Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Reinbeau]

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The problem with heat is if the power goes out the chickens are ill-equipped to deal with the cold. I've found the birds handle the cold much better than they handle heat. A friend has Marans nearby, and they do fine in unheated coops - and it gets really cold here.

 

[berkeleysprings]

thanks , i know what you mean about a note book , thats the easy way to keep notes i also have a file cabinet with paper notes ,,, i have only a few things
in the excell program i enter Leg Band number Breeder or Hatchery they came from , Date Hatched, SEX, EGG COLOR, Comments
Number Identification /Notes... other than that i dont keep anything else ,, egg color is the thing i am working on , by back breeding in hopes of improveing .i am using only one davis roo that came from a very dark egg ,i have many sons for back up that he fathered incase he dies , so my info and notes i keep is not to bad .....i am interested in how my darker wheten marans molt out and if the cream under parts lighten some i hope but il have to wait another 10 months or so ,,, it all takes time so i take notes because il forget


Quote:
Berk~
I use a good old fashioned pink-polka dotted spiral notebook and a old photo album. Too much headache for me to use the 'puter except for printing out photos for the album.

 

[snowbird]

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My Black Copper have white and some a little horn color toe nail. The way the last Standard for the USA was wrote up there is no mention of color of the toenail. This could of changed though. Will only comment in the future on what the USA standard says as this is where I will be showing.

 

[sewchick]

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The females will have uneven feathers on the wing tips that looks kind of like a dandelion after it has gone by.
The males have even none dandelion looking wing tips.

You can only do this the first 3 days after that they all tend to look alike. Hope this helps.

Unfortunately, feather sexing only works for American breeds - doesn't work for Marans. On the foot color thing...I had a Marans breeder on BYC tell me that FOR SURE I had just hatched a pullet....due to the foot color...guess what? It ended up to be a HUGE rooster! Let me see if I have a pic, it was a neat pic, just coming out of the shell....YUP! Here's the pic:

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff66/Wadamson/Krebsjusthatched2.jpg

I was UBER excited about this hatch, it was a line that is renowned (German line) for being really good...but, sadly, only one hatched, it was a cockerel (which is what I wanted), but he was probably the poorest example of a Marans I'd ever seen. Sigh....

Well now I am totally disgusted.

It will probably be all roosters!!!

Grrrrr.

The feathers looked so different. I thought it was all the chicken breeds.

Oh crapper. I hope I can at least get a couple of hens. Last time was disappointing. I had like 6 roos and ONE HEN. Thanks for sharing the info. It's always nice to learn. I think they should only be allowed to lay pink and blue eggs then we would know. Grrrr.

 

[geebs]

Take heart Quiltworks the rule is 50 percent. 1/2 will be pullets.

there there!!! keeping my

for a slight advantage to the pullet side.

 

[Beekercat]

I am loving this thread - so much information! It's kinda slowed down a tiny bit though (ha ha ha), so I've been forced to scour the internet for MORE. I went to mypetchickens.com and saw that they have started carrying Black Copper Marans chicks, although they're sold out for 2010. I'm not sure I noticed them having anything other than Cuckoo Marans before, but I may have missed it. They also had this on the page:

For those of you interested in showing, these birds come from Bev Davis and Wade Jeane lines
http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Day-Old-Baby-Chicks/Black-Copper-Marans-p736.aspx

Does anyone know where they get their birds?

Anyways, I can't wait for my three girls to get a little older and start laying some eggs!

 

[NewHen]

What's wrong with these guys? I can't seem to find homes for them. I hatched them from Greenfire Farms Bev Davis eggs in May. We just can't have roos in Los Angeles.

 

[aussieheelr]

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Well the bigest thing wrong is you are all the way in CA and I'm over here in CO!

I like your third roo, second has feathers on the middle toe which I believe to be DQ in the proposed standards and the first has pretty heavy feathering... just from a quick glance.
Although #2 also has more of a copper color, not straw at all... so they all have their nice points

Can't tell you a reason why you haven't found them homes.

 

[NewHen]

Actually, I think the first and third pictures are of the same cockerel, the larger one. The smaller one has deeper neck coloring. I did find a home for our other BEAUTIFUL cockerel with a great comb, coloring, etc. These guys are still seem pretty nice to me. Just hearing how many people want BCMs, these came from a reputable breeder, I don't know why it's taking so long.

I was using my daughter's camera which seemed to make one them look lighter than he is. I'll try again tomorrow with my camera.

 

[blackdotte]

I was UBER excited about this hatch, it was a line that is renowned (German line) for being really good...but, sadly, only one hatched, it was a cockerel (which is what I wanted), but he was probably the poorest example of a Marans I'd ever seen. Sigh....

Could whoever wrote this please PM me, thanks
David​