Re: Marans

From: laurie \(Mother Mastiff\) (mastiffsyourteeth_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 01/25/05

  • Next message: Ron: "Re: What size run for chickens?" 
    Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:21:31 -0500

    >> > Yesterday someone told me that they had stopped breeding Marans
    > because
    >> > the cockerel to hen ratio was about 3:1. Is this really the case?
    >
    > I had bought 9 maran chicks from a man that was generous
    > enough to actually hatch them out for me, but I ended up
    > with 1 hen and 8 males, so that actually might be the case.

    As the consort of a PhD statistician, I can tell you that you are making too
    sweeping a generalization from samples too small to be meaningful.

    While I have a complicated love/hate relationship with the breed (egg color
    was bloody awful in the US 5 years ago, there seem to be a lot of egg
    eaters, they're pretty thick even as chickens go, etc.), one problem I have
    NOT found in the breed or seen reported on any of the lists is a
    disproportionate number of males.

    I have been breeding Marans for several years, and find their ratio of m/f
    to be right down the middle of the road average (UNlike my South Americans
    that really DO give 65% males based on written records...)

    Several factors affect the sex of chicks.

    First is what time of year the eggs were laid. In spring, there tend to be
    a slightly higher percent of females than males. As the season wears on,
    the percentage of males creeps up, some years it gets staggering <g>. The
    ratio evens out when averaged over the breeding season, but does tend to
    vary the same way with MOST breeds of chicken.

    Another factor is incubation problems. Female embryos are more delicate and
    more apt to die if the temperature or humidity varies too much, leaving more
    males than females to survive. If the incubator gets much too hot, if any
    chicks hatch at all, I can pretty much guarantee you the survivor will be
    male.

    Just had that happen with some out-of-season eggs, I didn't check the
    humidity the first week, then was astonished to find it was only 30%. Then
    I found that with the furnace running full time, even with TWO big pans of
    water in the bator, I could not get the humidity above 45%, they like 75%,
    so out of nine eggs, all I got was three cockerels. But I know for sure it
    was the humidity problem, because it has happened before.

    The other thing is that the hen is the parent that determines the sex of its
    offspring, and some seem to get stuck on just one sex or the other. Haven't
    you seen human families that have a LOT of boys or a LOT of girls, and
    nothing else? Hens can do the same thing. I'm still looking for a few hens
    who ONLY produce daughters!

    I would check the incubator closely, try for eggs in spring rather than
    later, and if it's the same hens guilty time and again, I would replace
    those hens, or send them to someone who wants to raise meat birds. A Marans
    raised on forage and quality grains is delicious! And it sounds like
    probably there are some hens who overproduce the one sex, but that is not
    typical of the breed in the US.

    Hope this helped!

    laurie (Mother Mastiff)
    Please review my draft web page about my birds, www.mothermastiff.com
    (You can use the Contact page to send feedback!)

  • Next message: Ron: "Re: What size run for chickens?"