Wheaten and Blue wheaten Marans Discussion Thread

[berkeleysprings]

sorry i know zero about blues

 

[Debbi]

from my test birds . yes il send more just let me know i only got 5 out of 24 from main flock and old rooster so u plan to switch old roo
for the newer one i test hatched . leg color seems good. although he has a white feather in wing and dousnt show till he flaps his wings . bur one problem at a time. and my roos alys have wing triangle early. take care deb pllease tell me whan u want more eggs

Pffft, white feathers I am used to. Seems like every one of them now have at least one or two, except for my Blue girls and a very dark BCM I got from Pink. Like you said, one battle at a time. I'll let you know when the good bator frees up, I do so want some Wheatens! Thanks Randy!!

 

[Lotsapaints]

So Randy my Wheaten roosters both have white in the wing ( you cannot see it either only when you spread the wing) and the one has quite a bit in his tail as he ages what do you look for in the hens to try and get less white feathers? My egg color is great and my type is pretty good my stock is "Fitz" so a mix of Davis and Wade. It seems I can't tell on the white until those boys are over a year old I kept the 2 best ones from 5 but waiting a year is lots of feed. I have a "pure Davis" blue boy who is missing that white who I was thinking of using also but after I hatch from the other pure line and just tag them and see who ends up the best...I don't have my regular camera but my phone one works pretty good I have been meaning to get some pictures to show what I'm talking about....

 

[Illia]

I thought I understood the blue color genetics but maybe not. We had Blue Wheaten Ameracaunas and of course breeding those gave us blue/black/splash. That is we got wheaten, blue wheaten and splash wheaten ameracaunas. At different times we had a wheaten roo or a blue wheaten roo over the birds. I just heard in the wind we may have been doing that wrong. Sorry, but I don't understand how that is wrong. If we have blue wheaten chickens and breed them to a blue wheaten rooster we are going to get 50% blue wheaten birds, 25% splash wheaten birds and 25% wheaten birds. Is that not correct?

I ask because we are getting some Wheaten Marans eggs soon. It is really the Blue Wheaten Marans we are interested in but we were having trouble locating them. We just won an auction for a juvenial pair of Blue Wheaten Marans. At any rate someone said don't mix the two. I don't understand because if I breed BW to BW I am going to get 25% W. If there is some good reason to keep the BW out of the W please explain it to me. I believe the Wheaten derived from the Blue Wheaten X Blue Wheaten is the same as any other Wheaten. If someone has an explanation of how a Wheaten flock is any less Wheaten with the addition of a Blue Wheaten Rooster, please help me understand. Thanks Mike

Blue works the same on ANY breed in ANY color variation, so long that it is not self-blue.

BW x W = 50/50 each.

BW x BW = 50% BW 25% W 25% SW

And so on.



Blue Wheatens are indeed hard to locate as even I used to have/breed them but lost my main blue guy shown on the first page a while back. Was very depressing for me. The one son I kept out of him too late is a Wheaten, and one I honestly don't like conformationally. So, even I am still on the hunt for another BW, but the only local supplier is a wee bit pricey for me.

 

[Bigfamily4me]

Blue works the same on ANY breed in ANY color variation, so long that it is not self-blue.

BW x W = 50/50 each.

BW x BW = 50% BW 25% W 25% SW

And so on.



Blue Wheatens are indeed hard to locate as even I used to have/breed them but lost my main blue guy shown on the first page a while back. Was very depressing for me. The one son I kept out of him too late is a Wheaten, and one I honestly don't like conformationally. So, even I am still on the hunt for another BW, but the only local supplier is a wee bit pricey for me.

I love reading on here. It tells me what to do! My Wheatens and blue Wheatens from Bev are now 2 1/2 months old. I'll need to make sure to keep a wheaten AND blue Wheaten Roo! I also am to watch for white feathering I guess. So far looking good. But can you guys tell me about how long it takes for a Roo to come into his full glory so I know how long I need to wait before getting rid of all my extras?

 

[Illia]

I wait 6 months to cull out for obvious defects, then among the top males I wait til about 8 months. They won't be fully mature til about a year old though. Marans luckily are faster growers than many other breeds.


