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

[snowbird]

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Here is a picture of my largest Roo at different stages

At 2 weeks:


Proposed APA standard : cocks 8 lbs. Hens 7 lbs. Cockerel 7 lbs Pullet 6 lbs. I hear they want to lower the weight even more.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/11818_marans_2_weeks_018.jpg

Here is the same Roo at 3 weeks when I started to put them out in the day:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/11818_marans_3_weeks_012.jpg

Here he is at 5 weeks:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/11818_marans_5_weeks_019.jpg

In terms of how quickly they have matured, I can't really compare them to anything else since I am new to chickens. I will say though that I was really surprised at how early I was able to sex them. I knew what they were by the beginning of the 2nd week and I always thought it took about a month to be able to tell. I ended up with 3 Pullets and 3 Roos.

 

[halo]

I personally cant wait until a standard is in place, however long it takes to do it correctly. It seems now there are breeders thinking bigger is better, regardless of how big they get, and the more feathers on the legs the better, regardless of if they end up looking like cochins or not. As many people as there are now enjoying and breeding Marans, its imperative to get a standard in place as quickly as feasibly possible, before the breed turns into something which ends up far from the official standard.

 

[Kathryn4629]

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I'm guessing 4-5 months old, should only have 3 months at the most to wait... I think. And the french line has featherd shanks, your girls are clean legged or at least the one that is standing is clean legged.

Thanks!! At how many weeks old do they tppically start laying?
Oh and both of the girls have little black feathers running down the outside of there legs. It kind of looks like a shadow in the pic.

 

[chickenherder]

In case anyone missed it the APA discussion was revived the last few days over here.

People seem to be perfectly happy with their mossy, cochin, straw hackled, black eyed birds they call Marans and if they have a breeder name attached that makes them even better, after all how can they not be the best if they are "fill in the blank" line even if four generations removed. These are live birds, not something manufactured cookie cutter style out of a factory and will all have faults. Love your birds but if they aren't Marans, they just can't be called Marans. There is a standard to work towards now, it's on the French Marans site

The standard screams out a few major points that many can't seem to get right or just don't care about and ignore in the USA:
(Brown Red is the same as Black Copper)

Disqualifying Defects

Lack of size; white or yellow ear-lobes; light-coloured or black eyes; tarsi without feathers, black or yellow; triangular body frame;
horizontal or leaning forward body. Cock weighing less than 3 kg; Hen weighing less than 2.2 kg.

Serious defects

Brown-red variety
Cock : brown wing bay; any other colour than black on the flights; straw- coloured hackles.
Hen : brown spots on the body.


Serious defect? Straw colored hackles? Hello? APA are you listening? Why are these birds being shown and winning ribbons? Then eggs are sold from these birds, because they won ribbons and that makes them all the better.....and on it goes.


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[snowbird]

The main reason the Black Copper Marans are not going into the APA as Brown Reds is because there is already a Brown Red standard description and the Black Copper are different than brown red in APA already.


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[snowbird]

Anyone ever wonder why the Black Coppers can have white feathers and not be disqualified in the proposed APA standard.

 

[chickenherder]

Just to clarify my post I was not asking why the APA isn't calling Black Copper Marans Brown Red.

It was posted for those that might look at the French site standards and not know they are the same.

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[drom]

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Hi cook_kaka_ook

My experience has been slightly different than Kathy's and Snowbird's. I had one cockerel who had quite a bit of red spotting on his breast and after a year had less than the desirable 10% "parsimonious" red spotting. For that reason, I actually think it is more important to focus on the wings and if they are clean (completely jet black primary and secondary feathers) then I would wait and see how he develops. Unless the red goes all the way down to his thighs. If it is just on his upper breast, if he were mine, I would give him a chance to mature. I like his copper color-he has a nice mid coppery color. That all says nothing about his genotype of course. And there are some very experienced people who believe that any red on the breast means the bird does not have a pure black copper genotype. But the French, presumably, don't agree with this as have the slight red breast spotting in the brown-red standard.

On an related subject, I think some people misinterpret what "straw hackles" really means. Obviously straw hackles are not good. You can't show a bird that has yellow hackles- it should be a DQ. But I have seen people post pictures of roosters with only 2 colors and seen other people commenting how wonderful the bird's dark red hackles are. A black copper rooster should have 3 colors, not 2. The hackles aren't supposed to be the exact same color as the shoulders. And the shoulders of a mature black copper rooster should be solid red without lots of black spots mixed in. At least that is how I interpret the standard.

With my birds, I view the wheaten gene (which causes some of the aforementioned problems) as a genetic flaw that needs to be slowly weeded out of my flock without sacrificing egg color, confirmation or health. There are some people who, as far as genetic flaws are concerned, would rather deal with genes for light eggs or physical defects than a gene from another Marans variety; that's how strongly they feel about it.

To each his own. I just try to remember a few things;

In France, the birds who lay the darkest eggs are not usually the ones that are shown because they are being bred primarily for dark egg production as there is a market for dark eggs in France (for consumption). There is not a lot of tolerance here for the idea of separating and understanding the difference between show quality and utility birds.

But the breed clubs here have a very important job with regard to education. They are the guardians of the breed and they are trying to insure that there are enough people breeding strictly to the standard to keep the breed and breed varieties pure and viable, and to get them approved with the APA.

 

[drom]

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NewHen, those are some of the cutest baby bird pictures I have ever seen. I think your second one there is a cockerel.
And I believe the links you were trying to pull up were some pretty old pictures that I posted a while back. I deleted them when I ran out of storage and wanted to post new pictures.

 

[millejn3]

Hello Everyone,
I bought some BC maran eggs off ebay and had two odd balls hatch out. One male and one female. They both have litely feathered shanks. I emailed the person that I bought them from and he said they would turn out to be either Black tailed Buff or Wheaton Sport. Im looking for input on these birds so Im attaching pics to see if anyone can help me figure out what they truely are. Im completely new to the world of Marans so I have no clue to what they really are. Are they mutts? Any help would be awsome!!!