Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[3riverschick]

Ivywoods : I'm in a bit of a quandry. I LOVE my BCM's, but I really don't like all these blood spots in the eggs......Is there any way to get rid of the spots? I don't use artificial lights and I think things are pretty calm in the coop. None of my other breeds have blood spots.

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Here are some causes/ideas for dealing with blood and meat spots in eggs.
http://www.poultryhelp.com/bloodspots.html
http://tinyurl.com/23a4xhr
and esp. : http://tinyurl.com/2ehf3mm
Best Regards,
Karen Tewart
Waterford French Marans

 

[Keara]

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Careful what you ask for. I was trying to hold out hatching all Nov and Dec.... I wanted to wait till mid Jan to set eggs. Well the girls stopped laying Jan 1st and I have not seen an egg since. Wish I had set the loverly eggs I was getting back in Dec. Now I may be waiting till march, like you Ivywwods!


PS at the moment I have a quarterhorse mare and a american shetland pony mare. The rule at our house is I can have as many horses as my husband has power-hammers ... a very large mechanical hammer for blacksmithing...one chicken for every regular handheld hammer. At the moment we are even with horse to power hammer.... any guesses on the chicken to hand hammer ratio?? He has about 50+ hammers..... I have about 13 chickens! I have some catching up to do!

 

[3riverschick]

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Next time put some super glue on the crack an try it anyway. Stranger things have happened, smile.
Best Regards,
Karen tewart

 

[flgardengirl]

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Hi, thanks. No I haven't thought ahead that far yet I am just figuring out who I should be breeding to who for spring LOL! If I can't get a decent looking roo I will hopefully at least get the darkest eggs I can.

 

[ksf59]

Question for you pros in egg color. I have 3 pretty nice FBC hens that I hacthed from some of Revolution momma's last eggs. They don't have a lot of eye color and slight copper hackle, but lay some pretty nice eggs, And have nice body type. Have layed up to a 7 but lighter now, but have layed consitantly since 1st of August.Even thruogh light moult, these girls layed.They were not dark when they started , but was relly hot here and after 1 week They layed an egg every day. Maybe 1 day a month i would get 2 eggs instead of three out of thier coop. Now they are about every other and consistantly darker color. I hatched a really nice blue copper out of egg from Parthers, I would say this guy came from a 5or 6 egg. I will post some pic when I get a chance. I really like him, color is nice , size is nice, dispo is nice . I have hatched sevral chicken form this mating, and have couple of really nice BC and couple really BLC roos, and bunch or really nicely colored hens. The roo really balanced out the color on the hens that was lacking. Any way, these hatched out of much darker eggs that the father, so I get the breed the best sons back to the mothers to keep going, but how is breeding the dad back to his daughters going to help color of eggs. I mean He came from lighter eggs, and would I not be lossing color buy breedinh him back to his daughters?
I also mated this roo to another hen, She was better eye color, very faint darker hackles,layed much darker eggs constistly. These were the darkest eggs I bought from anyone last year. She is supposed to be a pressly roo, over Wade Jeane hen. The roo mate to this hen , was big, but yellow legs, no saddle color, so culled him. Any way. I pulled her out of the other pen, by herslef . collect 10 eggs and set them. 7 hatched and these are more mixed in type, color very nice, but chicks not as constitantly good as the other pen.
Do I mate one of these 1/2 sibs to the other pens, beacuse they hatched from mre consitantky darke eggs? I talking the roo again. I don't see mating the father, even though his type is really good, back to his daughters, as he was from a lighter egg.
What whould you do.
I bought another set of eggs from that person later, and they were just as dark. Hatched out 1 hen, hardly any color.
She started laying this week, She is mated to a Blue splash that came from prathers. He is really nice, big boy, BIG roo, Nice color.
He hatched from a 4 to 5 egg, They told me thiers had been darker but were lightning up. I believ the splash was Davis lines. and blue copper was davis, and other.
I do love the blue, but like the nice black as well . I have a slash pair, and they were my back up plan to get the blue copper. So what would you pros do?

These were the eggs I set for the news years day hatch. The speckled ones are from a welsummer that just started laying, excepth the one on the lower right. That is a barnvelder
The Bigger lighter one from a wellie that has been in lay since 4 of july. The dark eggs are my Black coppers and these are about 2 shades lighter that mine have laid at thier darkest. It is hard to get true color on camera.

Ok , I will try to quit adding to my post. I also have 2 hens that just started to lay as well, that are suppoded to be from chicks the gal bought from Jesse Bryant. They were from nice dark eggs, but were some lighter eggs in the mix that did not hatch.They are in with the blue Splash, Loads of hackle , maybe to much, not quite as dark of eggs, but starting to darken up. These are BIG hens, did not think they were ever going to lay,almost 8 months and really nice eye color.

 

[HenThymes]

Hi everyone, just thought I would pop in and give those that helped with my initial cuckoo/gold chick questions an update as they are a month old now. Well first off let me tell you my discovery today as I was inspecting to get an idea of cockerels verses pullets. Let me say first that I have one that is just beautifully colored vibrant black and white more so than any of the others. So back to my inspection, I realize that the darn thing is not a cuckoo marans but a barred rock!!

The darn thing has bright yellow legs and I'm pretty sure it's a cockerel as the little wattles are already turning red.

Then onto the rest (9 of them) Two are not cuckoo are they are feathering in (very slowly) completely black, have no head feather yet so not sure if they could be BCM??, one appears to be cockerel and other pullet. There are 5 cuckoo and only two of those appear to be pullets, some have feather legs (some heavy and some light) and some are clean.

As for the white chick and the brown one, I have no clue

, neither look cuckoo-ish in the pattern that is feathering in on them and both appear to be cockerels.

The white one is clean legged and the brown is medium feather legged. These two will be very interesting to see what they actually do become.

I am still growing them all out (expect maybe the barred rock) and going to see how close I am to being right in my early sexing.

 

[3riverschick]

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I tried the alfalfa cubes for greens but they were uninterested. I put out straw regularly for mud control & they have a ball with it, but haven't tried the flakes of alfalfa hay.
Karen in California

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Try some Tmothy hay.

My salesperson at Tractor Supply recccomended it over Alfalfa. My Marans just love it and gives them greens in winter. i also bought a19.99 , 50 lb. bag of Plotspike Forage Oats at TSC. Not feed oats, seed oats. Used for seeding wild deer feed plots. Not GMO, just selectively bred at LSU by Dr. Harrison circa 2003. As soon as hubby builds me a sprouter, i am gonna try it. The old classic books I've been reading say sprouted oats are da bomb for bringing birds into lay. Speaking of which, the pure black Ameraucana rescue hen decided to bless me with an egg today. A step in the right direction..

Karen in western PA

 

[3riverschick]

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PS at the moment I have a quarterhorse mare and a american shetland pony mare. The rule at our house is I can have as many horses as my husband has power-hammers ... a very large mechanical hammer for blacksmithing...one chicken for every regular handheld hammer. At the moment we are even with horse to power hammer.... any guesses on the chicken to hand hammer ratio?? He has about 50+ hammers..... I have about 13 chickens! I have some catching up to do!

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My Hubby is a woodworker and says this is a great idea.

Course he's talking large woodworking equipement like lathes, table saws etc. Needless to say, doing it this way, he has catching up to do, in spite of his 3 car garage shop, esp. after hatching season this Spring.

Hum,
Karen

 

[geebs]

lhousesoccer is from VT also Keara!!!

 

[math ace]

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Thanks Pink. . . .my babies look like GFF and Bill dark blue dtr - - - really Long middle toe.