Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[bikechick]

Quote:

very interesting.
I plan to breed a clean legged BCM to my EE's in hopes of some good OE's.

Ha! We're so funny w/ all our acronyms. One needs a course to understand/communicate.

 

[ga_goat]

Quote:
I bought a dozen of them at a 'local' auction , the man selling them said he had hatched them , but they were in a shipping
box like the hatcheries use ,, he had over 100 in the very large shipping box and the bid was for 6 at a time I had the high bid and got 2 lots @ 3.25 ,, should have left them alone but one lives to learn .

 

[geebs]

Ah....It's okay....This is how we learn... I learned a lot when I ordered from hatcheries... I already had good stock but it was to find out if they had good stock and which hatchery had the best the quickest... FFA 4h project with the kiddos.. We ordered from 4 well known hatcheries... of them... Murray Mcmurry was the best with Ideal being the least fave for end result... I kept the murray bird for a long time... Till it was 3 or 3 1/2... nice bird. I can give a good report on them... Nice Barred rock crosses

 

[pinkchick]

Caught another GFF pullet lay an egg yesterday......here it is compared to a 1.5 year old Splash Copper egg. (new pullet egg is on the right). The pullet that laid this is one that has barely noticeable copper, she looks almost solid black.

 

[Debbi]

Awesome eggs Pink! I really impressed with the Splash gal's egg, wow!

 

[pinkchick]

Thanks Debbi! I'm impressed that splash gal's egg too! She is a Davis bird and is in with Bill. Couple of her eggs are in the bator. Will go into lockdown after I get home this morning from delivering eating eggs. All 4 Marans eggs as of yesterday look good but to hard to see through, the air cells are good and I could barely see some viening. 2 BCM from one of the GFF girls and 2 splash eggs.

 

[flgardengirl]

Pink those are lovely! Whaaa I don't have any girl splashes only a boy. He's getting big now and thinks he's head roo of his own little group.

Math Ace: Well he said he wanted an simple answer...LOL
On the olive eggers: I hatched out 2 so far. One male, one female. They both have pea combs. There are BCM x blue Ameraucana. The male OEE looks exactly like a black ameraucana except his hackles just recently turned copper. He does not have feathered legs. The female, looks body-wise like a FBCM (feathered legs and all). She probably won't be laying until Feb is my guess. I wanna hatch out some more OEEs they are kinda cool. Next time I will do some blue ones or blue and gold cuckoos. I am not sure what I am gonna do with the male yet, I don't think I will use him.

 

[snowbird]

Just a general question about Marans egg color.

Blackdotte and other Marans experts have said that 5-6 eggs are considered very good colored Marans eggs and not the norm. What is behind all the shooting for the 8-9 eggs and not thinking about what layed the egg. Are we backtracking to just breeding for the darkest egg with no concern for what layed the egg ? I am happy if mine lay a #6. Take into consideration that there are two different color scales out there at present. The one with the toe punch chart is the official one from MCCUSA and the eggs are darker on it I believe. It will cut down on the amount of 7-8-9 eggs.

 

[geebs]

Snowbird: I don't believe the other charts are available anymore. I think we are all using the MCCUSA... or at least most of us...

As far as shooting for the darkest for hatching....Yep gotta do that... I like the darkest to hatch from first... and don't set anything else because it ups the chances that the BEST genetics for the foundation of the breed is passed forward (the egg color) and then conformation is the next selection.... then color wheel.

This is just me...

BTW... Welcome back... where have you been hiding?

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Don~ I can say that I do not use the color chart except for determining whether or not an egg is a 4. If they are a 4 or anything more than that I keep the bird that lays it...BUT.....I look for all things considered in a breeder not just egg color. This slows the process down considerably but is the only way I have found to keep a sort of even keel in breeding and not losing everything such as type and variety color and patterns. I will gladly accept a #4 egg because it means that they are still a Marans but the norm here for my birds runs between a 4-6 with the occassional darker egg but I have never never never had an 8 or 9. I will take the slow road anyday so I don't lose everything. Breeding birds is like a marriage it takes work no matter what we started out with if we are determined to make it work.