is the extreme variations we are seeing in our hatchlings. We have hatched two more batches, one is about seven weeks and the other is three weeks, so we have a lot of chicks to evaluate. Along this journey purity of breed has become very important to us, we want to help the breed and do not want to be producing birds with SOP violations.

We have homes for our extra chicks but can you advise us how to cull out the obvious or at least show us where to start? I know that most people just wait until the are mature but if we can cull some at a younger age it would surely help us and our feed bill.

Start posting picture of front top and side and also from behind and I will help with the culling. After they are feathered the majority of faults will show up.

 

[gilavina]

Hey Don, did you see the pics of the couple cockerels I posted? How do you think they are filling out? Feedback seems a bit slim these days here.

 

[Broad St Farm]

Here is my FBCM prQUOTE] In my opinion these birds do not have the proper body type I would use. They are very narrow all the way around it makes them look gamey. If you look the legs are set to far back which maks them front heavy. This is my opinion, your decision.

 

[KsKingBee]

Start posting picture of front top and side and also from behind and I will help with the culling. After they are feathered the majority of faults will show up.

Thank you Don for the kind offer and I certainly will of the feathered birds but I don't want to impose on anyone too much. At this time we have about eighty chicks from three weeks to seven weeks and was wondering if there were some general rules of thumb like clean legs, eye color, particular markings, etc I could go by so as not to be bothering ya'll too much. One of our three month cockerels has gold instead of copper on its neck, I am guessing an obvious cull but is that a common trait to see? I will get you a pic today, thanks again!

 

[Chicken Frenzie]

I may be getting a French blue copper maran! About five minutes from my house they have two, one of them in the pictures is a male, but I didn't see a picture of the other one so I'm hoping its a female.

 

[Broad St Farm]

I would like to thank those of you who do respond to our beginner questions here on this forum.  As a former moderator on a beekeeping bulletin board I know how demanding it is to answer the same old question, some of them being laughable, over and over again especially when it seems like your efforts are not appreciated.  I have been reading this thread for a couple of months now and have learned some but I have a lot more to learn.

We have returned to the country, bought the family farm, built a new home and all the outbuildings, and are 'new again' to keeping fowl.  My DW is excited about our birds and wants to have a full rainbow of colored eggs which is what brought us to keeping Marans.  In our search for good breeding stock we found someone fairly local who was offering to sell a quad of BCM that were being used for 4H and according to her placed very well in competitions.  Later we found a BYC member who sold those birds to the person we bought them from so we know some more history behind the little flock.

The cock is a beautiful bird! and a great protector/provider for his hens.  He finds food for the hens and calls them to come get it, even throwing it at their feet when they don't see it right away.  He keeps the guineas from picking on his girls etc. Unfortunately we lost the one hen that had copper on her neck to the heat.  She layed one beautiful dark egg before she died, of the other two hens one lays a very light brown egg and the other has never layed an egg.  We are told she is ten months old. At this point we are feeling that we were taken advantage of or rather we are suffering from our own ignorance.

Stage Two

A dear old friend of mine of thirty plus years, had told us about BCM in the first place and gave us nine hatching eggs of which eight hatched for us.  They are now three months old, six cockerels and two pullets, and what joy these birds are, friendly, inquisitive, always happy to see us coming!  But we wanted more pullets so we got more eggs from our friend, his eggs are the very darkest eggs we have ever seen, but, the question I am getting to is the extreme variations we are seeing in our hatchlings.  We have hatched two more batches, one is about seven weeks and the other is three weeks, so we have a lot of chicks to evaluate.  Along this journey purity of breed has become very important to us, we want to help the breed and do not want to be producing birds with SOP violations. 

We have homes for our extra chicks but can you advise us how to cull out the obvious or at least show us where to start?  I know that most people just wait until the are mature but if we can cull some at a younger age it would surely help us and our feed bill.

There is a posts on here somewhere which explain the different cull items. I would get an SOP book. In it there are illustration of things to cull for on all chickens. Next figure out what things your going to cull for and what you can live with until you get further in knowledge. Most people opt to breed for type first and formost. I cull at 4 different time if I can't afford to keep a lot of birds. 1. Cull at hatch for obvious development issues. Leg, feet issues. I don't include lack of leg feathers as I always have some feathers. And I believe leg feathers are easily fixed. 2. 3 months old. Obvious issues such as wings, yellow legs if any, and if they are scrawny. 6 months old. Again lack of type, eye color, comb, color consistency in feathers. By this point most BCMs should have molted the white feathers. 4. 1 yr old after 1st molt. Any color variations on feathers like white. Also if there are tail issues. You can cull for poor tails at anytime. Also by this point you will know who is laying what and how dark. This is just an example and if you see something pop up that you don't like, get rid of them. Your not going to get a perfect bird so you just have to get them well rounded. Any DQs that you would get at a show I get rid of them. Unless there is something so much positive that you want to try and carry it forward.

 

[Broad St Farm]

There is a posts on here somewhere which explain the different cull items. I would get an SOP book. In it there are illustration of things to cull for on all chickens. Next figure out what things your going to cull for and what you can live with until you get further in knowledge. Most people opt to breed for type first and formost. I cull at 4 different time if I can't afford to keep a lot of birds. 1. Cull at hatch for obvious development issues. Leg, feet issues. I don't include lack of leg feathers as I always have some feathers. And I believe leg feathers are easily fixed. 2. 3 months old. Obvious issues such as wings, yellow legs if any, and if they are scrawny. 6 months old. Again lack of type, eye color, comb, color consistency in feathers. By this point most BCMs should have molted the white feathers. 4. 1 yr old after 1st molt. Any color variations on feathers like white. Also if there are tail issues. You can cull for poor tails at anytime. Also by this point you will know who is laying what and how dark. This is just an example and if you see something pop up that you don't like, get rid of them. Your not going to get a perfect bird so you just have to get them well rounded. Any DQs that you would get at a show I get rid of them. Unless there is something so much positive that you want to try and carry it forward.

Also go to the SOP thread and look at the diagrams that show and describe what to look for in type. It shows the proper top line and bottom line of both males and females.