Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[cpegram]

good morning Raven1

everyday I look at the bator and I can't wait to get eggs that color thank you again!!!! DD had a blast!

 

[marquisella]

I sent a bunch of Marans off to be someones dinner yesterday. I had kept 10 cockerels to grow out and am down to 6....

I have myself down to 6 hens that I"m still working on deciding who is going & who is staying and about 15 pullets that I hatched out of the darkest eggs last winter. I hope to par that down to 10 eventually.
I vowed I would only keep the dark layers, so I'm happy that I have that many to run on.

Now, if they would start laying soon, I'll be even happier!

 

[Wynette]

Quote:
Sue, that's awesome that you have a good number to choose from! My last hatch, I had just 7 cockerels to choose from. It's so funny how, when I first got into chickens, I hoped & prayed for mostly pullets...now, it's the opposite!

 

[marquisella]

Quote:
Sue, that's awesome that you have a good number to choose from! My last hatch, I had just 7 cockerels to choose from. It's so funny how, when I first got into chickens, I hoped & prayed for mostly pullets...now, it's the opposite!

I actually did have more cockerels hatch this year, it was a nightmare.

...but I eventually got down to just the 10, and now trying to downsize even more. Yes, I'm lucky that I got the number of pullets that I did. I was worried that I would only have 3...LOL

I marked each one, and am not keeping anything that didn't hatch from a 6+ or better. Even the cockerels. Since I only had 1 hen that laid a 7, its interesting to see how different her offspring are from each other, ahhhh,,,chicken genetics! I also now need to make sure that I don't put a cockerel in with pullets from the same hen. I will say that what I see in about 50% of these young birds, is that the darker the egg they came from, the darker they are physically. So I will be pairing them up in groups of more copper color with less copper color to see if it evens out...I do have 2 pullets from the 7 egg, that at about 5 months old, have wonderful hackle color, so I will keeping my eye on them for sure!

 

[pinkchick]

Sue~ Awww...your going to be lonely without that many roos around ....NOT! Your pocket book is thanking you right now. I know mine will be thanking me too as soon as the boys I am growing out go into the freezer. MAN O MAN they eat a ton!

I wish I had that many girls to choose from, but this year I concentrated on nice blue copper roos and only a few pullets. I sure am happy with the pullets I kept even if they aren't showing enough copper and its too dark.....it's all worth it because of their long awaited eggs that are finally coming, I'm really loving their egg color. I'll take egg color improvement over copper improvement anyday.

 

[Wynette]

Quote:
Hmmm...that's SUPER interesting to me! "Ah....genetics!" to be SURE! I'll be curious to hear how the offspring looks when mated with birds that have more color!!

 

[flgardengirl]

Hmmm I haven't found that to be true, especially for the roos. Almost all my girls are dark anyways so of course the female chicks from thier dark eggs would be on the darker side. I had one roo hatch from a dark egg with quite a bit of coppering on his chest and his hackles aren't the darkest either. I have some younger roos growing out that aren't all that dark either and they came from dark dark eggs and dark mommas and fairly dark daddy (no coppering on his chest and medium coppering on his hackles, saddles etc).

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
I am going to get me some eggs from you soon, if you still have some....

Good luck!!!!

Thanks Donna, I looked in at the Blacks this morning before heading out to work and saw one pip! Yeah!
Just let me know what flavor and when on the eggs! Good luck with your hatch.

Good Morning everybody!

I would love to have some Black Marans..........ahhhh, someday, along with every other "I wish, I wish, I want" chicken on my list.


Turned off for one day doesn't count Raven....it hadn't even cooled yet.

 

[Raven1]

Well you know how hard it is to get "true" Black solid so

. I did get 3 VERY nice black pullets so I'm trying again to see if I can get a cockrel. (I can not believe I said I want to hatch a roo) The eggs are a nice color too so that is a plus. If I get some good ones you will have eggs next spring if you want them!!

 

[nincomcoop]

Any sexperts wanting to guess the sex of these 3 week old Splash cuties?

Suspect #1

Suspect #2