Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[pinkchick]

I have not had a single chick pull off it's vetwrap tag....not one.

Try making the strips a little longer and fold the ends over and press, kinda like how we fold the top of a brown paper lunch bag down.

 

[flgardengirl]

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That's good to know, our Tractor Supply really has some wild colors and really wide vetwraps (for horses I assume) that would be useful for lots of things.

 

[rancher hicks]

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Would it have hurt someone to answer my questions? Apparently this is not the right place to ask them.

Thanks for nothing,

Rancher

 

[berkeleysprings]

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Would it have hurt someone to answer my questions? Apparently this is not the right place to ask them.

Thanks for nothing,

Rancher

wow sorry nobody answered your question birchens would be just like any other breed .just depends on the bird *6 to 7 months for eggs depends on the time are your that you're raising them in your location the amount of daylight I have partridge plymouth rocks I have easter eggers i have silkiee and many wheaten marans but no birchen. I don't know what you mean by easy to deal with. I'm sure they would be good free rangers. and like my wheaten ocasionally go broody. I know I'm gonna come out of this sounding stupid and people they will correct me .but b kind I only dropped in to say hello to everybody now I'm good to go back inside in the wheaten marans thread lol

 

[pinkchick]

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Would it have hurt someone to answer my questions? Apparently this is not the right place to ask them.

Thanks for nothing,

Rancher

Sorry Rancher! I'm sure it was not intentional that your post was not answered, I follow this thread daily and have for years, I constantly miss posts or questions as this thread moves so incrediably fast the majority of the time. I too have asked many questions over the years that did not receive any responses, reposting your question was absolutely the best thing to do.

I have just recently started with Birchens so cannot offer alot of info on them. I have 2 cockerels that are just over 6 mos., I got them a couple months ago and they have just recently settled into their new surroundings. I have noticed that they have the same temperments as my Blue Coppers, Black Coppers and Splash. They seem to mature at a similar rate thus far. I also have some chicks that just hatched last week and they are fun, but sadly can't comment much on them, other than they too seem to grow and feather out at about the same rate as my others.

Hoping other with Birchens will come by and share their experience with you.

Have a great day!

 

[pinkchick]

Hi Randy!

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Would it have hurt someone to answer my questions? Apparently this is not the right place to ask them.

Thanks for nothing,

Rancher

In these fast moving threads many times people who know the answers simply do not see the question. The folks on this thread seem helpful to me and I don't have Marans.

Walt

 

[slick4591]

I mentioned earlier that I will have some culling to do in a while with my cockerels. I'm just hoping that with my limited knowledge I can make good decisions. Does anyone have any sort of a checklist and order of importance they put on faults? I know to cull the DQ's, but when it comes to faults I'm not sure which one would be worse than another.

 

[gilavina]

mornin everyone...

......yawn latest i've slept in years. pure awesome is what it is

 

[flgardengirl]

Hi rancher, sorry if I missed your orginal birchen post. I don't always get all the way through the posts every day, I must of missed seeing it somehow..
Several of us recently became interested in raising the silver birchens. The silver birchens are supposed to be about the same as the BCMs except for having the silver replacing the copper, from what I understand. However, I have noticed with many of the ones I've seen that the egg color needs improvement, they don't seem to get as large so the body/barn needs to be built larger, some have feathered shanks but many do not so that needs improvement. Many of the hens seem to show mossiness on the bodies especially the silver black females.

As far as temperment goes, they seem very similar to the Bl and blk coppers. I only have 3 birchens (a blue male, a blue female, and a blk female). Only my blue female has started laying so far (about the same avg age as a bcm) and her egg color is an improvement over the egg she hatched from but still needs improvement! Both of the females are very sweet and friendly to people. Both of the females seem very aggressive to cats lol! One female the bl birchen thinks she is a turkey so I knew she was an aggressive thing but then the blk birchen who is related but younger turned out to have the same personality and she was only raised with chickens. Niether girl will take crap from chickens or other animals. The cockeral is just now going through a protective phase (wow I have girls and they are mine!) but is very sweet when I pick him up and handle him. He doesn't like me to pick up the blk birchen girl though lol.

There is no APA standard for silver birchen as of yet. I think so far just the BCM and Wheaten Marans have been accepted.

I like this site for Marans descriptions even though it isn't American. Scroll down to the Birchen description. It has some photos of nice birchens and genetic description.
http://frenchmaransclubaustralia.yolasite.com/notes-on-breeding.php

Vicki has been tooling around with the silver birchens longer than I have so can probably add better/additional observations...