Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[pinkchick]

Debbi~

In answer to your question a while back about Bill and his lineage......NOPE. Probably never will.....definitely not a Valentine bird....been there, done that and will never own Valentine bird/s EVER AGAIN.

IMO- The Valentine birds that I had were the WORST example of a Marans I have ever seen........not even worthy of being called Marans. The Valentine birds I had looked like leghorns and laid an egg about the same as a leggie...'cept it had a slight light brown hue. That was a collosal waste of my money.
Live and learn.

(No offense to anyone and their birds or Valentine....this is just my opinion of the birds that I had)

 

[Keara]

Quote:
Lost both my original GFF hens to predation, they went broody and hid on me. Birds not in the coop at night are a risk around here.

I did get a bunch of chicks but gave most of them away. I did end up keeping 3 pullets and one nice looking cockerel. They are a shy group but I will try to get some photos. They are all on the dark side, have minimal white on the wing tips, I like the body shape of them but am a tad worried they will mature on the small side. I need to get a look at them for white underfluff some night when they are roosting, but there is nothing poking out!

What I should realy do is go visit my friend I gave about 10 GFFx chicks to and get some photos. This weekend is a statewide vineyard open house... maybe I can get my husband to drive me south and do some tasting on the way!

-Keara

 

[Debbi]

Ok Keara, if we get wobbly pics, we will know why!!

Sounds like my kind of day; chicken looking and wine tasting!

 

[BarnGoddess01]

I'm concerned about the leg feathering on my 17 week old BCM cockerel. The feathers nearest the ground are getting broken off. Some of the "stumps" appear to be almost abscess like; swollen and red. Is this typical for feather legged birds or does my guy have a problem?

 

[Bravo]

Quote:
I had a boy like this too. It seamed that the feathers had a difficult time erupting from the skin. I ended up soaking his legs in warm water a few times a week and lightly exfoliated the area with a wash cloth. I had to remove a few obviously ingrown feathers that were becoming infected as well.

I ended up selling him so I don't know if it has improved. Strange stuff...

 

[susanbird]

Quote:
Just a few guesses and maybe something you can look into further

First guess is that maybe the foot was injured in some way that damaged the feather follicles. If the follicles are damaged then this may be an ongoing problem that you will have to deal with

Your chicken may have gotten some ingrown feathers and then by picking at them caused follicle damage.

Previously damaged or ingrown feathers were not properly removed resulting in the new feathers not growing in correctly.

Periodically in exotic birds a blood feather would break and that would scare me, at least initially. To pull out such a feather the bird needs to be held by one person while the other person uses, preferable needle point pliers, to grasp the feather shaft and pull it straight out. Because a blood feather has an artery and vein, it will bleed. It is good to have some type of blood stop available. I would think that the same procedure would work on the chicken feet feathers.

I have quite a few chickens with feathered shanks and feet and luckily have not had this happen===yet!

I do hope it is not an ongoing problem for you and your roo.
Susan

 

[BarnGoddess01]

"Ingrown feathers" actually fits.

I did notice a couple of bloody feather stumps last week but didn't have a clue what to do about them. I take it from the responses that this is not something he is likely to grow out of? He's friendly enough so it should be relatively easy to work with him but I'm on my own so I may have to be resourceful!! I can't imagine me digging around for ingrown feathers will be fun for him.

 

[geebs]

Pink: I cheated... I gave my bators to someone to use for the summer... It eliminates the temptation!!!!! LOL Been great letting the broodies do all the work... Still have babies popping out of the bushes everywhere..Not my responsibility... LOVE IT!!!!!

 

[math ace]

Quote:
I've got a broody that has three chicks that are 2 - 3 weeks old. Another broody that has a single chick that is 3 days old. Plus, there is one more broody that just started up.

So I will start collecting eggs for her tomorrow. If she is still serious about it by this weekend, I will let her have at it!

All these mommas can raise their chicks together and then I won't feel bad about having them re-enter the flock together in a month or so. The first broody has had enough time off from my rooster that she is starting to re-grow her feathers

from rooster damage

I am delighted to have the mommas do the work. I still have the 5 white delaware chicks in the house. The first BCM broody refused to adopt them.

She only adopted the black chicks from the hatch

 

[susanbird]

Quote:
Just a few guesses and maybe something you can look into further

First guess is that maybe the foot was injured in some way that damaged the feather follicles. If the follicles are damaged then this may be an ongoing problem that you will have to deal with

Your chicken may have gotten some ingrown feathers and then by picking at them caused follicle damage.

Previously damaged or ingrown feathers were not properly removed resulting in the new feathers not growing in correctly.

Periodically in exotic birds a blood feather would break and that would scare me, at least initially. To pull out such a feather the bird needs to be held by one person while the other person uses, preferable needle point pliers, to grasp the feather shaft and pull it straight out. Because a blood feather has an artery and vein, it will bleed. It is good to have some type of blood stop available. I would think that the same procedure would work on the chicken feet feathers.

I have quite a few chickens with feathered shanks and feet and luckily have not had this happen===yet!

I do hope it is not an ongoing problem for you and your roo.
Susan

I looked around the net to see what was said about causes. Nothing was really conclusive. One site said a shortage of Methionine could cause feather problems. This is supposed to be in the chicken food. It said if too many grains were fed in addition to the pellets that the chicken(s) might not be eating enough of the pellets to get an adequate amount. I didn't look to see what foods contain this.

Another site talks about dry skin being the cause: http://www.raising-chickens.org/chicken-molting.html

Another site said that if the problem persisted removal of the follicle might be necessary.

You might check with the University in your area, if they have a veterinary branch. I have called before re my exotic birds and got information over the phone.