Raising quality Marans

[Judykaymayes]

I am wanting to find out qualities you can learn to have nice Black Marans and Blue.I know there are poor marking but I don’t know them.we want to raise quality Black and Blue Marans and we have two Splash hatched.

 

[Ecarroll]

This thread may help you https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...er-marans-thread-breeding-to-the-sop.1122465/

 

[GaryDean26]

I never worked with Blue Marans but I worked with Blue Breda and think the aim for colors are the same. On the blue breeds you want heavy lacing on the edge of the feathers and an even ground color. Lack of lacing, or smudgy ground coloring would be poor markings. For the males you need really dark hackles and saddle feathers. Some use cockerels with really dark tail feathers to ensure they get dark lacing in the offspring, but other use cockerels that have the even ground color for tail of the cockerel because they see smudgy ground color in the offspring from those type of males. Another thing to consider on the Marans is if you are breeding Blue Copper Marans or just Blue Marans. I don't care for the Blue Copper Marans but know that the Black Copper Marans is one of the main colors and so many of the blue lines probably came from their. If you have blue coppers the same rules for the black coppers apply to the blue coppers in that you don't want excessive copper on those birds. The hens should have in on the hackles and nowhere else. No copper on the breast, no copper on the winds, etc. The cockerels have copper on both the hackles and the shoulder. They shouldn't have copper on the brest although the standard does allow some on the breast for the males. I feel that is because the Marans breeds that were writing the standard didn't know how to breed the Black Copper color pattern. On the Copper Cockerels look at the ear tuffs on the males. If they are copper then they are correct and will produce cockerel hackled daughters. If they are black (of blue in the case of the Blue Coppers) then they are overmelonized and their daughters will have black hackles (or blue in the case of the blue coppers). The copper on the chest of the males is caused by a red enhancement gene that can put copper back on the hackles of overmelonized females but it doesn't breed true. You get the red enhacement from one parent and it looks correct but if you get it from both parents it is too much and results in copper on the breast of the females, in the wings of the females etc. Same of the back genes. If they get them from one parent paired with the red enhancement from one parent they look correct but if they get just one red enhancement gene and two melonizer (black genes) then they still come out all black. So...rather than try to keep one melonizer and one red enhancement get it is better to breed out the melonizers (i.e. cockerels with black ear tuffs) and then you can breed out the red enhancers too. Once you get to that point you you can get the birds to breed true. So...too much on the blue coppers. Hopefully you just have blues (no copper). They look much better and are easier to work with in terms of color improvements.