Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[stoopid]

Actually, Feathersite has some nice pics...Think of Dalmation spots, but not as many...yet.

 

[gilavina]

Oh, yeah, my humidity is at 20% and one part of my brain wants to add water, but the other (small) part says NOOOOOO!

haha....yeah, I had to fight a lot of that thru this hatch. I had my humidity between 20 and 30 as well the first part of incubation. Its amazing how much of a change it makes

 

[Debbi]

haha....yeah, I had to fight a lot of that thru this hatch. I had my humidity between 20 and 30 as well the first part of incubation. Its amazing how much of a change it makes

Hmmm, I set my humidity at 32, think I should drop it?? I need all the help I can get! Congrats on all the babies hatching!! DOH! I forgot to sand the eggs!! I knew there was something I missed when I put them in, GRRRRRRRRRRRR!! Do you guys sand some of the color off of yours??

 

[gilavina]

Hmmm, I set my humidity at 32, think I should drop it?? I need all the help I can get! Congrats on all the babies hatching!! DOH! I forgot to sand the eggs!! I knew there was something I missed when I put them in, GRRRRRRRRRRRR!! Do you guys sand some of the color off of yours??

I dont' know what to tell you really on the humidity. I second guessed myself so many times during this since its my first time doing it. Do you know what your incubator sets at for humidity when you have no water in it? That's what I started with. Mine was at 20-21%...and I just put about a 1/2 inch of water in at a time in the humidity tray and let it regulate and sat between the 20 and 30 and a couple of times went over the 30% when it was warmer outside. Then I just fiddled with the hatching part and without the sponge added I couldn't get the humidity high enough, so added one and am hatching between 60 - 63%. I think some of it may be environmental factors that affect it as well.
Oh, and I didn't sand any color off this batch, I only wanted to change one factor at a time so I would know what was making the improvements or etc. next time I might try the sanding, but even if none of the other 11 hatch, this is my best marans hatch at just about 75%.

 

[Arielle]

OMG OMG! My very first marans egg ever! This girl is only 22 weeks old so I was not expecting her to lay yet. I have read about them taking a lot longer to start laying. I guess spring is in the air!
I also have a naked neck turkan green egger that laid today too for the first time.
These are all my pullet eggs so far. So cute. (barred rock hen egg for comparison)

I think it is between 4 and 5 on my egg color chart.

Congrats on the eggs!!! All the hatching efforts have paid off in gorgeous colors. The marans looks very dark and the green is the prettiest green I've ever seen. (I'm hearing Dr. Suess here. )

 

[stoopid]

There is a great article that was on the Marans site, I don't know if I could link it to here, as I am stoopid.
Lemme see.....OK this is huge...I don't want to clog this thread up.
It's from Bill Worrell, and he discusses in great length, how and why to dry hatch.
I will forward it to you if you want it, give me your e-mail address....
Very interesting!

 

[Debbi]

There is a great article that was on the Marans site, I don't know if I could link it to here, as I am stoopid.
Lemme see.....OK this is huge...I don't want to clog this thread up.
It's from Bill Worrell, and he discusses in great length, how and why to dry hatch.
I will forward it to you if you want it, give me your e-mail address....
Very interesting!

Thanks Roberta, I've read that article. I went out and dropped the humidity to 26%. My bator has an automatic, digital humidity control, so it handles it all by itself. I open the vent up fully, and hope for the best. When I went out there, the humidity was at 31%. That great hatch I had with the Silkies was in the late spring, and the ambient temps were higher, as was the humidity. The humidity in the bator flucuated between 26-35%, and then for lockdown I bumped it up to 50%, and let it flux where it would. We'll see how this goes, keep your fingers crossed for me!

 

[gilavina]

I'll for sure be keeping my fingers crossed for your hatch Lady!! I'm gonna try to get a few shots of some of my chicks here in a minute...be back in a few minutes!

 

[stoopid]

Good luck

 

[Arielle]

There is a great article that was on the Marans site, I don't know if I could link it to here, as I am stoopid.
Lemme see.....OK this is huge...I don't want to clog this thread up.
It's from Bill Worrell, and he discusses in great length, how and why to dry hatch.
I will forward it to you if you want it, give me your e-mail address....
Very interesting!

He has very detailed instructions, 1-2 pp as I remember. A great read on dry hatching and how he stumbled into that method. Chookscick also has her page on dry incubating and details in sucessful use of the LG (need 2 : incubator and hatcher). Both well worth reading.