Watch for pinched tails! They are the most common serious issue with Wheatens and Blue Wheatens alike.

 

[Debbi]

I love reading on here. It tells me what to do! My Wheatens and blue Wheatens from Bev are now 2 1/2 months old. I'll need to make sure to keep a wheaten AND blue Wheaten Roo! I also am to watch for white feathering I guess. So far looking good. But can you guys tell me about how long it takes for a Roo to come into his full glory so I know how long I need to wait before getting rid of all my extras?

Maybe the Wheatens are different, but here, the BCM roos have sprouted in the last few months! Two of them are almost 2 years old, and one is 18 months. The last one, you wouldn't even guess was the same bird he grew so much! Then of course, the longer you wait, the more bad stuff seems to crop up; here all of a sudden, every darned roo on the place but one young Blue, has white feathers sprouting in! Darned if ya you, darned if ya don't... Funny thing is, I like my boys, they are more personable to me, so I tend to keep them longer. Not in such large numbers any more, but some have had too long a stay here for my own good. Cull right away for bad combs, clean shanks/toes, and poor coloring. No sense feeding them longer than you have to...

 

[qball53]

Ok then it appears to me that you agree with my understanding. No good reason to keep blue wheaten and wheaten seperate, assuming you want some blue. Some one had stated that if you want blue wheaten you should only cross blue with the wheaten and never mix the blue wheaten and wheaten. Once again if somone knows why that makes sense please help me to understand. I do desire to do the right thing here. Thanks, Mike

Blue works the same on ANY breed in ANY color variation, so long that it is not self-blue.

BW x W = 50/50 each.

BW x BW = 50% BW 25% W 25% SW

And so on.



Blue Wheatens are indeed hard to locate as even I used to have/breed them but lost my main blue guy shown on the first page a while back. Was very depressing for me. The one son I kept out of him too late is a Wheaten, and one I honestly don't like conformationally. So, even I am still on the hunt for another BW, but the only local supplier is a wee bit pricey for me.

 

[Illia]

Never ever mix Blue straight up with Wheaten unless you're looking to create your own Blue Wheatens from scratch, and my advise is on that, only get GOOD Wheatens and GOOD Blues. We have enough poor quality birds out there and enough Blues/Splashes with poor egg color, I'd hate to see more, but, that's my opinion.


But otherwise yes, Blue Wheaten x Wheaten is perfectly fine, just makes more Wheatens and Blue Wheatens.

Blue x Wheaten makes Blues and Blacks with leakage, kind of mimicking Blue Copper but not such. Once and if you have these, don't bother crossing back to Blue unless you know what you're doing as that Wheaten can hide recessive amongst blues pretty well, and is oh so fun to have. We're talking disqualifying leakage and birds who seem okay but then one day randomly give you a Wheaten.

 

[qball53]

Never ever mix Blue straight up with Wheaten unless you're looking to create your own Blue Wheatens from scratch, and my advise is on that, only get GOOD Wheatens and GOOD Blues. We have enough poor quality birds out there and enough Blues/Splashes with poor egg color, I'd hate to see more, but, that's my opinion.


But otherwise yes, Blue Wheaten x Wheaten is perfectly fine, just makes more Wheatens and Blue Wheatens.

Blue x Wheaten makes Blues and Blacks with leakage, kind of mimicking Blue Copper but not such. Once and if you have these, don't bother crossing back to Blue unless you know what you're doing as that Wheaten can hide recessive amongst blues pretty well, and is oh so fun to have. We're talking disqualifying leakage and birds who seem okay but then one day randomly give you a Wheaten.

Thanks, since this makes the most sense to me this is the advice I will follow unless convinced by someone of something else, LOL. Our intent is to breed Wheaten and Blue Wheaten in the same flock. We will use one rooster at a time either blue wheaten or wheaten. This is how we managed wheaten ameracaunas and it seemed to work well. We will cull hens to the yard laying flock when they do not meet our expectations. My significant other was apparently jumped on by someone on another forum about breeding wheatens this way, thus all my questions.
Thanks, Mike