breeding pens..breeding plans....breeding pairs

ok...this is big..for me
when it is time...
how on earth do you determine which chicken is laying which egg? i have perchanced upon the odd chicken coming out of the nesting box all in a cackle..but other than that?
i have 15 marans hens; need to know who is laying the darkest eggs...then i have to switch out the darkest layers amungst my 4 marans roosters...to try and figure out which is the darkest laying rooster gene?
this could take years!!
is this what you-all do?
by the way...i am loving these Marans They are so very friendly, and docile.. roosters just stand there as you brush their feathers...amazing

you take a good book with you and plan to live with the chickens for some time. Get Husband to bring you food and water, be like a chicken, think like a chicken, act like a chicken, soon you will find out. Good luck with that one. I think it is just separating the hens into small groups in small areas. I really don't worry too much. There is only one in my buff flock that has such totally different bloodlines, not related in the slightest. I should separate her some time this year and gather a few eggs. As the female remains fertile for so long, it wouldn't take long to gather enough eggs to do a test hatch. But then probably with a move to a different area, she would stop laying    , yep, what to do, what to do, have an awesome day, Cindi

I would put them in different dog crates until they laid then mark them with a legband. Coloured zip ties work well. You could also separate them one at a time if you don't have the space.

Good idea Sue....once they have all started to lay, i will do that...

If the dark egg is your only concern then the easiest thing for your first year would be to just do a flock mating with all your hens with the three best cockbirds, then to only hatch eggs that meet your darkness criteria. Then next year mate the cockerels from the dark eggs back to their mothers.

Of course you run a very serious risk of selecting against egg production in all cases since heavy lay should cause the shell to lighten over time. The one year I had Marans when I thought dark eggs might be something I wanted to do, we had two hens that laid a beautifully chocolate egg but we were lucky if they laid an egg a week.

Selecting for both rate of lay and dark colour retention is certainly going to be a challenge, but would be a fun project.

wow..that is food for thought..hmm lots of research.. thanks

And just when you tought it couldn't get anymore confounding:

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/m/#publication?id=VM047

You discover that stress and nutrition are also significant factors in identifying your dark egg layers!

Shouldn't actually influence your breeding choices this year but interesting to keep in mind as a way to help get that number 7 or whatever on the egg chart.