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

[Lotsapaints]

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Maybe her background is the question? I had just hatched 6 around 2 weeks before and 3 looked dark with 3 looking like this, the beaks were different colors too

I have Lolita's first batch. All babies with white spots are boys and are showing barring on their wing feathers now. So I am assuming these are blue cuckoo? The females are dark blue/black color with no barring. If crossed what will be produced?

I don't know what they would do when crossed but if you're breeding for barring those are culls. I suppose you could breed blues and splash from them or just use them for eggs...

 

[pinkchick]

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I have Lolita's first batch. All babies with white spots are boys and are showing barring on their wing feathers now. So I am assuming these are blue cuckoo? The females are dark blue/black color with no barring. If crossed what will be produced?

I don't know what they would do when crossed but if you're breeding for barring those are culls. I suppose you could breed blues and splash from them or just use them for eggs...

You can breed one of the boys back to their mother and get barred babies, blue and splash if I remember correctly.

 

[pinkchick]

ok...typing from phone so it had to be a two part answer. The boys from this cross will be heterozygous for the barred gene, which means they will only have one copy of the barred gene and will be colored like a female barred bird, the boys from the BC x Splash are het. for barring and will be colored like a female as well. What that means is instead of being lighter colored like a homozygous male (2 copies of the barring gene) dark barring (in this case blue) on a white feather, they will have white barring on a dark feather, again in this case blue. Hope this helps.

 

[Lotsapaints]

The barred boys are not culls only the solid girls the barred boys can be bred to unbarred females and produces both barred pullets and cockerels (unbarred chicks which would be culls) that can be bred together and the ones to keep have leg barring all the others would be culls....the french site calls for breeding Silver Birchen into your cuckoos for better color seems like many culls to me but I guess you could improve egg color that way too leg feathering etc

 

[pinkchick]

Also what lotsapaints said too. A person could also use the solid birds for solid birds as well, right?

 

[Lotsapaints]

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I dunno it just says cull....but that's for breeding cuckoos if I ever try it I was thinking of just using any pullets for eggs I don't have enough pens for trying that many experiments but it would be fun if I crossed the SB maybe you would get silver birchens again I just read what was culls and thought what a waste of birds....

 

[SunChick]

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I dunno it just says cull....but that's for breeding cuckoos if I ever try it I was thinking of just using any pullets for eggs I don't have enough pens for trying that many experiments but it would be fun if I crossed the SB maybe you would get silver birchens again I just read what was culls and thought what a waste of birds....

Well culling could just mean not using them in your breeding program. You could always sell the chicks/birds to someone who just wants egg color. Just curious, how many breeders just kill off the chicks?

 

[Lotsapaints]

I sure wouldn't just kill them like you said the hens would still lay nice eggs and the roos would still make nice fryers etc. It's like the recessive whites you can get from the cuckoos you can have a pen of white's and when you breed color into your cuckoos you have black pullets that are culls in the first cross so maybe you could use them in a pen of blacks I really don't know. You also get brown pullets but there is no just "brown" marans but for an egg flock why not? I have people that will buy culls when hatched to eat I could never just dispose babies when hatched unless they had a defect more serious than the wrong color I guess I'm a softie.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I can now contribute to this thread! My first egg from one of my Marans girls. She's 19 1/2 weeks old.

The egg, laid under the roost, not the nesting box.

Once I pulled it out. It looks a lot lighter in the picture, but it is really very dark.

And the girl that laid it. (We're in some need of a feather trim I see)

 

[Lotsapaints]

Congratulations how eggciting yeah laying under the roost seems to be where they often first lay. Mine are 18 weeks I keep looking but they are not squatting yet but their combs are getting bigger and red. I'm going to move them so that might slow things down but I wanted to separate them from the Dellies and Rocks We're a couple of weeks behind on our construction. My husband kept thinking they would be 6 months before they started...