Marans

Just as with any livestock, different lines have different characteristics. Good disposition is a trait that can be bred in just like anything else. Especially in the black coppers, their popularity has brought a lot of people into raising them without a plan or eye toward the long term. When people indiscriminately mate animals to make a buck, all kinds of badness can (and does) happen. Most breeders I know would never breed an aggressive cock/erel into their line. I have never had any of my Marans even look sideways at me, much less charge or attack. I have 5 mature males and pens full of young adults.

Try candling with a LED mini mag light. It works even through the dark shells. A full size LED mag light does not work.

So right on so many points!

Marans are a family oriented bird. Usually docile and sweet. Some males sometimes have to be penned alone with their females. Other, more mellow males can be in a flock with higher ranking males, but there always has to be enough hens between them- possibly about 20 for two. We separate our BCM rooster from our other males (those all get along.) only because he didn't grow up with them. Our 8 lb rooster got out of his pen once, and was beaten up by the 1 3/4 lb OEGB bantam rooster who rules that flock. He's a lover, not a fighter, lol.

We have 2 Black Copper Marans and I am afraid one of them is looking like a rooster. I may have to find him a new home.

I have a rooster and a hen, but my hen lays Green eggs not brown. I my rooster can be mean but harmless!

Are copper Marans considered very heat tolerant?

I live in NJ where its humid and hot and their doing just fine but where I let them roam has a lot of shade including the coop their run is sunny and hot and if they want to go out they can to where theirs a fenced netting or they can go In anytime they like. but in my opinion yes, that's actually a very good question thank you for asking.

if you wanted the chocolate maran eggs you should have black copper marans there the best for chocolate eggs

Partridge pensedecca is close to a marans chicken they will lay a very dark brown egg early then lighten up considerably into the laying season.

To theeggman:
The chocolate eggs were somewhat of a disappointment but it was the Cuckoo's nasty temperament to her flockmates that disappointed us the most. Greenfire Farms says their Wheaten Marans were the mellowest Marans they've raised of all the Marans varieties but we can't handle any more heavy or dual-purpose LF because we want very gentle-tempered breeds. My friend had two BCMs and they were too aggressive and large for her laying flock and she re-homed them also. Beautiful birds but IMHO this breed should not be kept with non-combative breeds like Silkies, Ameraucanas, Araucanas, EEs, Faverolles, Brahma, Polish, Breda, Houdan, Crevies, etc. Our experience has shown that the crested/bearded/muffed/feather-footed breeds seem to be the least combative and too gentle around assertive LF. We want healthy friendly non-stressed chickens and some assertive breeds can do some serious injuries to gentle birds.

To illbuildacoop: Partridge Penedesenca were our close runner-up for dark eggs but being from the Mediterranean area we didn't want to take a chance on their temperament. Mediterranean area class seem to be assertive breeds even though the Penes are on the smaller side. We understand about strains, genetics, that dark/brown eggs lighten up, the length of time spent in the oviduct makes a color difference, etc. but we have made our choice to stay away from any of the dark layers including the Barnies, Wellies and Empordanesas. I love all these breeds I've mentioned and even adore the white layer Mediterranean class Leghorns and had a couple varieties but these are all birds with temperaments that did not fit our gentle-natured backyard breeds. We had to re-home the Cuckoo Marans because she kept challenging the alpha flock leader and viciously clawed/attacked a small Silkie pullet and the Legs had to be re-homed also as they are not shrinking violets and became progressively assertive toward the gentler breeds chasing them and pulling their crests/beards/muffs to the skin and chewing combs.

I appreciate all your input and wish our space and situation allowed more zoned chickens but we had to be selective for the few we are allowed and we opted for gentle breeds rather than a rainbow egg basket because not all breeds are wise to mix into a backyard flock.

Really enjoyed your commentary. It's such a shame that imports of eggs aren't allowed there- if you were in the US, I would send you some lovely Black Coppers. Wish I could tell you why your older Wheaten girls aren't looking great, maybe PM me a photo, and I'll see if I can suggest something.

Okay... what's happening with your females who are knock-kneed, is that the females are lacking width and depth. They are thin bodied on the under line, which makes their body kind of "cave," long and thin, instead of be wide- as ideally they should be. Our BCM hens typically weigh approx. 7 1/2 lbs. The roosters about 8- 8 1/2 lbs.- width, and nice for eats.

