Wheaten and Blue wheaten Marans Discussion Thread

[snowbird]

While looking at wheaten Marans egg ads yesterday I saw something that got me too checking the French Standard. I saw wheaten females with very dark wing triangle, the French standard says the female should have Cinnamon-Brown colored secondary remexs. I think my wheaten females might be a little weak in the wing triangle. Anyone else care to look at your females and post what you find.

We have to also remember that the female must have the Wheat, dark-red and cream color body feathers. Don

 

[Debbi]

Don,

I've been checking out ads for the Wheatens too, and I have been seeing a few that the hens have black primaries in their wings? Not desireable. It's also very discouraging, to me anyway, to see how many hens don't show the true "cream" color in their lower body parts. Quite a few I am seeing almost look blended wheat and white. I would sure like to see more pics of folks' hens with a true seperation of the three colors.

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
Debbie, I think getting the three color look the standard is going for will be hard for a while. I believe that a lot of our wheaten female have the wheaten that is too dark and covering up the cream section.

Glad you noticed the wing problem I was talking about. My wheaten females have a nice cream under side. Most are a little light on the back wheaten. Don

 

[berkeleysprings]

.

 

[VillageChicken]

I THOUGHT that picture was familiar!

I have a wheaten roo that is 7 weeks. He has some tan tipping on the feathers on his chest, as well as a little white tipping on the black feathers. I'm not worried so much about the white, as I've seen it go away on my BC's. But when do you know if your wheaten roo will have tan or brown on his chest permanently?

 

[berkeleysprings]

my main rooster was clean from brown spots for 2 years , and now it shows up .... it has to be a stress ,or age or hormonal thing and not genetic is what i find

 

[Debbi]

Quote:
Randy,

Personally, I like the darker headed hens too. It just adds to the contrast of the different colors. To me, as long as the three colors are sharp and defined, I have no problem with the different shades of wheat and copper. I remember seeing that hen of yours, and as I recall, I really liked her! I saw one yesterday, that showed what looked like "penciling" on the feathers on the back near the tail. That sure didn't look right to me, but I've yet to get any Wheatens. Does anyone else see this in the hen's tail covert area??

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
Randy,

Personally, I like the darker headed hens too. It just adds to the contrast of the different colors. To me, as long as the three colors are sharp and defined, I have no problem with the different shades of wheat and copper. I remember seeing that hen of yours, and as I recall, I really liked her! I saw one yesterday, that showed what looked like "penciling" on the feathers on the back near the tail. That sure didn't look right to me, but I've yet to get any Wheatens. Does anyone else see this in the hen's tail covert area??

Debbie, Will make a couple of comments as there is not a proposed standard and Bev Davis said to go by the French standard until we have one here.

I like the darker head and hackle feathers also and that is preferred by the French standard. The French standard does not call the head, hackle and saddle copper.

The main tail should be black and the tail coverts should be wheaten with a little black.

The shoulders , the wings covers and the rump wheat colored with lighter shaft and outer edge of feathers.

This is all from the French standard basically. Hope this will help. Don

 

[Debbi]

Don,

I used the term "copper" for lack of a better word for this variety. Would "red" be more accurate? Thanks for the description, the hen I mentioned before may then be fine colorwise. Still learning the terms for the different color patterns, so penciling might have been way off.

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
Debbie, I believe copper was in the original draft from MCCUSA, I believe now it will only say Golden red to dark-Red.

I know nothing for sure, just my thoughts. Don