My Maran laid her first egg today! It was kinda small, but oh so dark! Looks like everyone from my older batch is laying EXCEPT for my Brahma. Wonder what's keeping her? Any ideas? Hope she is not a he, lol!
First Maran egg, oh yeah!
Hey I got "your" email from the Marans group this morning! Small cyber world! Congrats!!!!
congrats! maybe she is just a late bloomer?
Thanks! Yeah, I hope she's just a late bloomer. I imagine if she was really a he, he would have crowed by now, right?
well, i had what i thought might have been a henny cock, cause he wasn't crowing or growing tail feathers, but didn't look like a hen, cluck or try to lay or set like he was gonna lay. they guy with TAH, when he came to test the birds, and they were about 7 months old, said he was just a late bloomer. sure enough, he eventually started crowing, later tyring to get the hens, and eventaully had a surge of hormones where he wanted to fight anything that moved. which was a nuisance, since all the other cockerels had established the pecking order, and none of the hens liked him and would fight him and chase him. he even tried fighting with our Muscovy Drake, which was a losing battle. he went to a friend's in AMarillo, and eventually became the victim of some niehgborhood dogs. i had told her not to use him for breeding. his body type didn't pan out, among other things, and i thought the late blooming might be genetic. she was supposed to eat him [Buckeye's ARE the best tasting bird IMHO], but never got around to it.
hopefully late bloomers with hens are different. this guy was different from the start, and tended to no thang with the other birds, he was the first to wander off and discover the poison along our property line. it seemed habit forming for him, so i really had to watch to make sure he didn't get too much of it and die... sinc ehe didn't lay eggs i wasn't too worried...
i wonder, who else has had experience with late bloomers?
tf
Well, I had this Brahma pegged as a she for the longest time. Only reason I recently started doubting was because of the lack of eggs. I started looking at pics and can't really tell, there are saddle feathers but the comb and waddles are very small. Pheta (that's her name) is very gentle, and has neer crowed or tried anything with the hens. Actually, one of my silkies roos has taken a liking to her and chases her and tries to perform his roo duties with Pheta. If she was a he, this wouldn't be happening right? I mean, they know the difference right, lol!
My buff Brahma roo was a late bloomer also. I had two of them, and the guy I ended up keeping (late bloomer) was several months behind. He grew as big as the other roo, but his wattles/comb were smaller for the longest time, and he never crowed. He also had the typical longer tail feathers. It was really odd, lol! I ended up keeping him, just because he was more mild tempered-even though the other guy wasn't too bad (he would chase the boys if they weren't looking though) Anyway, I have two buff brahma hens the same age as the guys, and I could tell they were girls, even against my late guy....sorry that's probably not much help huh! :)
Dawn
Isn't it a thrill to get your first 'chocolate' egg!!
It's awesome getting my first dark egg! I'm very eggcited!!!
Congrats! I just got my first one about a month ago. It is so fun!
My silkies have cranked right through December and chilly temperatures with tons of tiny eggs, but my big cold tolerant dual purpose egg laying girls all quit when they molted in September and have only started back up again in the past few days!
One of my girls laid the biggest egg I have ever gotten. It was HUGE, a real jumbo jumbo, especially in comparison to the silkie eggs. It was about 4x the size! I guess she had been saving it up since September, lol
Wow! No real biggies here yet. My sebright was the first to start laying, and they are the cutest little eggs ever! You are right though, my silkies and sebright have been laying nearly everyday so far.
I am enamored with those chocolate eggs.
I don't have any colored egg layers now, but have
Ameraucanas on the way.
Are the marans good as eaters? How about as broodies?
The eggs are beautiful. I don't know about broodines yet as mine just started laying. She doesn't seem to eat anymore than the rest of my hens. Don't get me wrong, she looooves her food, but certainly doesn't hang out at the food bowl.
I have one broody marans right now, she "caught" it from the three silkies, the two white ones are sharing a nest! Marans are a good dual purpose hen, nice big girls and the roos are sweet!
Do you think with the really dark shell it would be
difficult to candle them? Have you tried Lora?
I will candle one tomorrow and tell you
Okey dokey. I'm curious.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Marans_Breeders_of_America/ join this. I have eggs the color of the ones in the middle plate on the home page, no problem candling the one I just got when I locked them up for the night.