Wrath's Marans

[Tstraub]

On my yard the males are definitely held to a higher standard than the females because they contribute half the genetics to the entire breeding pin. One male services several females. I don’t need to keep nearly as many boys as I do girls. I look for reasons to keep the girls around and I look for reasons to put the boys in the freezer.

I don’t know if chooks man has some deeper reasoning for his decision but I am definitely curious to his thoughts. He definitely has a lot more experience and I’m always happy to learn from him.

 

[wrathsfarm]

On my yard the males are definitely held to a higher standard than the females because they contribute half the genetics to the entire breeding pin. One male services several females. I don’t need to keep nearly as many boys as I do girls. I look for reasons to keep the girls around and I look for reasons to put the boys in the freezer.

I don’t know if chooks man has some deeper reasoning for his decision but I am definitely curious to his thoughts. He definitely has a lot more experience and I’m always happy to learn from him.

I've never hatched one with that much yellow down so intriguing to learn the possible cause and reasoning myself.

 

[Tstraub]

Yea, I’ve never seen a BCM with any yellow down feathers. I assume it’s genetic but not sure what genes are hiding. I always thought yellow down meant white adult feathers. I had an olive egger cockerel that had blue base color and a yellow belly as a chick. I didn’t think much of it at the time because it was an OE anything goes with them.

I gave that one away to someone who bought a couple pullets so I don’t know how the eventually grew up to look like

 

[Chooks man]

Can you explain the reasoning for the yellow hatch down being connected to culling if it's a male?

the reason is very simple like what you guys suggested male has more contribution on the future genetic of the flock ,that one thing .second thing if the chicks turn up to be female than we have to see the color of the eggs she will lay if they are darker than she is a keeper and all her future chicks will be tagged to see if she passes the yellow hatch down to them or not . but the male do no lay eggs so we don t want to keep any male with any physical anomaly because if it is sex linked mutation than all his future progeny boys and girls will have a yellow belly hatch down .I have seen BC chicks with a yellow hatch down going all the way up to they head ,girls and boys old line I had lucky me the line did not lay dark eggs so the freezer was they final destination and my dogs did enjoy roast chicken dinner .
when we select we try to avoid any new mutation even if it is random . I did a lot research but could not find any genetic explanation just random mutation ,there is genes causing it but we don t know lot speculation out there ,all based on nothing .
chooks man