Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Wynette]

I agree, Barb.

 

[pinkchick]

I sincerely believe more is learned from building a bad bird than is ever learned from a good one. Like the saying goes, we learn far more from our mistakes ....

I agree Barb!!!!
I have learned more from the bad ones than I have from the good ones and having the faults and issues at your hands, where you can phyically see, feel and watch on a regular basis unfold to what it is actually going to be is worth more to me than I can explain.

 

[snowbird]

Vicki, this is a picture from last spring , notice very little white. I did a test hatch and did not hatch enough for a good test so 400-500 of these went to the Vietnamese at about six weeks. None got out in circulation.

 

[Wynette]

Don, what did this hatch tell you?

 

[gilavina]

Vicki, I was talking about the brown replacing the white on the BC chicks, let me see if I might still have a picture in my Computer.

That's what I figured you were probably talking about, I just thought I'd post about chicks with copper on them at a young age as I know of at least a couple people I know that were culling the ones with any color, including the copper. I've read lots too where its been discussed that if they have copper at a really young age, they will be overcolored and I've just not found that to be true here. Sure, I'll get a few overcolored here and there, but ironically, they don't usually have a stitch of color when they are young.

 

[gilavina]

Vicki, this is a picture from last spring , notice very little white. I did a test hatch and did not hatch enough for a good test so 400-500 of these went to the Vietnamese at about six weeks. None got out in circulation.

Wow, there really is little color on those. Were these mixed in with more penguin colored chicks at hatch? I've only had a handful of chicks come out this dark in the BCMs. In the Birchens, they come out darker of course, so am not counting those

 

[snowbird]

Don, what did this hatch tell you?

Wynette, the most important thing it taught me is always keep a sharp axe close by at all times.The first thing I seen was all the brown so I thought foolishly that I had finally found the link to breeding without the white in all the BC. Does not work that way as they all were culls and that is what happened to them.

These were all out of the Males in my photo album, he was a little high tail but looked ok, he was three years old and had never been bred or test mated. I should of waited for the test chicks to have been 3-4 months old before hatching all these chicks. I turned this male and all the female out to run free range which I do not like in the first place. All these hens were black and they were the female I had already hatched 500 chicks out of some of my males and 90% of the pullets had good copper necks , so there was not a problem with the female being the reason for all the culls.

 

[snowbird]

Wow, there really is little color on those. Were these mixed in with more penguin colored chicks at hatch? I've only had a handful of chicks come out this dark in the BCMs. In the Birchens, they come out darker of course, so am not counting those

Vicki, I hatched these for three weeks and had a few wheaten included as I try and raise a few wheaten also. Some of the picture there are also a few Welsummer included. What you see here is what hatched that week.

 

[snowbird]

Vicki, can tell you that after breeding your line for a while you will be able to decide what to test mate. I cull all after the juve molt that have white in wing and tail or brown body color. My females usually start featherin at 3-4 weeks.

Wynette if you remember the four pullets that were sent to indiana last spring the had really nice Copper hackle at 4 weeks old. Did you ever ask the lady how they turned out at adult hood.

 

[gilavina]

Just thought I'd post a couple of photos of a couple of the young blue coppers (forgive the photos, the birds are wild as March hares since I haven't gotten to spend more time with them). Still shows their color decently enough tho I believe
The nice thing about them is that all of the birds I'm holding back have nice beefy type.



His tail is up a bit high from running from me and being on alert. His eyes are also finally starting to change color as well.




Just for fun, one of my Silver Marans pullets. The one that gave me that nice egg from the other day