Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[annabell254]

oops this is the pict of all of them togeather... it did not go through on the last post

I like the specks in this one at the back..they ar very clear

 

[SarniaTricia]

Beautiful Babies Annabell
Coloured egg baskets are awsome.. good luck.

My 3 week olds are crazy little spazoids right now... I think I hatched too many and they have all turned into wild childs (chicks)... Moving them to small groups, so I can work with them.
I currently have brown egg and one EE (olive) layers
I also have babies ranging in age from 15 weeks to 5 days old of more green (pale and olive), blue, dark brown, pinkish with spots and white
By this Christmas (or next spring if they decide to take the winter off) I will have a beautiful rainbow egg basket...

I noticed your maran girl doesn't have feathered legs... is that a hatchery thing?

 

[Oakieridge]

Are you breeding for Black Coppers? Yellow legs are a no-no in Marans, I am unclear of the Salmon Marans, but believe they should not have yellow either. If breeding for BCM I would not use the Salmon bird at all. I would not use any birds with yellow legs in a Marans breeding program.

Thanks I am breeding Golden Salmons in this case, I do have FBCM too but all of those have nice dark legs with lots of feathering lol. I will just sell them as dark egg layers or throw them in my own laying hen coop.

 

[Oakieridge]

Can you send pcs of the 2 with yellow legs? I suspect a Welsummer cross manifesting here, (quote from the Welsummer Club breed Standard:
"IN BOTH SEXES AND COLOURS Beak yellow or horn. Eyes red. Comb, face, ear lobes and wattles bright red. Legs and feet yellow. Undercolour dark slate grey." GS Marans should have white legs with a pinkish cast. Remember GS is wildtype. Only 1 locus(e+/e+) and one gene (s+/s+ in males ; s+/s- in females). anything else added corrupts it and it is no longer GS.
Best,
Karen in western PA

I will try to get pictures of them tonight if I can. These are the only two that have popped up with yellow legs in all the dozens I have hatched out of these. I do have a few of my GS with a green cast to their legs so watching that as well.

 

[annabell254]

Beautiful Babies Annabell
Coloured egg baskets are awsome.. good luck.

My 3 week olds are crazy little spazoids right now... I think I hatched too many and they have all turned into wild childs (chicks)... Moving them to small groups, so I can work with them.
I currently have brown egg and one EE (olive) layers
I also have babies ranging in age from 15 weeks to 5 days old of more green (pale and olive), blue, dark brown, pinkish with spots and white
By this Christmas (or next spring if they decide to take the winter off) I will have a beautiful rainbow egg basket...

I noticed your maran girl doesn't have feathered legs... is that a hatchery thing?

Yes non of them do! and I have 5... I did not even know they were supp to until I started reading here...I would have LOVED feathered legs! but O well...I want them for their eggs anyways and maybe to breed to my EE roo for for some olive eggers in the far future

 

[SoCal Chick]

I was told she (for now) was a Cookoo Marans. She looks very similar to my BR but the leg color is clearly pink, not yellow, like my BR and tail shape is different. I'm unable to upload a photo right now but will try later. I'm a newbie to all this, so I don't know how how roosters/pullets act vs breed characteristics. Thank you for your comments.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Barb, so if you are seeing a purple rather than green sheen, it's confirmation of autosomal red; I do not see anything but green in my flock - "should" black coppers have autosomal red?

I would guess that green sheen is desired on the black bits. Yet another one of the details that make Black Coppers so dang hard to work with!! This would be a WONDERFUL question for the Marans Club folks. There are several that are DEEP into the genetics including colour and many of the breeders over there are very well versed on precisely how they want the birds to look.

 

[gilavina]

Where did the twist on the front of this guys comb come from and how come it popped up seemingly overnight? The slight twist on the blade I have been watching for sometime....but the front twist is brand new.

What gives???????

is he coming up to somewhere between 8 and 12 months old? I've had it happen on some otherwise fantastic birds at about that age and and I'd guess its part of his development still in progress. That's the part that suck about birds that take a longer time to fully mature....when they come up with junk like that!

So, speaking of birchens....how's the eggs coming along in the bator?

 

[gilavina]

Vicki~

You don't sound like a nutter, LOL! What works for you is what works for you. I have never heard of the green promoting one thing and the purple promoting another. I am going to research further so we can discuss it more. I find it very interesting.
I had girl...."Phat Sassy" who was completely green looking in the full sun and one could hardly ever see any purple-ish sheen. I always wondered why she was different. She was a Black Copper and did not show one stitch of copper. I didn't breed her or keep her around only because she had poor egg color.
Will say that I see more green sheen in my birds then I do the purple..........wonder if this has any correlation with the lack of copper I also have in them.
Maybe it does have something to do with melanizers.

Wonder what folks over at The Coop have stored away as far as knowledge on this.


Fascinating.

haha...that's good...cause sometimes I wonder about my sanity! haha

When it comes to the finer details of why I do or don't do something with my birds, I probably won't be able to rattle off a bunch of genetic sequencing or etc, but I can navigate practically pretty well haha. I sometimes don't even realize how much my dad taught me until we get to something like this for example. I've always wondered why on blue birds here I never have had trouble getting the lacing to turn out on most breeds I've raised, and why so many others don't seem to have them raised by others. All I know is I'm glad I know how to do some of this odd stuff cause I love me some blues with lacing! They make me happy!

here's some lovely lacing examples on some of this year's hatchlings
blue copper pullet

blue birchen pullet

 

[buckabucka]

My file is filling up with pages of good info from this thread. Too much to reread it all, so I decided to make an abridged version!

Are you publishing this? I always liked the cliff notes for Mahonri's Easter hatch.

You missed the cliff notes? Someone, I think it was dsqard, used to summarize about one hundred posts into three sentences for me! Great time saver.