Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[ladycat]

to me those are all a part of breeding so nice to have it all in one place.

Agree.

So its ok to talk about killing Marans here? Cause I gotta kill 2 generations.

Doesn't bother me. I eat Marans for lunch. Literally.

 

[ThatFarmerChick]

Agree.


Doesn't bother me. I eat Marans for lunch. Literally. 

Why would not talk about eating Marans. We are still talking about them. We could discuss aspects of killing, preparation, cooking, taste, and texture of meat and skin. At the end of the day they are chickens. We eat their eggs for 1-4 years and then we eat the bird.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Why would not talk about eating Marans. We are still talking about them. We could discuss aspects of killing, preparation, cooking, taste, and texture of meat and skin. At the end of the day they are chickens. We eat their eggs for 1-4 years and then we eat the bird.

The production qualities of the breed are what attracted us to them. Aside from the "gourmet" qualities of the eggs and/or the "pretty factor" of the color of eggs, these area a dual purpose breed that excel in carcass quality. We eat our extra cockerels, yes we do. Breeding toward SOP in my opinion should not in any way exclude the production qualities of various breeds!

 

[chrissyr]

The production qualities of the breed are what attracted us to them. Aside from the "gourmet" qualities of the eggs and/or the "pretty factor" of the color of eggs, these area a dual purpose breed that excel in carcass quality. We eat our extra cockerels, yes we do. Breeding toward SOP in my opinion should not in any way exclude the production qualities of various breeds!

We eat ours too. Also, Bresse as well. My picky eater son who won't eat ANYTHING, eats homemade chicken noodle soup with many re-fills. Whereas before trying my soup, he warned me he didn't like chicken noodle…He was wrong
I made homemade chicken tortilla soup too, he said " MOM! this is SOOO Good!!"
Nothing compares to homegrown!

 

[NTBugtraq]

Ok Ok, mea culpa! My lack of posting experience led me to be too PC, sorry for that. I got a lotta "goshes" when I was explaining to my separate egg and meat organizations my plans to cull so many birds next year, but not have them count as part of my meat production. See, birds consumed by humans add to my 300 meat bird limit (even if I eat them myself), so that would include a yr. old hen...meanwhile, nobody would give me much for such a hen as meat around here...so my dogs are going to get some raw food in the diets next year (which does not count towards my meat bird quota).

I have 15 of these "special dual purpose" hens who are now 16 weeks, and one great BCM rooster who is 14 weeks. I believe the genetic lines follow the roosters, not the hens, in BCMs. My goal is to incubate as many fertilized eggs as I can to grow my hen layer flock to 100 (provincial small flock limit). New roosters will be separated at 6+ weeks and turn into meat or dog food. When new hens are 20 weeks, I will start culling the "special dual purpose hens" thereby defining generation +1. I expect the flock to have grown from 15 to at least 40 by this time, and eggs from the original "special dual purpose" hens will continue to be hatched, possibly up to 100.

Then the new generation +2 eggs start appearing, and as quickly as I can I will get 40 and incubate again. They become generation +2. At 20 weeks, those eggs should start appearing more often like Maran eggs, I believe. Now we're nearly 40 weeks into 2015, and I should be able to select some very dark eggs for incubation...and hope that before the end of 2015 I have hatched generation +3.

Of course it will be interesting to see what the cockerels look like through this process...and how they taste. And of course any really good looking rooster(s) will be considered as potential breed stock for my hens. However, I do expect to get another great BCM rooster in March from another source (albeit, he was supplied by the same source who gave me my only BCM).

So, I may have over simplified things (e.g. I will be choosing from amongst the eggs the 40 best for incubation each time, and who knows what ratio of male:female will come from each hatching), but does this sound like a reasonable step towards establishing my own unique line of Marans for production (not showing)?

Finally, my limited research suggests that a Brinsea 40 egg incubator is what I want. I'd love to hear any advice as to which incubator is best for that number(ish) of eggs at a time.

Cheers,
Russ

 

[shannonnrico]

My copper marans are laying right now. I'm noot sure how any of this works this has been my first year with chickens. so i am torally new sorry. i have all different marens

 

[3riverschick]

My copper marans are laying right now. I'm noot sure how any of this works this has been my first year with chickens. so i am torally new sorry. i have all different marens

Hi and welcome to the world of Marans. Keep your colors from interbreeding.
Marans folk set a lot store by pure colors in the accepted varieties.
For dark eggs, the cock is important. Take a boy out of a dark laying egg hen.
Breed him to a dark egg laying hen. Continue this sorting of mating for multiple
generations to enhance a dark egg laying flock.
Best,
Karen
Genetics are different in poultry than mammals. In mammals, the female is XX and the male is XY. In poultry, the male is XX and the female is XY.

 

[ThatFarmerChick]

Hi and welcome to the world of Marans. Keep your colors from interbreeding.
Marans folk set a lot store by pure colors in the accepted varieties.
 For dark eggs, the cock is important. Take a boy out of a dark laying egg hen.
Breed him to a dark egg laying hen.  Continue this sorting of mating for multiple
generations to enhance a dark egg laying flock.
 Best,
 Karen
Genetics are different in poultry than mammals. In mammals, the female is XX and the male is XY. In poultry, the male is XX and the female is XY.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I have been wondering about this. In our flock we only have 3 Cukoo and plan to get a rooster next year and some black and blue coppers.

 

[3riverschick]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I have been wondering about this. In our flock we only have 3 Cukoo and plan to get a rooster next year and some black and blue coppers.

Keep the Cuckoos pure in color. You can breed the black copper and the blue copper together if you want. I don't think the Blues will ever be standardized. Make sure you keep some pure Black Coppers so you have somewhere to go if you get tired of the Blues. If someone is buying Black Copper, great odds are they don't want one from a blue background or breeding. JMHO.
Best,
Karen

 

[ThatFarmerChick]

Keep the Cuckoos pure in color. You can breed the black copper and the blue copper together if you want. I don't think the Blues will ever be standardized. Make sure you keep some pure Black Coppers so you have somewhere to go if you get tired of the Blues. If someone is buying Black Copper, great odds are they don't want one from a blue background or breeding. JMHO.
 Best,
 Karen

Aweaome to know