Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[snowbird]

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those are some beauties for sure can't wait for your Cuckoo's to get feathers I wanna see them. How did you make that box for pictures? I would certainly buy eggs from you too knowing how much culling you've had to do considering how many I've hatched that are not worth the time waiting for them....a work in progress for sure.

The light box is 36" deep 48" wide and 36" tall with a three part door. If I want I can photograph a single, pair or trio of marans. It only has one day light Bulb. I have culled about 80 % of the males for various faults. I hope all the culling will show when I start hatching again in November.

 

[ruth]

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Here's some of mine but they were still officially pullets when this was taken and were just put in their first breeder pen. They were five months old in these pics.

 

[ruth]

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No, I rarely eat them (the eggs) and I don't really even have many offspring either. I usually have a waiting list for hatching eggs or chicks so I sell them or hatch them and sell the chicks. I'll occasionally add one or two to my multi-colored pack of eating eggs just for the effect. All of my birds are pure Wade Jeane. I've never mixed the lines. I have the older/original Jeane birds and I have some of their first offspring which, in my opinion, are nicer than the older birds.

 

[snowbird]

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Many of mine are about the shade of those Don posted but I have a few hens that lay a nice dark egg consistently:

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/eggs1-1.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/darkestegg.jpg

Average shade:

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/bcm1eggs3.jpg

Ruth, I like the shape of the round eggs. Starting with my new matings in the fall I plan to Document the egg shape on all my eggs that I plan on hatching. The eggs in the picture are from pullets that run the fields during the day with no rooster.

 

[snowbird]

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Here's some of mine but they were still officially pullets when this was taken and were just put in their first breeder pen. They were five months old in these pics.


http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/bcmhens1.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/bcmhens2.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/JamesBCM-2.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/broodybcms.jpg

Ruth, very nice bunch of Black Copper Marans.

 

[ruth]

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Here's some of mine but they were still officially pullets when this was taken and were just put in their first breeder pen. They were five months old in these pics.


http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/bcmhens1.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/bcmhens2.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/JamesBCM-2.jpg

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x204/chicklady/broodybcms.jpg

Ruth, very nice bunch of Black Copper Marans.

Thanks Don.

 

[ruth]

I will say these are the broodiest bunch of hens I've ever seen. I don't get as many eggs as I would like because they stay broody. If I don't slip a chick under them or an egg that is already about to hatch, they would never get off the nest and start laying again. There will be 5 or 6 hens, in a pen of 10, broody at the same time, fighting over the same spot and stealing each others, and everyone else's eggs. At any given time over half my flock is broody and since I rarely let them attempt to hatch their own eggs (simply because they never do, they tend to rot before they hatch) they stay broody forever. And even if I let them have a chick or two, they go right back to being broody before the chick is a week or two old so they don't tend to be as passionate about raising the chicks as they are about setting the eggs. I've come to think they are just lazy.

 

[geebs]

Ha ha ha... I have one for ya... I have a token splash Bev Davis hen.... In with my cochins... She is just a pretty fat little turkey... She went broody.. Heck she still is... (she is just an egg eating machine anyway)... but she successfully hatched a brood and promptly ate them... We changed her name to H-Annebelle Lekter (spelling?) Otherwise known as Annebelle the Cannibal.

 

[math ace]

LADIES - - - if we are going to France by way of ship, we will need to bring the incubator with us - - - -

 

[Illia]

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Hahah! I really don't understand the egg eating craze, honestly. I don't have any serious egg monsters, but boy oh boy if I ever drop an egg while collecting, it's like starving dinosaurs on a buffet. Seriously, why? I could drop pudding and they wouldn't be half as desperate to get it. It's like heroine to them.