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Marans

The Marans, or French, Poule de Marans, is a French breed of chicken from the port town of Marans, in the département of Charente-Maitime, in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France.
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General Information

Breed Purpose
Dual Purpose
Comb
Single
Broodiness
Average
Climate Tolerance
Cold
Egg Productivity
Medium
Egg Size
Large
Egg Color
Dark Brown
Breed Temperament
Friendly,Easily handled,Docile
Breed Colors/Varieties
Silver Cuckoo, Golden Cuckoo, White, Copper Black, Black, Wheaten, Black-tailed Buff, and Ermine. MANY colors in development!
Breed Size
Large Fowl
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The Marans, or French, Poule de Marans, is a French breed of chicken from the port town of Marans, in the département of Charente-Maitime, in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France. It was created with the local feral chickens descended from fighting game chickens carried from Indonesia and India. Those original Marandaise fowl were "improved" for the table through crossing with imported Croad Langshans. A favourite at poultry shows, it became a dual purpose breed known both for its extremely dark brown eggs and fine meat qualities.

Marans are generally quiet and docile; but they are quite active, taking well to free ranging in rough terrain and are also tough and disease-resistant. Their gentle temperaments and quiet demeanor makes them ideal for suburban backyard chicken keepers, as well as any assorted farm flock as they rarely bully smaller breeds. Marans are historically a dual-purpose bird, prized not only for their dark eggs but for their table qualities as well. Though the original Marans could also be feather legged birds, British breeders preferred the clean legged version, and thus feathered legged Marans are now mainly found in France. The Australian Poultry Standard recognises both feathered and clean-legged birds, while the Marans Club of America only recognises feather-legged birds.

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Marans egg

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Marans chick

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Marans juvenile

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Marans hen

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Marans rooster

For more about the Marans breed and their owners' and breeders' experiences with them, see our breed discussion here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-breed-focus-maran.1132230/
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Latest reviews

talkinboutchickens
mystic marans
Pros: very pretty dark brown eggs, friendly
Cons: lays really big eggs, which can cause the hen to become egg bound
I've only had one maran, she was a mystic maran. She was very sweet, laid huge dark brown eggs, had a big build, although not overweight. I don't remember her much because she died a long time ago. I think she probably died because she got egg bound.
Purchase Date
March 2019
Lemon-Drop
Cuckoo Marans
Pros: Dark brown eggs

Not a bully

Very beautiful
Cons: Can go broody (good or bad)

A little skittish

Near bottom of pecking order
I love the cuckoo marans, Kiki. She’s pretty sweet, but a little skittish. Right now she went broody for the first time.
Her eggs are currently my favorite in the basket, though they’re not super dark brown. (Attached picture is of my EE, Australorp, and Marans egg)

Overall, I would recommend. In my experience, can be a little skittish, but I still love Kiki to pieces, even if she doesn’t like to be held.
Purchase Price
3.00
Purchase Date
March 2020

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chickenluvin
Pros: Enjoy those dark brown eggs, overall a nice bird
Cons: Not the most productive hens, dark brown is only consistent at the beginning
I really wanted to add dark brown egg layers to my little flock. They are a pretty bird with a fairly even temperament. The first eggs were very dark & they lay quite well. But they didn't have a very long laying spell for a first year chicken. They quit entirely for the winter & are slow to get going in the spring. The dark egg definitely gets lighter & never gets as dark as the 1st summer again... but still darker than the average brown layer. I haven't decided whether to get them again mostly because I find them not terribly productive even at about a year old & that the really dark initial eggs never get that dark again.
Overall.. would recommend trying them for a little colour in your egg basket.
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Leahsandora11
I have a few Australorps and they lay brown eggs, winter is just ending and they laid the whole winter, you could try these breeds. They are really good. They've stayed darker brown the whole time!
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Comments

Mr Beaks
Thank you for your review! We have two 21 week old Cuckoo girls that lay fairly dark chocolate eggs. Now that they are older they are very sweet but required a lot of patience in the beginning. Whenever I'd bend down to pet another or give a treat Onyx would come out of no where, jump up and bite my upper lip. That same bird also ate plenty of my gold and diamond studs and NO I didn't sift thru poo to retrieve them lol
 
