Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[gilavina]

mornin everyone! sure is quiet in here this mornin

Did a quick check of my birds in the building with the possum and its looking like everyone's ok...there's a couple missing patches of feathers, but they are alive...that's what I care about.

I'm hoping to see some more chickie pictures appear on here today from all of you hatching

 

[flgardengirl]

I'm glad you got that sucker before he got your babies! I am glad you looked in the coop good before you shut everything up. I remember some byc'ers telling horror stories of oppossums and coons that got locked in the coop at night with the chickens on accident because they were already hiding in there and it was dark when they got shut up. It's a good reminder for me to always check, even if the run has been closed up all day.

 

[flgardengirl]

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That totally sucks I hope they get thier info straightened out. Its funny how the ones in charge never seem to know anything. Its like when Muscovies were trying to be banned.

 

[flgardengirl]

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Pretty. They have nice feathered shanks

 

[math ace]

Sooooooo, I have been waiting and WATCHING to see what would happen with my roo's white wing feathers.

At the Juvie molt, he clearly had a few wing feathers that were white.... I was disappointed but figure oh what the heck, let's see what will happen given time.

I WISH that I had taken some photos of it way back then

The wing feathers were over 1/2 way white , not just the edge of the feather.

Over the last year, I have been randomly inspecting his wings and have been watching the WHITE SLOWLY DISAPPEAR. I do mean SLOWLY!

This is a picture of the wings about 3 months ago....

These are pictures of the wings taken this past week.... He is now about 1 1/2 years old.

NOW the white underfluff in the hackles is still white.... but the wings are finally looking white FREE!
Any Thoughts ? ?

 

[flgardengirl]

Interesting. I have a really nice looking roo that is very young about 6 mos that I think is gonna be a real keeper. He is very nice and from an uber dark egg. He is sweet to people but already kicking every roo butt in the yard. The other day he got in a fight with a top roo and was kicking butt. It was then I noticed he had a white wing feather, and I thought, "Oh no!! I will have to cull him". Maybe I will wait a little longer now

Its the first white feathering I've seen in my BCMs so I'm hoping it is just a temporary thing. He does fight alot so perhaps he got a feather pulled. If they are traumatically pulled they often come back white and then later, slowly molt out. I've seen this on my pure black orps.

I know that some people have said the white wing feathers will molt out, others say thiers don't in thier lines so it probably just depends. I don't know about the underfluff though. I think that is probably more permanent and I believe the bcms should have a darker underfluff. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[gilavina]

mornin Ladies!

That's really interesting about the white disappearing...if I have any chicks this next year with them, I might have to hold onto one just to see if it eventually disappears.

 

[gilavina]

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NO KIDDING!!!! If you saw the line up of birds I have growing out in that pen...you would know why I was freaking out. There was a whole lot more to the story than I said...mostly cause I was really cold and just wanted to warm up and go to bed after such a long day. When I found that turd in there I had to run to the barn for the pitchfork and when I came back, he was going after birds...so I pinned him in the corner first and then got him good a few times, but he would keep wriggling loose from the tines and would go after my birds again...so I finally go to the point where I got him good and then wedged the end of the tines on the back of the building...and took off and got another pitch fork and proceeded to block him in the tiny corner and realized I had no idea how I was going to get him out. He was growling and biting the tines and doing everything he could to get loose...by that time I'd already been outside for about 20 min trying to get him out of there. I called my uncle because he was the only person that I could think of that would be home...and he lives 20 min away...but I was NOT going to be leaving that THING alone with my birds...NO WAY. I ended up being outside sitting on a cement block with the ends of the pitchforks braced against my foot for about an hour all together in 30 degree weather...I was so happy when it was all over.
I just checked all my birds over again and was pretty happy to see that all of them were ok...sigh...my whole line up of birchen boys are in there!

not to mention the lavender silver sussex, my blue copper girls and all the young birchen girls I'm growing out....man...talk about heart break if I lost any of those.

 

[stoopid]

I had the same situation with a possum, I grabbed that nasty tail and waited to see if he had the ability to sneak up and bite me, I didn't have the nerve to dispatch him, or the tools at the time. He hung upside down for quite a while, then he went for a ride over the fence. WHEEEEE! He didn't try to bite me....maybe luck?

 

[gilavina]

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yikes...I couldn't bring myself to touch any of the ones here...I used tools to get him out of the building and into an empty feed sack to where I could dispose of him. I guess I have no sympathy whatsoever for predators...I will not tolerate them going after any of my animals....
I don't know...but I would guess you were probably lucky you didn't get bitten... yikes!