Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[chicken pickin]

DSC_0276 by bekkihill, on Flickr

Do these look like boys to you? Or is this normal development for girls, too? I'm hoping that some more experienced eyes can help!



To me looks like you have 2 roos in the bottom pic. They look just like my BCM roo chick.

 

[Debbi]

I forsee a lot of crowing in your future! The ones you suspect are boys, sure look like it to me.

 

[pawtraitart]

Looking for people working on black tail buff marans to network with to improve this color variety. Please PM if interested.

 

[canesisters]

Just wanted to show off my roo. I know he's not 'correct' but to me he's very handsome and (most of the time) a real sweetie.
Just about 8months old now.

 

[BekkiH]

LOL, thanks everyone! I think I should send these pictures to the breeder. She said she would trade back any extra roos for girls. I had a hard enough time talking my husband into one rooster. There's no way three will happen!

 

[chisNchickens]

What are you incubating in, what type of bator? What are you setting your temp and humidity at? Sounds to me that they are drowning with too high a humidity. I had that problem too, so started using much less humidity levels, and things got better!

That too is interesting...I was using a cabinet incubator that I inherited. I will never use it again. The very first hatch I did was in a hovabator - the cheaper one. All the eggs
hatched but two. In the cabinet bator I had a hard time keeping humidity up. Oh well.

Okay...here is my bcm pullet. She is a bcm right? She is the biggest girl I have.




Here she is with a full grown barred rock hen. She is a wide load!

 

[flgardengirl]

anyone have experience with incubating with a Little Giant 9200... My friend and I have copper marans and olive eggers set (40 of them) and this is our first time incubating...normally I hatch with a broody ... we have the automatic egg turner but dont have anything to gauge humidity yet....We rigged a tube to the water well in bottom of bator so we can fill it without opening it... anyone have any suggestions for a good hatch/ good product suggestions? should we get the forced air fan? please HELP!!

I have a couple of those incubators. They are what I started with. I rigged up a computer fan to each of them. You can do searches to find out how. Its much cheaper than buying a fan. The way I did mine, I put the fan down but made an air baffle to block the wind from directly blowing on the eggs but really you should point the fan going up.

The really important thing to remember when using these incubators is to only turn that little knob a tiny bit at a time. It can make huge temp jumps if you aren't really careful. I got some little round temp and humidity gauges from petsmart that fit right into the egg turner. I place them where you can see them in the window. The other thing I did was to get a thermometer with a temperature probe that is digital and I drop the probe through one of the windows (or you can make a little hole and tape it) and keep it suspended right above the eggs.

Make sure when you start the incubator to get the temps up where you want them to be for a good 12 hrs or so before you put the eggs in. Put it some where it can't get bumped, is out of drafts and away from heater vents. I have had the best luck keeping it somewhere on an interior wall of the house or best of all in a closet. I put a little patio table in a closet and put the bator in there and ran extension cords in.
For humidity, I have a tube (I try to get colored tubing- it is easier to see against the white background in case it gets dislodged) running into the bator and into the water well and use a large syringe. I usually just fill it up one or two times during the whole time of incubation. During the actual hatch I will get the humidity up around 55% depending on what the actual humidity is here in FL. I have a couple sponges I use during the hatch located at a couple sides of the bator that I run a tube in and have a syringe hooked up to that in case I really need to get the humidity up.

*Make sure to calibrate your hygrometer and test you thermometers before you start. Here is a link on how to calibrate your hygrometer. If your hygrometer is not adjustable, just make a note of how much it is off and add or subtract that. http://exoticpets.about.com/od/herpresources/ss/hygrometer.htm

*Here's how I set it up for incubation (not hatching) Ignore the digital thermometer I don't use that because the humidty gets to those things lol. Note how these little thermometers and hygrometers will fit right into the egg turners. I have found that these hygrometers work pretty well as long as you calibrate them every time before you use them.

How I set them up for hatching (I don't use the water jar anymore. I originally was going to use it for a temp stabilizer but found I really didn't need it)

Note this pic shows the shelf liner (buy cheap from the dollar store)

From the side (Be sure you put the holes high enough that water won't leak out)

The hatch (See in the far upper left corner I will use double sided sticky tape and tape the hygrometer/thermometers down to the shelf liner so the chicks don't flip them over)
Also you can see the fan wiring coming out the top of the bator.

 

[Debbi]

You did a great job modifying the LG, Lynette! I use tubing too to keep the wells full. I cut some strips of sponge and put them in the wells. I also like to set the whole incubator over a shallow pan of water in the winter hatches. Since I started using a modified dry incubation method, I think the LG will work well. I just make sure I am home and watchful during the lockdown, and like you, bump the humidity up to about 55%. Those Springfield therm/hygrometers are crap! Never could get mine to calibrate the same, ever! I need to get some of the little ones that you have, or there is a new smoke shop south of me, I may check them out and see what they may have. Good looking eggs there too!

 

[flgardengirl]

Hi Debbie. Yep the best thing to do with those old LGs is to rip them apart when you first buy them lol. There used to be a really great fan wiring pic demo thread on byc but heck if I can find it now. I have a nice wine cooler that I bought for an incubator but still haven't got it totally together although I did buy all the parts. Those darn key west hens have enabled me to be really lazy about it. All I have to do is give them some eggs and they will sit on them. They are the best incubators ever lol, plus, then they take good care of the chicks too. If I don't constantly steal their eggs they will try to hide and hatch every single one of them.
I think those top eggs might have been some that actually I bought early on in the Marans craze. I know the Ameraucana ones were, they shipped here from NY. I remember we hatched 7 out of the 9 and still have all those old blue Ameraucanas except one lol (mostly roos of course :/ )

 

[bwalden]

My first pullet egg from my BCM'S! Finally!