Wheaten and Blue wheaten Marans Discussion Thread

[Debbi]

Ok, not knowing anything to speak of, of wheatens; does anyone know if the Penedesenca was brought into the wheaten line of Marans?? I hear it was in the BCMs, and I know there are wheaten Penes. The reason I ask is from Randy's pics of the first hen on page 48, looks like a carnation comb there to me, or is it just my monitor?? Pardon me Randy for asking that, they are all lovely, as is the CABIN!

Need to know newbie here!

 

[knjinnm]

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Whoa! Not so easy there partner.. for us novice folks ... what are sprigs?

Please post pictures of your verbal descriptions.

Joe

 

[berkeleysprings]

no corination combs , even though the rose and corination and butter cup combs look the same to me in a small small way , i personaly think side sprigs (bumps in comb) are the part cause of it ,,,, i have noticed many wheaten hens combs seemm so crouded on there head it sems to make some "s " or partly lobbed over ..... combs , moghany colored hens are some of the faults i see with mine among others ..... i personaly think pen were introduced by spain to the birds way befor brought to the USA.... that being said ,many people mix the colors, breeds like a mad sicentest and as for me i will never mix colors or breeds , i personaly love genetics but know nothing about it , so if the xperts (like pink ) says blue gene wont mix or mess colors up i beleave it hole heartly but as for the mixing other stuff , im old school and go by "life exeraince " untill proved wrong by genetics
or more experianced then me 4-h,rs



ok ok ,,am i the only one with wheaten marans ? no one post pictures ever but me ,, common people , i know what my birds look like but i need some strange
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[pinkchick]

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Well Thanks Randy...but, I'm far from an expert, have just had lots and lots of fun experiementing with the blue. I can't get enough blue!

I agree with Nivtup's statements:

There are no perfect birds.

The Blue Wheaten is a later arrival on the scene. There MAY be hidden genes still riding along from the original crosses. Thus the Blue Wheatens may be less perfect than the Wheatens. If that is the case, then crossing Blue Wheaten to Wheaten MAY create some less perfect Wheatens.
It is also my opinion that the Wheaten variety is a much more stable variety than is the Black Copper variety. We see lots of variation in the Black Coppers, too many genes to "keep in balance" you need just the right amount of this, and just the right amount of that. Any variation and it throws things off. In this years Black Coppers, I suddenly started to see side sprigs, where we had NONE before, we saw overly dark cockerels, and overly coppered cockerels. Hens seem to be improved, with "the right amount" of coppering. I feel there is to much room for recessive genes to raise cane.

I believe this is true with all breeds.....we can breed, incubate, hatch and grow out thousands of chooks and we might only ever get one that even comes close to a standard or we may never get one at all, on other the hand we may hit the jackpot and accidentally stumble across something that works. Biological organisms will change and evolve over time, even though those changes may be incremental at best and try as we may to control it....it truly is out of our hands in the whole realm of things and chance playing the biggest part of all.
If we could think of DNA and genetics like this it may help, imagine standing in a room holding 60,000 little red bouncy balls and you toss them all out at once.....they bounce and bounce and eventually land, each little red bouncy ball plays an important roll in the DNA and genetic sequence and figures out how to be friendly neighbors with the balls next to it......now pick up those bouncy balls and toss them again......they will never land in the same place twice, but they will still figure out a way to co-habitat and function, thus every time creating something that is just a little different than the previous.
Even in breeds that "breed true" and we think that each bird produced is identical to the next, there is truly no one chicken alike....each bird will have subtle differences no matter what. It's kinda like two people having 27 children, even though the parent DNA is the same everytime....each child will share features and characteristics of their parents, but they are all different.
Just my 2 cents worth!

 

[pinkchick]

but i need some strange

Just so you know....WARN somebody that there might be a potentially very funny statement in your post so that we know not to be swiggin' our coffee the moment we read it. I just about sprayed my computer screen LMAO.

 

[berkeleysprings]

you sure do know your blue their pink!

 

[pinkchick]

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Nah...I only pretend.

 

[snowbird]

The only thing I can say about adding colors to your Lines of marans. Be very careful when you ad because you can destroy what you already have.. With all the new colors showing up on the scene I wonder where they magically came from, could it be that our Marans breeders with 15 colors are mixing with other breeds ?

Now I realise that other breeds are crossed all the time, but realize also that it take a great amount of time to breed these cross bred to where they are correct. I didn't just start breeding chickens yesterday. The best and easiest way to improve your Marans is stay in the breed. I believe the French when they say if you cross out of the breed they are no longer Marans.

Regardless of how anyone breeds their Marans there will always be old timers that will breed the way they should be bred.

Will enlighten some to the fact that there are breeds of show poultry that you do not have to raise 100 to get a bird good enough to show. There are lines of poultry out there that are linebred and produce poultry that are like peas in a pod.

I think everyone knows my position about crossing the Marans.

 

[pinkchick]

Don~ I appreciate your position about breeding poultry.

 

[berkeleysprings]

so i have a few genetis questions ,if this is true and i thik it is.... Heterozygous = 2 different alleles for a single trait
Homozygous = have identical allele for a single trait
so if a allele is one of a pair thats the same as saying an allele has two slots or two holes or two plugs right ?
so any given trait thats Heterozygous has 4 slots total that control a given trait but occupy 2 different allele but its still 4 slots right ?
so how many allele are for combs ?
so how many allele for leg feathering ?
im probubly not asking this right but gotta start somewere