La Casa de Pollo
Every black roo I have had was the devil, and every blue roo I have had has been the best ever. Don't know why that is but I have been sticking with blue for my male and I love marans again

I have a Blue copper Marans Roo over 6 Black Copper Hens and 7 Blue Copper Hens/Pullets. Along with a bunch of Blue Eggers to make Olive egger babies....the roo is sweet, and he seems to be covering the flock really well, very few clear eggs. Eggs are nice and dark. I am having problems with black leakage on the blue pullets though, just a few black specks here and there, been working on that the last few generations.
 
Ihilani Coffee
Sylvester017, the only way to know the Marans egg color is to show the egg with the official Marans egg color chart in the same photo. We like to punch a hole in the chart and put the egg behind it to compare, as having the white between the egg in question and the chart will lead your brain to try to make the egg look a shade darker than it really is. I question every single egg photo that doesn't have the chart, which are meticulously color-matched on every printing. Clearly Marans are not for you. Our experience is they are a great dual purpose breed, calm, regal, decent foragers. The BCM have only been in the APA for 4 years, and can't be expected to have the consistency of something like a RIR at this stage of importation. My question is this: are these aggressive birds coming from make-a-quick-buck hatchery or hobbyist stock? No serious breeder I know of ANY breed would discount the importance of disposition and have zero tolerance for aggression in their birds.
 
1cshook
I am new to Marans, have 6 six month old Black Copper Maran hens ... nice chicken, "darkness" of egg color varies per chicken ... is anyone on BYC selling older Maran hens as I don't want chicks ... I would like a few of the Wheaton Maran hens ...
 
kingdomcats
I really liked my Marans at first. I had 5, 4 hens and 1 Roo. The Roo hit maturity and by 6 months turned mean. He attacked my teens and younger son and then turned on me. I couldn't turn my back on him and when he tore up the Duck, well that was the last straw. He has now been rehomed. Made me sad because he was so pretty and I was really looking forward to only having Marans from here on out. Are all or most of the Roos mean when they hit maturity. Contemplating trying another, but don't want to raise another Roo only to have to rehome it again.
 
Mr Beaks
They are a joy, aren't they?! I've had 2 Cuckoo girls for the past year and they are very much like you described. Onyx is queen of the coop and strangely the other is the lowest in the rankings. Cookie doesn't like being picked up either but will fly/climb up to my shoulder on her terms. Queen Onyx has always had a fetish with shiny things i.e. earrings and teeth, and catches me by surprise every now and then but other than that I have no complaints.
 
teria
I have one Cuckoo Maran. I originally had two, but, one was killed by a dog when she was 12 weeks old. They were Loralei and Sookie. Now we just have Loralei. I'm hoping to add another eventually, but, I love my Maran girl, she's so funny. She makes a kind of squeaky scratchy noise to tell me when she is feeling out of sorts or concerned. She is moving up slowly in the ranks, still somewhere in the middle. I guess we'll see what happens when she is fully grown.
 
tiki chiki
I have a silver cuckoo Marans. Stella is great and while not the largest (Dottie the Australorp wins in size) she is definitely in charge. Very calm and talkative. Only cons would be she tends to peck/rip at clothing/skin much much more than the other girls- it hurts and she's persistant!- Also she seems to pick on my Ameraucana (Artemis). Stella doesn't assert dominance as often or as fiercely with the others as with her. Other than that, great! Friendly, pretty, good layer (and EATER!) and full of personality. She always was, even as a chick.
 
SunnyDawn
Goodness I completely forgot about this page!

RNM, Marans are slow to start laying. I've had a couple that were a year old before they started laying. However they do not give out after a year of laying like some production breeds do. I've had some girls that were 4+ years old giving me the same amount of eggs as they did when they were young.

