Wheaten and Blue wheaten Marans Discussion Thread

[berkeleysprings]

do u have any other dark egg layers ?in my opinon the wehaten marans are 3rd on the list of dark egg layers behind black copper and blue copper being the darkest on average. when i picked wheaten it was because of the birds coloring and the shocking differance between the hens and roosters and egg color being 2nd or 3rd on my list of
reasons i chose whetaen marans

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[VillageChicken]

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Thanks Don, I knew you'd know that!

I don't recall seeing any hens like that yet though. Got any of that type of color pattern? It sure would be pretty, but if it means that the roos won't be much, colorwise, why do they go with that? Why not go with a color type/pattern that produces both nice hens and roos? Kind of seems counterproductive to me, to have to single mate some of the different varities just to get decent coloring...but that's just me.

Debbi, If only it was a perfect world. Contrary to what most say if you are breeding parti colored fowl to get the highest percentage of good sop type fowl we must single mate and double mate. Most of my female have the cream throat and chest.

Don - what is the correct cream breast in hens associated with in roosters? White fluff or white feathers? Brown on chest?

 

[snowbird]

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Debbi, If only it was a perfect world. Contrary to what most say if you are breeding parti colored fowl to get the highest percentage of good sop type fowl we must single mate and double mate. Most of my female have the cream throat and chest.

Don - what is the correct cream breast in hens associated with in roosters? White fluff or white feathers? Brown on chest?

VC, I believe if you use the light cream female in making the good color males it will not happen because you have to have almost white undercolor to get the light cream in the female neck and chest. These males from this will have too light undercolor causing the white wing, tail and undercolor.

Contrary to what Walt, said about serious breeders belonging to APA and ABA. I believe what denotes a serious breeder is someone that is willing to take a breed and hatch 200-500 chicks and cull them down to just the best and continually do the same over and over. i have trained under some of the best Judge ever Ben Ricketts, John Wunderlich, Henty Miller and I believe this is where I acquired the ability to breed good fowl. I no longer belong to any breed club or National club. I never showed for points just showed to see how my fowl did against the best.

 

[fowlman01]

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Don - what is the correct cream breast in hens associated with in roosters? White fluff or white feathers? Brown on chest?

VC, I believe if you use the light cream female in making the good color males it will not happen because you have to have almost white undercolor to get the light cream in the female neck and chest. These males from this will have too light undercolor causing the white wing, tail and undercolor.

Contrary to what Walt, said about serious breeders belonging to APA and ABA. I believe what denotes a serious breeder is someone that is willing to take a breed and hatch 200-500 chicks and cull them down to just the best and continually do the same over and over. i have trained under some of the best Judge ever Ben Ricketts, John Wunderlich, Henty Miller and I believe this is where I acquired the ability to breed good fowl. I no longer belong to any breed club or National club. I never showed for points just showed to see how my fowl did against the best.

That is why I used "generally" belong to the APA/ABA. Ben Ricketts, John Wunderlich and Henry Miller all belonged to the APA/ABA. Don you have a good reputation and you don't belong to clubs....but people know of you by other means. There are not too many people showing that don't care about others knowing how well they do. I am also not impressed by points as they can be misleading and you have no idea if the person is buying the birds they show and incapable of producing their own winners. Checking the yearbooks is very helpful to me as I can pretty much tell if someone is winning with birds they are buying. I just feel the clubs are a good resource for the average person.

Walt

 

[snowbird]

Walt, will say that the APA-ABA are what keeps the show poultry going as well as it is going. I have belong to both groups at different times over the years. When I show I always consider it showing against my self. Until the last five year always showed a large entry when I did show.

 

[snowbird]

Walt, Question for you about the amount of feathering on the feet of Marans of all colors. I know the definition of sparse but how does it related to the leg feathering on the Marans. I believe this will eventually be a can of worms as it is mostly left up the the individual interpretation of what sparse really means when it comes to leg feathering. Myself have been breeding for some extra feathering as that way the off spring should at least have a few feathers.

from the way I understand SPARSE if the toe has a couple of small feathers and the leg has a few it will be acceptable. Would you like to comment on this as the past few days on some of the Marans threads there have been differing opinions on the leg and toe feathering.

 

[fowlman01]

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Good catch on the "sparse feathering". Although the BCM's are APA recognized there are still some details in the descriptions that need to be tightened up. This is one of those descriptions. Sparse leaves a lot to the imagination. The APA Standard Committee does not like to leave too much to the imagination of the judges, so we need to find a better way to describe it. I am open to suggestions. This is very important as it applies to all Marans. From what I understand the intent is to insure that the foot feathering is not profuse.

BTW: Ione is no longer working on the Wheaten description. Alicia is the contact now.

Walt

 

[snowbird]

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Good catch on the "sparse feathering". Although the BCM's are APA recognized there are still some details in the descriptions that need to be tightened up. This is one of those descriptions. Sparse leaves a lot to the imagination. The APA Standard Committee does not like to leave too much to the imagination of the judges, so we need to find a better way to describe it. I am open to suggestions. This is very important as it applies to all Marans. From what I understand the intent is to insure that the foot feathering is not profuse.

BTW: Ione is no longer working on the Wheaten description. Alicia is the contact now.

Walt

Walt. I believe they could of used the word 'continuous" feathered leg and toe and it would work. The too much feathering will take care of its self as you will end up with feathers on the middle toe if they are too heavy feathered. i am culling very young male chicks soon as I can tell the males for not having toe fuzz all the way to the end. I cull everything without leg feathering.

I have fought for eliminating a lot of the loop holes on this from the start. Much easier to spell these faults out in the standard , than everyone have their own idea of what it should be. Thanks for all the hard work you do for show Poultry and the APA for many many years.

edited to ad Continuous

 

[berkeleysprings]

or we could talk about what they should not be we coud talk about the defination of profuse ?
also what way do they describe breeds that have or should have heavy feathering

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Good catch on the "sparse feathering". Although the BCM's are APA recognized there are still some details in the descriptions that need to be tightened up. This is one of those descriptions. Sparse leaves a lot to the imagination. The APA Standard Committee does not like to leave too much to the imagination of the judges, so we need to find a better way to describe it. I am open to suggestions. This is very important as it applies to all Marans. From what I understand the intent is to insure that the foot feathering is not profuse.

BTW: Ione is no longer working on the Wheaten description. Alicia is the contact now.

Walt

 

[berkeleysprings]

i had always thought that there was different genes involved with leg feathering as to the placement of feathers , i am not sure how to word this but getting feathers on any other toes besides the outside toe and leg like if u get feathers on middle toe theres something awfuly wrong and different genes involed another words a marans with heavy leg feathering will still only be on outside of leg and toe but will not bleed over to inside of leg or other toes .... like a very lightly leg feathered cochin or or faverolle or d uncle breed will be lightly feathered all over foot or toe
or let me say it like this a very lightly leg feathered cochin or or faverolle or d uncle does not mean the outside of leg and outter toe will only have feathers and as u turn up the volume it jumps to other toes ,therefor there are different genes involved so if u are getting feathers on other toes someong mixed the wrong breed alltogether and ya got big trouble
dont forget i am a carpenter from west virginia giveing genetic advice and i am no spring chicken
ps this info i mean to be a question more than a answer