Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[flgardengirl]

Loving all this info from the show. You go Vickie with your silver cuckoos! I need to get on your egg list for next spring

I wish I could of brought some dark eggs to the show. I have been crazy busy lately and bummed I couldn't go

I think I got the dark egg thing down though, lol, with both my bcms, blcms and blues. I just got to work on the others now.

Hmmm so we want our chickens heads to look like a parrot's? I've got several parrots I'm not sure if thier heads are all shaped exactly the same..I guess in general they might be. My yellow nape amazon has a big head he thinks his is so superior to all the other parrot, ducks, guineas and chickens... EXCEPT this one little blue copper girl chicken that he is totally in love with. When he sees her he yells out "Pretty Bird" and does his wolf whistle LOL.

Then he does his trick for her where he hangs from the perch and grasps his feet together and kicks his legs lol. He makes sure she is watching him too. He gets to be out on the patio on nice days near the fountain so he can see all the other birds.

 

[geebs]

Okay I have to wiegh in here about the head... A long flat skull is what IS required and also very attractive. The problem comes in with the beak and how it attaches to the head and the curve... We do NOT want "roundy" headed marans... that is not as attractive. When you first look at the bird it is the head/eye that draws us to it... Let's keep the head attractive without a big crow type beak that is oversized and under curved.... JMHO

A parrot's head isn't that same shape either... It is flat on top but not long.

 

[gilavina]

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you are ahead of me on the egg color part. Mostly I've been working on getting body shape and color right...as I haven't been in the Marans nearly as long as most of you guys...so the egg color and etc will be a large part of my focus this year. I think I will make good strides hopefully as I will keep two cockerels of each color type. My egg color is not bad, but I hope to improve it still. I ran into problems last year with losing a couple of cockerels in early spring and it threw my breeding program off horribly in some colors. I'm still sorting out how I feel about the possibility of doing the NPIP...I am stacking that against quite a few other interests, obligations and my job...to see if/when I could do it and if it is actually warranted at the current moment as I am still wanting to work on a few factors with my different birds to improve them before I feel like releasing them is a good move. I hope that doesn't sound horrible. I had a friend tell me I was being selfish, but I guess I see it as a responsibility to give people a good opportunity to get some decent birds to start. I don't know...just one of those things.

GEEBS...thank you for putting the whole head thing in an easy to understand manner! I sometimes can be crap at describing things. The pic of the girl you put up has the kind of head I like...were the top is flatter and longer, but the part were I look for the roundness is you see how there is width to the head and how it curves in a pleasing way down to the neck and over the eye and etc? That is what I meant by rounded...

 

[Debbi]

Or in horse lingo, arched at the poll?? Sweet girl there Geebs.

 

[Wynette]

Quote:
Sooooooo Who is Who?
I've not met either, so which one are you BarnGoddess01?

I didn't get to meet either one, but I saw the barn goddess around and she is on the left so must be Wynette on the right.

Sue, I saw you at the dinner, but you were never "free" for me to be able to grab you to introduce myself - I'm so sorry and I was totally disappointed! I REALLY wanted to say hello! Nice job on handing out the awards, and KUDOS for having such good control with the account!

On the shank feathering issue, Bev had sent me two pictures a few months ago of what she felt was the "perfect" amount of feathering - I posted them, I BELIEVE, in the SOP thread.

 

[Wynette]

Quote:
I don't understand how there can be indecision on whether or not the legs were really yellow.
They must of Looked yellow to have it even come into debate..... How was it defended?
What could possibly sway someone into believing yellow isn't really yellow ? ? ?

I am not trying to start anything.... I am just trying to understand the situation....

Could you enlighten us BarnGoddess01 with more details ? ? ? ?
PM me if you don't want to go into this on the forum... I really want to understand this.

From what I was told, it sounds like it was a "laying over" of color. You know how Plymouth Rocks have yellow shanks, but they sometimes have a slight laying over of black over the yellow? I did not see the bird, but from my understanding it was VERY slight. However, most definitely not something we'd want to use breeding forward. The person who owned the bird was very upset, I understand, but was not a MCCUA member, and I'm unsure if s/he is a BYC member - hopefully, if they are, they will have now had time to reflect, and understand the feedback, which, though it can be difficult to hear, coming directly from an APA judge, is priceless!

 

[pinkchick]

My Birchen eggs are in the mail!!!!!

Geebsie~ You still got that girl that throws Birchens????

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
I don't understand how there can be indecision on whether or not the legs were really yellow.
They must of Looked yellow to have it even come into debate..... How was it defended?
What could possibly sway someone into believing yellow isn't really yellow ? ? ?

I am not trying to start anything.... I am just trying to understand the situation....

Could you enlighten us BarnGoddess01 with more details ? ? ? ?
PM me if you don't want to go into this on the forum... I really want to understand this.

I don't really have a lot of details because it didn't involve me. I do know there were a lot of very unhappy people - including the judge - who may have been given some incorrect information (old) about the breed prior to judging - since the Marans description doesn't yet actually appear in the SOP. After being well placed, the club objected. The judge reversed his decision and the bird was DQ'd. I didn't actually see the bird. I looked for a yellow legged bird and couldn't find one. Perhaps the owner, a non-club member, removed it but I'm only speculating on that point. Some VERY experienced poultry folks did say the legs weren't obviously yellow or something to that effect but others made the comment, yellow is yellow. You know how that goes. In the eye of the beholder in many cases. Again, I can only assume the legs WERE yellow because the bird ended up being DQ'd.

I think it is probably pretty reasonable to assume there will be some time needed for the judges to become familiar with Marans and in the meantime, mistakes in judging will happen. So the "Marans police" really DO have to speak up and make sure errors are corrected when they have the chance. And the parties directly involved will likely be unhappy because it can feel a bit like sour grapes, if you know what I mean.

 

[Debbi]

Quote:
I didn't get to meet either one, but I saw the barn goddess around and she is on the left so must be Wynette on the right.

Sue, I saw you at the dinner, but you were never "free" for me to be able to grab you to introduce myself - I'm so sorry and I was totally disappointed! I REALLY wanted to say hello! Nice job on handing out the awards, and KUDOS for having such good control with the account!

On the shank feathering issue, Bev had sent me two pictures a few months ago of what she felt was the "perfect" amount of feathering - I posted them, I BELIEVE, in the SOP thread.




Wynette, I went and found the SOP thread and looked at the pics. I remarked on the pics as to the type I prefer, so the thread has now gotten back on page one. Really had to dig for that thread, sure hope it stays more to the forefront...

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
the who and the what?? I don't know all horse lingo...just basics...what is "arched at the poll?"