Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Heckel's Hens]

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I am in looooooooooooove!

Congrats!

 

[Mountain Mel]

Well, I moved my chickens into their new "Digs" today. They did not like the "catching & crating" part, but they are one happy bunch now! I am wondering if the stress of the capture, crate, and move will make any of them stop laying for a while...The outside yard in the new pen is about 14' wide x 50' long.

 

[chasehope]

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Sounds fun! I've got some black coppers, cuckoo, black and blue birchens...its a test hatch, so there's also a couple wild card mixes in there I thought I'd try just for fun. I'm kinda hoping for a couple of blue cuckoos...but won't know til they decide if they want to hatch or not.

Good luck to you too!

Blue cuckoos would be fun! We are hoping for some blue golden cuckoos out of these guys. The eggs are all out of my blue copper pullet, but she is with my feather shanked golden cuckoo rooster, feather shanked blue copper rooster, and clean shanked golden cuckoo rooster, so who knows who the daddy is! I havent candled yet to see how many are developing, its too cold outside! Maybe I will get brave tonight! Cant wait to see what hatches from your eggs!

 

[gilavina]

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Sounds fun! I've got some black coppers, cuckoo, black and blue birchens...its a test hatch, so there's also a couple wild card mixes in there I thought I'd try just for fun. I'm kinda hoping for a couple of blue cuckoos...but won't know til they decide if they want to hatch or not.

Good luck to you too!

Blue cuckoos would be fun! We are hoping for some blue golden cuckoos out of these guys. The eggs are all out of my blue copper pullet, but she is with my feather shanked golden cuckoo rooster, feather shanked blue copper rooster, and clean shanked golden cuckoo rooster, so who knows who the daddy is! I havent candled yet to see how many are developing, its too cold outside! Maybe I will get brave tonight! Cant wait to see what hatches from your eggs!

I can't wait either! Today is my day off and I'm having to find things to keep me preoccupied so I don't think about it too much. They go to lockdown day after tomorrow...so I'll candle them for the last time, pull the ones that didn't develop and move them to the hatching tray. I've gotten to setting my eggs in the evening so they begin the process of pipping and etc, whatever while I'm sleeping. I don't have a clear door on my sportsman, so the suspense is terrible haha. I am determined to shut the incubator off this spring inbetween hatches and cut a larger window that goes down to the hatching tray and put in a double pane of acrylic so I can peek in from time to time without opening it. Now way i'm gonna buy a clear acrylic door when I can make a window for a few bucks.
Its crazy cold here too...doing chores in below 0 weather is not my idea of a good time haha. I hope you post pics too, sounds like you might have some fun chicks coming!

 

[chasehope]

I hope my chicks are fun! I think she has 8 or 9 Marans eggs and then some others that the girls kept giving her before I moved her to a rabbit hutch with a nest box. I dont have a good reliable incubator, so I am glad that I have the broody that decided to hatch some for me! She is worth her weight in gold as far as I am concerned! She hatched 4 sets of eggs last year, and has started off early this year! I have to find where I wrote down exactly when they should hatch, I cant remember!

 

[sewandgrow]

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Sounds like they should feel like they're in heaven Mel. I keep mine all seaparated in small groups but my pens are mostly 6 by 12.

 

[gilavina]

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Broodies are indeed awesome..I had a couple wyandotte bantams sneak off and hatch out some clutches of eggs last summer...no luck so far with any broodies this year so far, but they are indeed worth their weight in gold. I am working on getting my hatching records ready to go and sorting out my breeding pens for spring. how do you keep your records? My records last year were not very detailed as I kept most of the info in my head....now i'm sitting here wracking my brain to get it all out on paper. haha silly, silly me...

 

[chasehope]

We are VERY disorganized at our house! We have NO record keeping system, and our chickens are all running loose together now, luckily I only have Marans roosters, so I know these babies are purebred! I would be interested to know what people use for record keeping as well!

 

[gilavina]

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haha...I keep records loosely for my breeds and my parents flock as well. The only thing I recorded last year was what breeding pen I collected eggs from, when they hatched and what I kept. I need to be much more thorough....hopefully someone will stop by and offer suggestions

 

[chasehope]

I wish I could get myself more organized with the birds! I have a great record keeping system for our boer goat herd, but they require alot of my time, so the chickens are left out! I had them all seperated, but then we had to move some of the goats into the chicken shelters to keep them from eating the trees in the front pasture (Landlord frowns on that!) and so the chickens are back to free ranging and living where they please in the barn, which is why we are down to just the Marans roosters, I didnt have any place to seperate them anymore, and my marans are the most important birds I have. They probably have a computer program you can buy that would be useful, not sure though.