I am doing a "search" for rumpless Marans, and want to revive this post: I have hatched out many many batches of pure bred Marans eggs this summer and now my chicks are right at POL. I have about 5 Marans that are truly rumpless and am hoping to figure out why. These are eggs from different breeders, and some are considered topnotch Marans breeders at that. The problem with the rumpless birds is that they are very messy in the back end, the feathers stay dirty. There is no tail bone at all, so the feathers just hang over the vent. I would never breed these birds, but am very curious to know how common this is in the Marans. Of all the birds hatched, ONLY Marans came out this way, all others have normal tails. I do have some great looking Wheaten Marans that looked tail-less for a long time, but the nub was there and feathers finally grew in slowly, but one of the hens never grew her tail and upon closer inspection, no tail bob/bone, no tail feathers, just a messy butt. Anyone else noted this problem, could it be my incubation process, which never occurred in other breeds or mutts? I may have "pulled" a pasty butt too hard, but didn't realize it at the time?
