Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[gilavina]

By the way Don, I'm hoping that if the young BCM male I posted yesterday is ready to show by Nov (he'll be just over 6months old) I'll put him up against that other BCM boy from different parents to see how he places. I might possibly have another, but am just waiting to see how he fills out more since he's all awkward at the moment.

I'll also be showing a few girls if they are in good feather to see how they stack up against each other. I'm not sure which judge will be judging them at this point, but hopefully out of the three we have hired, one of them will be more familiar with them.

 

[gilavina]

I bought some chicks and hatching eggs at Newnan and EVERY chick has Split wing.... having to start over

expensive too. I will be selling the pullets for layers and the roos are going to the roo guy, someone will eat them.

Don't you just hate that?

 

[snowbird]

When you say a few extras, do you mean maintain the separate lines of birds I already have and such in case I need to outsource from the line I'm creating so I have source of fresh blood? That's what my thoughts had been to do, if you have a better way, I'd love to hear!

Vicki, When you set your own line and have records on all the breeder fowl, you will be working with 2-3 original lines right. If you just mix and match with the adult and the young you will be able to breed these forever. Just keep doing what you are doing now and cull all the DQs and eventually try and eliminate most of the faults that breed forward.

Actaully you can go forward with only two lines to start with if you decide to drop a line. You do not have to breed all the fowl you carry over just have a few extras so you can go in different directions anytime you like. You will find that some matings will produce better female and some will produce better males. When you figure this out it will cut down on the number of young you have to produce.

 

[snowbird]

I bought some chicks and hatching eggs at Newnan and EVERY chick has Split wing.... having to start over

expensive too. I will be selling the pullets for layers and the roos are going to the roo guy, someone will eat them.

Donna, will send you a PM later today on the split wing.

 

[laughingclown]

Don,
At one point you mentioned that you use to breed Marans in the past. By any chance do you have some pictures of some of your past birds that you can post? I would love to see some.

 

[gilavina]

Vicki, When you set your own line and have records on all the breeder fowl, you will be working with 2-3 original lines right. If you just mix and match with the adult and the young you will be able to breed these forever. Just keep doing what you are doing now and cull all the DQs and eventually try and eliminate most of the faults that breed forward.

Actaully you can go forward with only two lines to start with if you decide to drop a line. You do not have to breed all the fowl you carry over just have a few extras so you can go in different directions anytime you like. You will find that some matings will produce better female and some will produce better males. When you figure this out it will cut down on the number of young you have to produce.

Ok, that's pretty much what I was trying to say, just didn't say it very well haha. I have birds from 4 breeders in the BCMs and in the birchens from 3. Will be reassessing what I will hold over this year from the lines. I really do have things I like from each. The roo, Herbert, which produced the cockerel I posted last night tends to produce nice pullets the majority of the time, and when he is mated with the big black hen in the back of this photo, produces these nice cockerels.





It would be so much easier to be able to just have you come over and show you in person what I have and who goes with who to create birds I can use to develop my own line. Maybe after I've culled through everything for this year and am past the show here, I'll take some photos and do a bird tour so to speak of what my goals are for this next year and what I found produced what for me from this year.

 

[snowbird]

Don,
At one point you mentioned that you use to breed Marans in the past. By any chance do you have some pictures of some of your past birds that you can post? I would love to see some.

LC, yes I had BC, Wheaten, Cuckoo and White. The wheaten thread has pictures of my setup posted. Will check and see if I have any pictures of Marans that were not deleted. I still have some wheaten and whites.

 

[laughingclown]

Well I disinfected and fired up the incubator. Im going to try a test hatch of 15-17 eggs to see what I get. I tried to collect just Black Copper eggs to use but Im sure there may be 1 or 2 Blue Coppers in there. It was a daunting task going out to the coop every 30 minutes to see who was on the nest to make sure whos egg was who's.

 

[gilavina]

Well I disinfected and fired up the incubator. Im going to try a test hatch of 15-17 eggs to see what I get. I tried to collect just Black Copper eggs to use but Im sure there may be 1 or 2 Blue Coppers in there. It was a daunting task going out to the coop every 30 minutes to see who was on the nest to make sure whos egg was who's.

fantastic! I was tempted to start up the incubator again, but its just so humid, I didn't want to lose a whole hatch again, so I'll live vicariously through your hatch! heehee

 

[laughingclown]

fantastic! I was tempted to start up the incubator again, but its just so humid, I didn't want to lose a whole hatch again, so I'll live vicariously through your hatch! heehee

We were pretty humid here during my last hatch and it was nice that I was able to keep the humidity down in the incubator. Right now with no eggs or water in it, its running at like 15% humidity. So tomorrow I will collect a couple more eggs and put them in. Let the chips fall were they may. What sucks is that I dont like how unpredictable Marans eggs are. I have no idea how many birds I will end up with.