Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Karen, one of the great things about blue is that you can keep them with your BCM!

Can we talk about this from a begginer point of view for a moment. I have my Blue Birchen Roo (that also carries gold) that I posted about 100 pages back.

2 Blue marans hens
1 Splash Marans hen
3BCM Hens

Can I really keep them all together? I thought I was going to have to keep the BCMs out and let him only breed with the B/S. What do you get from a combo of my Blue birchen roo and BCM hens? Anything disireable?

Hi Ace!

Are the 2 blue hens and splash hen solid or do they carry copper? If they are solid you can keep them with your BCM but the offspring may or may not show copper, some may have very little, some may be pretty correct (but not likely) and others will show 1 to a few feathers of copper in the hackle to none. If you are wanting to breed for coppers (blue, black, splash coppers) you would need to back cross the offspring that show copper back to the BCM. The second generation will give you some more correctly coppered birds, it can take a couple 2/3 generations to get the copper right and perhaps longer.
If you are wanting solid blue, black and splash birds it would be best in my opinion to work with a roo that has no copper or shows very very little. It is harder to breed the copper out then it is to breed it in, but remember that when copper parents are involved your offspring will have that copper gene hiding in there even if they do not show it.

The only thing you can do with that Birchen is send him to me...........................

. (really I know nothing about Birchens but I know I think this blue birchen is pretty awesome!)

 

[Harris5]

Thank you pinkchick!!!!

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:

That was me.. I was looking for BB/S egg pictures... I am trying to decide if I want to start a breeding program with my BB/S or go to BC's... I want the egg color more than anything. (Does not need to be the darkest of the darkest). I am partial to BBS, and it is indeed unique in Marans so far.
But I am not sure I can get 6's or 7's with BBS?
How dark do they lay?

ON

ON~ You can get some nice egg color from blues and splash, it just takes some back crossing. I was positive that I would only have blue and splash birds that might give me eggs that were possibly a 4-5 on the egg color chart...it took a couple of years but I am now very happy with the egg color coming from my blue copper and splash copper birds. Backcrossing is the only way I have found to get the dark egg color back and that was back crossing to the BCM and not doing the blue to blue, splash to blue or splash to splash matings. I am convinced that the matings that I just listed are partly responsible for egg color loss in the blues/splash and also responsible for the loss of crisp lacing in the blues.
Now that I have a few blue copper and splash copper birds that are laying wonderful colored eggs I am going to back cross them to my very large and waaaaaay toooo dark blue copper roo Bill to see what happens in way of egg color.

Hope this helps!

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
WELCOME Minnesota!!!!!!!

Have you tried looking at the Marans Chicken Club of the USA or the Marans of America Club for a list of breeders? I would look there and see if there are some breeders that are close to you for shipping or perhaps someone that sells chicks. Hoping that others come by and give their advice.

 

[snowbird]

I have seen posters saying on the forum that you can put BC, copper splash, and blue in one big area and breed them and get good SOP type Marans, I believe this is a crap shoot because we need to know what birds our young off spring are to be able to breed to the SOP. With the Marans I do not believe the Genetic charts are very reliable as most if not all of our Marans have not been single mated so we know what produced them. Now if your only reason for breeding this way is the dark egg then you should be successful

 

[pinkchick]

Has anyone candled these dark eggs? What day is the best? I have some pretty high-power flashlights. I'm hoping that they will do the trick.

Hi!

I candle the eggs just before I put them in the incubator to look for cracks, then I forget about them until day 18. On day 18 just before lockdown I will candle them just to see if any are clear. They are pretty hard to see into even with a CFL candle box that I made that is very high powered, though this last hatch I was able to see a little movement in a couple of the eggs but this has been the only time. I am a setter and forgetter....if they hatch, they hatch and if they don't, they don't. I'm not much help I know, sorry!

 

[Debbi]

Don,

That could be said about any of the varieties, and even the BCMs alone. At this point in time, there isn't much to go by, except the seat of your pants, when it comes to purchasing eggs/birds, and knowing what is in them. Case in point, all the Wheaton sports that seem to pop up out of supposed BCMs. JMHO

 

[Debbi]

Quote:
Hi!

I candle the eggs just before I put them in the incubator to look for cracks, then I forget about them until day 18. On day 18 just before lockdown I will candle them just to see if any are clear. They are pretty hard to see into even with a CFL candle box that I made that is very high powered, though this last hatch I was able to see a little movement in a couple of the eggs but this has been the only time. I am a setter and forgetter....if they hatch, they hatch and if they don't, they don't. I'm not much help I know, sorry!

Mornin' Pink! I tried candling mine the first batch, and couldn't see squat! Like you, I do go over the eggs to check for cracks, but after that, I set and forget. If they hatch, they hatch.

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Don~ Breeding birds period is a crap shoot with chance hugely favoring the paradigm.
I don't recall seeing someone say that just because these birds are put together in a pen and bred that good SOP type Marans would be produced. We can try and try to match up certain "SOP" birds and mate them but we have no control over the outcome really if you think about it, we may or may not get a bird worth breeding. You can put them together and breed them and as with any other breed of birds we pick the birds that best represent the breed and proposed standard (if that is what a person is breeding for) and breed those birds back.
Some may not have the ability or desire to test mate (single mate) their birds and may just want to fly by the seat of their pants and toss caution into the wind and see what they get. It's my opinion that some of the best birds have been produced this way.

Please understand that I am not being arguementative with my reply and if I misunderstood what you were saying please clarify for me.

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Thanks I am just soooo confused... Mine are most likely not Pure BB/S... Know I think I re homed the cockerel I wanted to keep. I got rid of him because of some copper, but he had nice color and size. The guy I kept is real light blue but only a speck (1/4 of one hackle feather showing copper.)


I am thinking of scrapping my plan of trying for pure BB/S, and keep some Blue copper and BC copper in the mix.... Problem is Know I need to buy eggs chicks again...and wait another year to start... (I will breed with the blue roo on the blue hens just to see what happens, but I see the writing on the wall. I think I may loose egg color.)
.

ON