Ideally (and if you can...) you should always be choosing young that you can place a closed fist in between the legs stance. It is the hens who give size to the flock (not roos), so to breed a heavier flock, you need to get a hold of some very solid/ heavier, wider-framed females if at all possible. Small hens will keep your progeny ever smaller. They say that temperaments are hereditary too, so if you have a mean roo and breed him, he will have mean cockerels, ect.

Blues are not my specialty, but I think the saddle of the male looks mahogany? Ideally, should match hackle and be more copper like the hackle.
Best to you!

Thanks One Chick Two.

Unfortuently like I mentioned, our marans in Australia are heavily inbred. One one recorded import before the poultry import ban was brought in, so you can imagine how our breed has fallen. People have tried improving it by bringing in other breeds like croad langshan (to make our black coppers) but it hasn't quite improved our egg colour at all, our darkest probably getting to a 5 on the maran egg chart but averaging at a 4. A few people claim to have up to a 7 on the egg chart, but everytime I've bought eggs from these people, they come up less than what I had expected, so probaby photoshopped to make some dollars.

A few breeders I know actually get leg problems in their roosters too, and sometimes only in the roosters. One guy I was doing a breeding program with had his roosters get to about 4-6 months old and just not being able to support their weight anymore, even though they weren't at all heavy birds.

Luckily for Australia though, we have a small group of people slowly doing legal imports (costing them thousands of dollars however) and bringing new blood for struggling breeds here and bringing in new breeds we have never had step foot on our shores before. We tried a large scale import with about 4000 chicks but had one positive case of salmonella which forced the whole operation to turn tail with all of the chicks culled, which was half a million dollars from the enthusiasts and breeders' pockets down the toilet. We do have english and french marans on our import list for next year which will hopefully be availalble to the public after they bring up their numbers in the breeding program.

Unfortuently I dont have a choice in what birds I buy because I do not have any more breeders locally that have marans. I have to buy all my eggs from interstate which means I cannot physically check the birds I am buying from. They can send me all the photos I want, but I haven't had much luck at all getting a bird from birds that "look" great from the photographs sent to me by breeders. I do have a few really nice birds that I am happy with however, but its a pretty small number from all the bad hatches I have paid big money for.

Still doesn't bump them off my favourite chicken breed however. My first batch was magical for me which makes me still thrive to keep this gorgeous breed going in my backyard. Would love it if more people locally would get into these birds but it's hard unless there is someone pumping them out. The appearence of the hens, considering most people just want laying hens rather than roosters, is the biggest draw back with people buying these chickens as when I was selling many different breeds from wyandottes, anconas, australorps, plymouths, sussex (all colours), rhode island reds and a few others, I was left with the wheaton marans in the end, no one thought they were attractive despite the beautiful eggs they laid.

The blues are pretty rare here as well, like I said earlier all our other colours apart...

Hopefully next year will be a much better year for imports. : )

Marans are very lovely birds, but they are a difficult breed no matter where you are, that said, it take great numbers of these birds to achieve success with them, unfortunately-- they are a work in progress.

A quality breeder needs A LOT of feet on the ground for the best choices, then culling down to get anywhere near SQ. We hatched out over 100 this year alone, and will end up with less than 20 breeders, with perhaps 10? being truly SQ. This is a typical amount, and the odds and percentages get slightly better when you line breed a bit. It would be VERY good if you can make friends with someone who will share the same blood lines with you, then go back to them in 5 years, and exchange eggs or breeders so you both can have fresh stock from carefully tended and well cared for flocks.

My BCM mentor told me that it takes only 3 generations to ruin a BCM flock if not extremely careful, so a breeder has to be aware of details when moving forward, and do lots of test mating pairs to make great pairings to move forward. He suggested for sustainability, having 3 flocks, two pure and one mixed. Called, "spiral breeding." (There is info on this site about it.) You always have fresh genetics every few generations. I had heard a certain line of RIR survived for 80 years by using this system.

