Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[pinkchick]

Have fun at the show Walt!

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
technically you should cut the feather and then split it down the shaft to let it die back and fall out on it's own. You could ruin the follicle, but I never have and I've pulled lots of feathers.

Walt

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Thanks..I'm gone now.....

 

[Debbi]

Wow, it's quiet in here today! Woke up this morning to what I thought was a dog yelping in pain. Mine were still fast asleep, and we typically don't get strays here. Fast jog to the window and saw what looked like the rear end of a coyote running into the woods. HA HA!! Sure glad I put up the hot wire around the run!! From the sound of him, he got zapped really good, especially since it rained last night. That's the first sign of any predator since I put the chooks in the coop. Hopefully, Mr. Coyote got the idea that the chicken buffet was CLOSED!!

 

[math ace]

Quote:
SOMEBODY translate what Walt said . .. . .

1.) Why "Don't feed the bird any scratch feed" . . . . I don't feed very much, but I do use cracked corn as my bribe to get them to move from the coop to the free range area in the morning and then again in the evening to return to the coop.

2.) What does "The white in the wings / tails seems . . . . . I am confident that they will qualify for SOP" mean ? ?
The first sentence says is a DQ and then the above seems to imply that it would be ok,
so I KNOW I must be misunderstanding what was written.

Thanks - - - any one who wants to jump in here and help clarify this for me.

 

[Debbi]

Yes Math, I'm a bit confused by that too!

 

[Lotsapaints]

many black juvenile birds have white feathers in the wing less often in the tail....I have a Partridge Rock that had some show up in the wing he's hard to catch so I never spread his wing out to see how bad now @ 7 months I see it's just the tip of one feather the rest of the feather has turned so it's not a big deal with that bird. I now have found a pullet with 2 1/2 white feathers in the tail they were never there before but I never looked at all her feathers good either so now I'm thinking they might all turn black but she's only 5 months old so I'm watching. I have a Black Copper roo with the white cotton in his back and tail and several white feathers on him he went to the freezer pen the pullet is not from the same hatch if she were I might have different thoughts....If you had a bird that was so good you might use them with the white feather but you would never breed back since I've never had any so good I cull them now. It is a bad fault those adult white feathers not so bad with the young ones...I hope that helps you if you keep him for breeding you would take notes on the feathers to see if it was passed on it might not show up right away then on the 3rd cross you might have a big problem then if you were banding and keeping notes you would know who to cull......keep a notebook handy I now inspect each bird looking for those white feathers every month at least and I look at the quill color too the SOP is a great tool if you have one if you don't have one it is a cheap investment in learning what faults are

 

[Criskin]

Phew! Perhaps it is a bit off topic, but I wanted to say "Hi!" to everyone and thank you all for such a wealth of information. My goal is to eventually read this whole thread...so far I've made it to page 100 and I must say it was a whole day's worth of free time well spent! I feel I've learned a lot and look forward to learning more. I found this thread after I ordered some eggs from Ebay that claim to use the Jeane, Presley and Grisham bloodlines. I had no idea what any of those were (or who Bev Davis is...luckily you all changed that), I just wanted to get back into chickens and I like to hatch out my own babies. It was kind of a coincidence that a BCM auction fell perfectly into my hatching egg budget and ended the same day I started looking for eggs so I couldn't help myself. The pictures of chocolate eggs and gorgeous birds were so pretty I couldn't pass up the chance that I might have birds and eggs like that in my coop. I know that is not the best way to go about things but I intended to just have a small flock for eggs and entertainment...until I discovered this thread! I'm not sure what (if anything) will hatch out but now I feel I know a little more about what to look for in my own birds and which lines and breeders to look toward in the future should my hunch prove correct and I get more serious about the breed. Anyway, thanks again everyone! I probably won't be posting much since I have no Marans expertise to add and so far all of my questions have been answered but I felt guilty just lurking!

 

[math ace]

Quote:
Welcome to our place in BYC. . . You have lots to post. We want to see pics of the hatching eggs, pics of the chicks, pics of the pullets and young roos.

Tell your seller to mark the eggs so that you can track which bloodlines are the best. It is not good to mix the bloodlines, so you will need to know what is what and who was who . . . .

 

[rockyspringsfarm]

Is there anyone on the thread who has Golden Salmon Marans or know someone who does ? I would like to get some hatching eggs from a nice line of the Golden Salmon. I am also very interested in acquiring some eggs from a feather legged dark egg line of Silver Cuckoos. I read quite a bit about the Kelly Cratty line of Silver Cuckoo but haven't found anyone who has this line available.
Thanks for everyone's time.