Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[snowbird]

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Great observations. and very true. Genetic formula's do not mean anything if you don't know the genetic makeup of your birds.........which is very unlikely. In addition not all geneticists agree on the formulas. There is tons of mis-information on BYC to add to the problems. Genetic formulas have nothing to do with the shape of the bird, which is really the most important part of the chicken.
It is difficult and sometimes impossible to work on more than one thing at a time. I don't raise Marans, but I have raised tens of thousands of chickens and I would start on shape first and when I got that I would then work on color. I breed for shape by putting birds together that will compliment each other. (if a male has a high tail, put him with a female with a low tail etc),

Breeding chickens is very different than breeding most other animals and the colors are much more complex than dogs, cats etc.

In any event, you have noticed something that some people never figure out. I look at a chicken as a genetic package whose contents is unknown until I have bred enough birds to know what will happen with the stock I have. Sometimes that comes quickly and sometimes not.

Walt Leonard

Hi Walt, What brought on my post was yesterday a fellow BYC member came to look at my BC Marans and buy a few female. Just so happened he wanted the same type that I am breeding for Broad Chest, Broad Back and long, legs set wide and overall good balance. I had set aside several of the pullets and stated that he could pick from the balance about 100 pullets. Stands to reason he wanted the same type as I do, we were able to pick out a few that still had good type, I hope he does well with them as breeders.

 

[geebs]

I agree about the genetic package... You don't know until the hen is crossed on many males what can crop up... There is a LOT hidden in the different birds and crossing lines often produces some interesting results. It shows some of the "secrets" that are hidden. Colors are still being brought forward in this breed using the genetics available but just "discovered".

On the earlier post many pages back about the bird with the yellowing in the neck. That looks to be a result of blue crossed on BC and to get a good Copper in the neck it needs to be crossed again on the BC. That is what I was stating... One crossing doesn't give the result for blue copper if that was what one was breeding for... So if you are culling based on the fact that there isn't enough copper there....welll it is because a second crossing is required.

I wasn't commenting on blue to blue crossing... I was commenting on the bird that was already there with the goldish lancets in the neck... It isn't a straight blue bird and it isn't a blue copper yet... It is recipe material (for lack of another description)

 

[snowbird]

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Geebs,Question for you and I do not have the answer. Don't you believe that some of these new verieties that are showing up might be the result of out of breed crossing ? Some of the new stuff are not even in France. I will say that in my BC and Wheaten Marans I have never hatched any other color. Yes, I have hatched some a very few Mossy and I mostly cull them as chicks.
I know very little about any of the other colors, but if I were going to breed any of them, would breed them just like any other breed of that color.

 

[snowbird]

I will also say in what little experience I have that I have always used a male bird in the color I am going for in any crossing of colors.

 

[Wynette]

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Hi, Rita! Check you out, jumping right in, doing staggered hatches, and buying a new bator to use as a hatcher! You go, girl! It's addicting!!!!

 

[Wynette]

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Geebs,Question for you and I do not have the answer. Don't you believe that some of these new verieties that are showing up might be the result of out of breed crossing ? Some of the new stuff are not even in France. I will say that in my BC and Wheaten Marans I have never hatched any other color. Yes, I have hatched some a very few Mossy and I mostly cull them as chicks.
I know very little about any of the other colors, but if I were going to breed any of them, would breed them just like any other breed of that color.

Don, glad to see you back - I thought you were not posting any longer - glad you changed your mind!! Most definitely some of the new colors (dare I say "most") are made by outcrossing to another breed...that's how it's done, and that's why it takes so darn many generations to get them back to (proposed) standard. That's the rough part, watching...waiting....waiting some more...it's GREAT, though, for fine-tuning your patience!!

 

[Debbi]

Geebs,

Question on the Blue Coppers. If you are breeding a solid blue hen to a BC roo, would it help the next generations coppering if the BC roo was a more mahogany colored guy? Would the copper on the babies still be yellowish or would they be more copper due to the darkness of the roo? Maybe then you could get truer colored Blue Coppers in the first breeding? PINK, your input would be valued here too!

 

[geebs]

Debbi... I just don't know for certain but I surmise the quality of the red in the second generation will have that nice red color. My experience has been and others have also told me as well that it takes two crossings to get a nicely colored hackle... You would likely end up with a similar result... maybe not yellow (for that I can only guess) but certainly not the rich color you would be desiring... Pinkchick may be able to offer a better answer as this is more her corner of experience... I did only two generations with blue to blue copper and I have since abandoned that project....to focus my energies on the BC.

You could try this and let us know...I believe you will get an "indicator of color" but that the result will be as others have had regardless of the richness of mahogany or copper... It just will be insufficient to product the striking contrast of color that we see in Illia's Blue Wheaton. (using wheaton example just to describe the contrast)

If you male has yellow I surmise the offspring will have more yellow... If you Roo is more to the mahogany then it stands to reason just like in the BC the quality would be similarly mahogany after two crosses...

If anyone has anything to offer here please jump in as I only have a limited amount of experience with these.

Snowbird To answer your question.... I think the French eliminate a lot of genetic errors using the term "without the slightest hesitation" I think there in lies the secrets to weeding out the crosses. There are lots of theories... I have mine but again they are just theories and I won't muddy this thread with my with speculation. It serves no good purpose. I will simplify everything to the best of my ability and work with what crops up and "try" to come close to a proposed standard using the best practices that I can.

There is some strange stuff inherant to the project that is for sure.

 

[BevDavis]

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Hi Debbi

Like the black coppers the copper blues are also carrying a melanotic gene that covers the color so although your blue hen looks a solid blue she is most probably either a blue birchen or a copper blue. It's been very hard to breed pullets with the gold in their hackles. It would depend on the melanizers the birds carry as to the depth of color the chicks would have.

We are working on solid blue birds and they should be available this next year.

Bev

 

[geebs]

Okay did I miss something... Are we "TRYING" for gold.. I think I may have misunderstood...

(gotta go to lunch) Be back in a while....