Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:

When attending the "talk" organized by the Marans Chicken Club at Crossroads last year (the Wheaten qualifying meet) there was much criticism about the Marans leg feathering being TOO sparse. And there were some birds there with some very decent looking leg feathering to many of our eyes. Based on what I learned there, stubs on the middle toe are far less of an issue than feathering that is too sparse. (I would cull a bird lacking feathering on the outside toe before I would cull for stubs on the middle toe is my point.)

I have also heard that rudimentary toes are part of feather-legged breeds. That is probably one of the last things that should be considered when deciding whether or not to use a bird for breeding.

 

[pinkchick]

Boy, girl, boy, girl

Pink, what year is your SOP?
I don't have mine here (at work) I must just be stressing out here,

2010

 

[pinkchick]

Just thought I would share pictures of my favorite splash girl we hatched back in Feb. She is so sweet. I think that is a cuckoo pullet in the background. I need to seperate them all out by breed.

I love Splash birds!!!!!!! She is lovely!

 

[Oakieridge]

I love Splash birds!!!!!!! She is lovely!

Thanks I can't wait until Friday, then I will have enough pens for my breeds to each have their own grow out pens. I will have a splash, cuckoo, and golden salmon grow out pens and will need a wheaton pen in a few more weeks so have to start on them a tractor of their own. I only have 6 so they won't need much space.

On breeding and picking my biggest problem right now is in my golden salmons. I have really pretty feathering birds and they have yellow legs or I have really so so feathered birds with dark leggs. None of my parent birds have yellow legs so not sure where that is coming from. Right now they are only 7 weeks old is there a possibility that the leg color will change? If not I will sell them off as dark egg layers I have someone coming tonight to buy some of my culls.

 

[slick4591]

So I gotta wonder what's up with this little girl. Black body and blue wings? None of the others look like this. I've bred Black Copper to Black Copper and Blue Cooper to Blue Copper. This girl is out of one of the Marans eggs.

 

[stoopid]

OK, it's official. I am losing my mind.

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:

When attending the "talk" organized by the Marans Chicken Club at Crossroads last year (the Wheaten qualifying meet) there was much criticism about the Marans leg feathering being TOO sparse. And there were some birds there with some very decent looking leg feathering to many of our eyes. Based on what I learned there, stubs on the middle toe are far less of an issue than feathering that is too sparse. (I would cull a bird lacking feathering on the outside toe before I would cull for stubs on the middle toe is my point.)

I have also heard that rudimentary toes are part of feather-legged breeds. That is probably one of the last things that should be considered when deciding whether or not to use a bird for breeding.

At one time, lightly feather shanked and clean outer toes was the norm (or what was called for) in Marans. Just recently in the last couple of years has this changed. So some older breeders, like me started out with birds that met this criteria and we are trying to breed the correct feathering back in. I personally love the clean outer toe look and wish they would have kept it that way, but since has been changed I am now breeding for feathered outer toes and it has been somewhat of a challenge, but I am making progress. I agree with not giving it too much emphasis at this time, but eventually it will not be overlooked, so I cull for it now. That's just my plan of attack anyway. I also have no issues with the rudimentary toe and I will and have used birds that have it for breeding. I think everyone just has different issues they are willing to take on at different stages of their breeding programs. For what ever it is worth.....I am THANKFUL for everyone that is working with this breed of birds and their dedication to them. I am ever grateful for the pioneers that brought this breed here and the huge efforts and and progress they have made to enable me to work with something even better whan what they stareted out with. Heck if it wasn't for their efforts we would have way more irons to breed out of the proverbial fire.

 

[pinkchick]

So I gotta wonder what's up with this little girl. Black body and blue wings? None of the others look like this. I've bred Black Copper to Black Copper and Blue Cooper to Blue Copper. This girl is out of one of the Marans eggs.

In my experience this does not mean that the bird is blue....sometimes the shading on them will look blueish....that said....the only way a person will truly ever know if their bird is blue is to breed it to a genetically black bird and see if blue offspring pop up.

BTW...she's a cutie pie!

 

[Coop de Grille]

Quote:

I bought 12 mixed eggs from someone local and they gave me 4 pure marans eggs. All the marans eggs hatched through the night or when I was at work so I don't know which ones are the pure breed ones. I have never had marans before. The white chick has feathered green legs, so I am assuming she is one of the EE's but I wanted to check just in case I'm wrong.

 

[jmanderson777]

Rudimentary toe~


It is not listed as a DQ or a fault in the standard and is something that happens in heavily feather shanked birds and birds with feathered feet/toes. I find it can be somewhat avoided by not using the birds that show it for breeding....but like the feather stub arbitrarily showing up on the middle toe, this too can show up even if a person does not use birds that express it.

I agree with Barngoddess and it should not cause issues with walking.....I have had several upon several rudimentary toes and they have never had an issue with walking.

Maybe it did have something stuck to its foot. I haven't noticed any issues before and I've had them for 3 weeks now. I felt real bad that I hadn't noticed and it was having issues due to the toe. I'll keep an eye on it and see if the problems are still there tonight. They decided to knock my warming light down last night into the shavings. I about didnt have any chicks to worry about this morning. We had a 5" scorched area where it had been laying and you could smell the smoke 10 feet away from the coop. Smoked Chicken anyone?