Dudley, I sympathize with your plight. I don't think the miserable winters there are conducive to getting eggs unless your whole operation is inside and heated (which causes other problems like too much humidity and the risk of fire from heat sources). I wish you the best of luck though! Let us know what worked for you over the last few years.
 
bappl
Oh how funny that they open your latches! I just got my three chicks today and noticed that one was very, very curious. Then I read your post! That is funny!
 
mymilliefleur
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with your Marans. I had wheaten Marans years ago and loved them. I would like to get some more again some day. I would look into getting hatching eggs from a member here on BYC, I've seen several reputable people selling maran eggs here.
 
arrowti
We had the misfortune of hatching eggs a few years ago in the hopes of getting marans (we ordered 24 maran eggs and they put in 12 random extra breed eggs as backups). Alas, only 12 eggs hatched, and only 6 of them were marans. Of even worse luck, 3 of them were roosters. We also had 3 mixed maran breeds.

Although none of the roosters were ever aggressive with us they were very aggressive with the hens. And by that I mean they were vicious - ripping off strips of flesh and feathers from their heads while mating, tearing a large chunk out a hen's side while fighting over their favourite, and beat the two favourites out of 40 hens in the flock black and blue...

I'm glad you have great roosters because it's no fun getting the aggressive ones!

I have to agree on the eggs, the ones we got were amazing and huge. And the frostbite. Definitely the frostbite..
 
FlyWheel
I included a Cuckoo Marans in my latest batch, Specifically because they got broody, which is not a trait that EE's, Aussies or ProReds are particularly famous for. And if I need to raise more chicks I prefer to let a real mother do it. Mine just started laying, the eggs aren't the dark chocolate brown, but Cuckoo's aren't known for really dark eggs either. It is definitely darker than All my other brown layers though, Very easy to pick out!
 
S
Can anyone tell me if they've ordered from Cackle Hatchery, especially any Cuckoo Marans...or Rhode Island Reds or Golden Comets, Buff Orpingtons, White Rocks, Barred Rocks, Wyandottes, or Easter Eggers? I have and older Cuckoo Maran and love her. She is not a big layer though she has nice eggs. What I love about her is that she talks to me and will squat sometimes if I want to pet her. She is one the neighbor gave me because her hens had plucked out most of her chest feathers. I got a batch of Black Australorps from Chickens from Backyards (which has great service) that are extremely skidish and unfriendly. Also, if I get any new breeds again, I want to try to make sure that are somewhat friendly, fairly docile and/or at least will fit well in a mixed flock without much aggression (allowing for a normal pecking order of course) and be easy to handle.
 
B Redhawk
we have just started with Marans we have a copper black Rooster, one black hen and two blue hens. I plan on adding more hens in about a month from the breeder we found to get these from. His flock is closed and we like that.
 
MontanaChickDoc
SYLVIA STEVENSON said:
Can anyone tell me if they've ordered from Cackle Hatchery, especially any Cuckoo Marans...or Rhode Island Reds or Golden Comets, Buff Orpingtons, White Rocks, Barred Rocks, Wyandottes, or Easter Eggers? I have and older Cuckoo Maran and love her. She is not a big layer though she has nice eggs. What I love about her is that she talks to me and will squat sometimes if I want to pet her. She is one the neighbor gave me because her hens had plucked out most of her chest feathers. I got a batch of Black Australorps from Chickens from Backyards (which has great service) that are extremely skidish and unfriendly. Also, if I get any new breeds again, I want to try to make sure that are somewhat friendly, fairly docile and/or at least will fit well in a mixed flock without much aggression (allowing for a normal pecking order of course) and be easy to handle.
Click to expand...
I got some FBCM and "dark brown egg layer surplus" chicks from Cackle in June. I find them to be spooky/flighty. Neither the current group (there are 10 total - 2 French cuckoos, lots of B or BCMs) or the two I hatched myself last year are mean birds, they don't pick on any other birds or show signs of aggression, but they are not "walk up and eat out of your hand" birds, either. I handle all my chicks a LOT and these are just not cuddly jump in your lap birds, in my experience.
 
RoosterCogburn7
Roosters can be standoffish to man haters. But, they are one of the more delicious birds to eat. The man hater variety make wonderful fried chicken or crockpot birds. They are easy to clean. Hens tend to be standoffish, but lay beautiful dark brown eggs.
 

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