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

[pinkchick]

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Sebrightmom~

Love that Blue Copper Hen!

I've seen photos of your babies posted on here and they are adorable. Nice looking chicks.

Little over 2 years ago I purchased my first few Marans, I purchased them without doing any research because I just had to be hot and heavy on the Marans wagon, my bad, because I ended up culling all of those birds to the laying flock. After fiddling around with them and being dissapointed with egg color and offspring results, I dug my heels in and did alot of research on them before investing in the birds I have now and I have not had any mossiness pop up. Anyway it was frustrating and not a wise financial move on my part.

I think that I made mention once about a little blue chick that another BYC'er had hatched and I saw that it had a brownish head, in my experience the little babies that had brownish heads have feathered out to be mossy but they are some of my darkest egg layers. I love the look of my customers faces when they open their egg cartons and say "0 WOW what kind of chicken layed that?".

These birds were also of mixed lines of some of the breeders that you have mentioned.
I believe that only one parent has to have that gene for that trait to be passed on. The hardest part is finding out which bird. I don't know what causes this for sure so hopefully someone will come along and help us out.

Hey BTW I'm just curious, how do you like the egg color of the Valentine birds?

 

[pinkchick]

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It is not a culling offense. I have a Splash Copper Marans pullet that has been laying eggs like that since she started laying, she's 9 mos old now. I posted almost the same question as you on the MCC site and the only person to respond was BEV. She stated that she gets those eggs from time to time and that it will run its course with the hen and that it does not affect the offspring and they are okay to hatch. That was a load off of my mind. Now the problem that I have is getting those eggs to hatch. I have tried and tried to hatch her eggs but have only been able to hatch out 3 and the eggs that hatched were not as heavily coated, some days she lays an egg that only has a slight coating. Most of the time my girls eggs are very heavily coated and when washed off they are a nice egg but just as soon as the air hits it and it dries it is right back to that chalky purplish color. I'm wondering if the eggs that have the extra heavy coating is what is preventing them from hatching. Try as I may I can't scrape it off or wash it off. Its so thick that you can see actual layer of it when looking around the scratches that the hen put in it after she layed. This particular hen likes to lay and then sit on her egg for a few hours then she's back off and outside.

I thought that I read somewhere and please someone correct me if I am wrong that if a bird lays an egg while the judge is standing there that it is not what is being judged.

 

[cottagegarden]

I would suspect at this point in time judges would not know to bring that in to consideration, they dont seem to hold green laying Ameraucanas against the breed while showing either.
They do have egg contests.
Funny story..I showed a Marans last summer who is lovely, but in the layer pen for light egg color. When she laid someone took the egg. I was actually embarrassed that it was lighter than what I like and went up to the person and told them if he was thinking about incubating it it wasnt fertile and gave him a talk on egg color and Marans. He probably thought I was going to yell at him for snatching the egg!!
I

thought that I read somewhere and please someone correct me if I am wrong that if a bird lays an egg while the judge is standing there that it is not what is being judged​

 

[ADozenGirlz]

I just got my FIRST 7BS Marans eggs yesterday and I'm SO excited to see what comes of them!!!
(The blue ones are from my own EEs, I wanted to set one of them with the Marans, but my bator only holds seven eggs and they shipped me 7 instead of 6. No complaints here!

 

[Bravo]

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After careful consideration (and some excellent advice from another BYC member) I am going to hang on to all of them until they either crow or lay lol.

I'm also going to send some pics to the breeder and see what she thinks.

For entertainment purposes here are 5 of the 11. They all hatched on or around 3/11 so they are just over 4 weeks. I've tried to capture all of the different "looks" including the extreme pullet and extreme cockerel but almost everything else is in between.

The one on the left screams pullet but she is the only one out of the 11 I bought that looks like that. The one on the right has a very large comb.

The one on the left is GIGANTIC compared to the others. He has huge beefy legs and I'm sure he is a he but the other 2 I have no clue.

So these are my 2 extremes and everything else is like the others in the photos. Medium to large comb and most are turning pink.

Any guesses?

Jeff, I have your eggs in the bator set to hatch next Saturday. I candeled on day 10 and it looked like 8 of the 12 were going strong.

 

[pinkchick]

Bravo~

I only see one pullet in those photos and she is the one in the first photo on the left. Nice babies!

 

[drom]

3rd gen at 2 weeks:

 

[kathyinmo]

Very nice pictures, Drom! Nice looking crew you have there!

 

[Sebrightmom]

One of my Ray hens lay a really really dark egg. The others lay nice colored eggs but just not as dark. My blue hen lays a nice dark egg too. I sold my rooster today. I am pretty sure he was the one that was making my chicks mossy. He was a beautiful boy that came from an extra dark egg, but I want to be able to show my chicks down the road. I talked to a friend at the show today and he said he had several nice roosters that I could go look at. I am hoping to get a really nice rooster to go with my girls. I have a lot of learn about Marans still but I just love the dark eggs.

 

[aalbury]

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Healthy, good looking babies!