The rooster's ONLY leg problems you mentioned are maybe perhaps a result of the hen's possibly passing an (inbred?) gene of some sort affecting the next gen males- so, maybe even a defective gene...just not sure... but, here's an extremely good link about some poultry mutations. (By the way, shanks/ feet are often the first thing that alters when an inbred gene comes into play.) Good to look into.

http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations2.html

Can you get any more chickens from the person who sold you your first hatch or are they having issues too?

Also just wanted to touch upon, darkening egg color- the breeder has to line breed (or spiral breed) parents over their young. And remember, the roo is 50% of egg color, so if he doesn't come out of a dark egg layer, it would take a long time to get egg color in the flock.

Also, does your blue roo have pale shanks? Might just be the photos... I notice the hen has dark shanks. If he does, he should be test mated to see if he is split with Wheaten gene.

For blues, I believe roos should have med slate over pink scales. Also, select hens who aren't "tall" in the legs. Should be a shortish, wide bird. Have you tested mated your flock to a Wheaten based RIR (or Easter Egger) to make sure your blues don't have the Wheaten gene in them? (Blues are able to be bred to BCM roosters to darken blue feather and egg color, so they are also golden birchen based.)

I agree with leggomyegg0 - yes, the Marans are a pretty rainbow of varieties to choose from, they seem to remain calm but very aloof toward their owners despite handling them alot - ours hesitated to reach for her treats where all the other breeds were climbing all over us to get theirs, the hens have sneaky habits of nipping at passersby in the flock to sometimes outright vicious attacks so seriously would not consider mixing in these heavy hens around smaller or gentler non-combative breeds, our hen was a lazy forager and heavy but she could soar up to 7-8 feet if she really wanted to, she had a huge feed appetite and only gave 2-3 golf-ball round eggs/per week, the egg color was barely up to #4 on the egg color chart whether it was her first egg of the season or the last egg of the season, my friend had a different color variety hen from a different strain and the hen was equally unpleasant and had to be rehomed because of aggression. I understand lovers/breeders of Marans trying to defend this breed with excuses about finding good lines or strains, and that the egg colors fade as the season progresses but these are what they are - excuses to cover the fact that this breed is more unpredictable/variable than other breeds for all its hype. Although any roo can be combative because its a chicken thing Marans roos have a lot of reviews with numerous complaints of aggression/mean-ness. One theme seems consistent with everyone who has owned this breed - they ARE unpredictable in temperament, are lazy foragers with big appetites for feed, are not the best of layers since 2-4 eggs a week for a high feed intake is not a good return, are too aloof and/or to be considered pets, are not reliably peaceful flockmates especially toward other breeds or docile chickens, and color of Marans eggs is just as variable as color of eggs in any other brown layer from very light to darker browns (i.e. Barred Rocks in a flock can vary in depth of brown color of eggshell tones and so it is with Marans). For dark brown eggs the Barnies, Wellies, or Penes would be a better recommendation - these are not always overly-friendly breeds but will be less unpredictable temperament-wise and better foragers. One good thing about Marans is that they are dual purpose and heavy so if there is a mean one or a disappointing layer it will at least serve its owner as a good dinner. For eye candy in the yard these birds are stunning to view but don't expect to be wow'd by their eggs or temperament after their pullet stage. Even breeders are having a hard time getting anything "chocolate" out of them and I question the lighting on website photos of eggs. Breeders talk about good lines and strains and I'm weary of it. I have had other breeds of chickens from different lines and strains and there are traits that are consistent regardless of where they come from - hatched eggs, hatcheries, private breeders, or a customer's chicks for sale in a feed store. But with Marans the...

The more I read about Marans, the more I wanted them

I love mine! Hatching more out! They are also entertaining! They can be quite silly!

OK so I'm asking the impossible.....here it goes anyway. I just got 12 birds....10 Jersey Black Giant pullets one JBG Roo, and one Black Copper Maran Roo. I have studied them till my eyes hurt. I cannot tell the difference. Any suggestion.
Ray ( Rays Chickens)

I had the same situation except with a sussex and a crossbreed they were so sweet and caring that when they went to their new home I just balled my eyes out

I purchased a Cuckoo, Blue Splash and a White. Charming birds! The Cuckoo is cuckoo! So friendly and CRAZY entertaining! I think she's ADHD!