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

[KYBOY]

No, it was from a breeder in central Ky..I found him on ebay by accident.

 

[Zgoatlady]

So this is going to be a stupid question but hay thats how we learn right I have Wade line and Bevs line and would like to cross the two but have been told NO dont do it because you will loose egg color. Why is this. Id like to keep them seperate and than also cross to see what would happen.
Help I dont want to do anything wrong.

 

[Krys109uk]

It is unlikely that anything terrible would happen. And if there were negative effects, you probably wouldn't see it in a first generation.
If you have your own established line with which you are happy enough & have all the components you are looking for, then it might bring as many negatives as positives introducing new blood.
It sound like this is not the case. If I were you I'd just get on with it & start making your line. The most important thing is to cull ruthlessly. And regarding egg colour.......you probably wouldn't go far wrong if you just never hatch from eggs which would be less than a 4 in full lay when egg colour is usually at its lightest (unless you can track the chicks & restrict their influence on future generations). Try to use males which hatched out of eggs from the darkest egg layer. Sometimes it could be a balance between egg colour & type, but egg colour not below 4 on the chart. Feather colour possibly being one of the least important traits as it is usually easy to sort.

 

[ninjapoodles]

FINALLY--my hens' eggs are "smoothing" out. I've been waiting for this to happen for months, and all of a sudden the stippling has gotten smaller and more evenly distributed over the surface of the shell. I love the speckled ones, too, but this is what I wanted when I first got Marans chicks!

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
beautiful!!!

 

[Krys109uk]

Nice egg

 

[berkeleysprings]

wheaten marans dark

and here id 12 day old chicks from lesser breeded

 

[1mommahen]

Holy moley ninja, that egg is beautiful!!!!

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
Thanks--I have at least two hens putting them out like this now...I hope I can keep it going, and figure out who's doing it! I cannot get breeder pens built fast enough! I may just wind up putting half of them out with the laying flock for a while, and try to identify who's laying what and mark them accordingly.

 

[Knight Hawk Ranch]

I feel like I can finally post on this thread.

I am the proud owner of some BC Marans (2 boys/2 girls) and some Copper Blue Marans(trio). My new additions are still very young and a ways off from laying and I only have a very few of them.

I am very excited to finally have some of these beautiful birds.

Now I just have to located my camera and get some pictures. LOL