Marans Thread for Posting Pics of Your Eggs, Chicks and Chickens

[lickskillet]

Hi Tina, BEAUTIFUL chicks, the grey one looks so soft! Here chicky chicky, wanna come to KY?

LOL

 

[CHICKEN little 1]

Yay Tina! Congrads on the new chicks. Is that a Splash in front?

 

[Solsken Farm]

Quote:
Hi Krista! I have been gone for a while! I got 2 new Pyrs and have been dealing with a bunch of school stuff, and my job and too dang busy. Thanks for remembering me!

I am back, and you are NOT alone.

My pet sitter messed up my pens! Everyone of the layer pens went on a darn Swinging weekend while I was gone. So my plan to start selling eggs went bust!!!!!!!!! I now have to wait a month for the purebreds. Ugh.

Hope you all are well.

Oh and I wanted to post a picture of some of my egglets. These are my first Marans hens (davis lines, NOT from bev), Brabanters, EEs, and Ameraucanas. The Marans eggs look to be an honest 6. Unfortunately the flash fades the egg colors. Krista, the blue Ameraucanas from you are a nice blue. Thank you! I have found homes for all the roos, except 2. I kept 2.

And my Jesse chicks are all grown up.

Oh, Drom remembered me too. Hi Drom!

Well, I have been gone so long, I have posted on just about every forum.

Now I can't shut up.

Tina, none of my blue/splash eggs hatched last fall except for one splash roo that I rescued who eventually had to be culled. I LOVE your litle babies!

 

[ninjapoodles]

Great to see you back, Jennifer!

OK, guys--what IS the hatching secret for Marans eggs? Higher humidity? Lower humidity? Higher/lower temps? ANYTHING? I've read on here time and time again about chicks maturing fully but dying inside the shell, and this is happening to me, too. A good number of them do hatch, but many never make it out of the shell.

It seems that if they manage to pip, they're good. But what can be done to help them make it out?

Are the odds better with a broody hen?

 

[Solsken Farm]

Thanks Belinda!

I haven't used a broody yet to hatch marans eggs. So I can't speak to that. I also have not started hatching my own Marans yet, so I have only dealt with shipped eggs. That being said, I have had some luck with the dry incubation method. But I keep the humidity at 55-65 for the last 3 days. Last fall I had a terrible time, as the woodstove was drying my house out and the angels were sticking in their shells.

I have read Bev D say she keeps her humidity at 60 -65 throughout the process and never adjusts it.

I would think a broody would be a great thing to try. Nature does so much better than we do. Good luck!

 

[drom]

Well, I am not an incubator person, but it seems to me the secret is the Sportsman.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
I may just try this the next time I have a batch of nothing but Marans. The really frustrating thing is that it's the chicks from the darkest eggs who have the most trouble! (Which, I suppose, makes sense.)

 

[klf73]

actually I thought this was covered on the yahoo marans club before? I thought general consesus was lower the better because something about the porosity of the eggs, thickness of shell, dark egg color (or all of the above) and they seem to lose moisture slower? I am a little fried right at the moment, but will go see if I can find what I am talking about another time.
I tried figuring this out last year also. I am starting to think the shape of the egg may have something to do with it. I always use the egg carton method and dry incubated my eggs. Problem was I ended up with quite a few breech babies that didn't make it, which is usually associated with high humidity

. If I ever figure the secret out I will share

 

[tgcole]

NinjaPoodles,

I seem to have better luck hatching Black Coppers with lower humidity. I try for around 45% during the first 18 days. I can usually get this in the sportsman with just the water tray and one vent open top and bottom.

During the last 3 days, I add a humidity pad (or 2 if it's really dry) to the water tray and try for 75% or so. If you get water running out of the bator, it's too high!

I leave the eggs in the egg trays and move them to the bottom hatching tray. When I ran recommended humidity, like you, I had several chicks to die in the shell without pipping. I'm having much less of this now.

For whatever reason, the Black Copper eggs are more difficult to hatch.

Greg

 

[ninjapoodles]

Yep, these previous two posts pretty much sum up the dilemma!

Some people say higher humidity, and some say lower, and whoever is talking seems to have a lot of success with their method. Could it be a regional thing? I am really trying to understand!

I have used dry hatching methods thus far...maybe I need to do two hatches of Marans eggs only, one low and one high, and see which gives me better results?

Has anyone ever tried buffing some of the coating off the shells just prior to incubating?

ETA: Now that I've just finished up a hatch, and taken a count of everyone, it doesn't seem to be a Marans problem here. I had the same % of failure-to-hatch in the other eggs as I did in the Marans eggs, and on opening them up, it's the same problem, whatever it is. Fully developed chicks that just didn't hatch. I wish I could figure out the problem.