A Mess of Marans

[Chicken Keith]

My fantasy was to get a flock of French Black Copper Marans, and breed them for eggs, meat, show and to perpetuate the breed here in America. Then I spotted some white Marans eggs on ebay and fantasy changed a little. Here's photos of my birds.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Very nice looking flock there. They are beautiful birds, looks like you are going to have quite a color selection. The white roo is nicely chunky looking, they should make very good duel purpose birds. Have you had any eggs out of the whites?

 

[Chicken Keith]

Very nice looking flock there. They are beautiful birds, looks like you are going to have quite a color selection. The white roo is nicely chunky looking, they should make very good duel purpose birds. Have you had any eggs out of the whites?

Thank you, Kelsie for the compliments. I have gotten eggs out of the whites. They're not the darkest I've seen, though. The problem with Marans is you try to get dark, dark, dark eggs, only then to have a body-type flaw in them. If you want a good body type, then the egg color is not ideal. Hard to have my cake and eat it too. LOL.

This boy is chunky true, but his brothers looked more tall and leaner like Langshans. I've no doubt that White Marans have some Langshan blood in them. I culled the brothers by selling them off, I'm sure they made or will make a good Mexican soup somewhere. I'd like to select for the Marans shape, and cull out all others. Supposedly, in France, the white Marans are the rage in poultry supermarkets along with the Bresse fowl.

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Awesome looking birds!

 

[Kelsie2290]

Ya, getting everything perfect in one bird is a challenge. With the newer feather colors, it follows that the egg color is going to take a hit since nothing you can use to bring the color in lays as dark as the BCMs so you have to take a step backwards on the egg color to get the feather color. At least body type you can see fairly early, and on both sexes. I can see why the whites would be popular in supermarkets, with the light even skin and white feather color they should dress out very nice looking.

 

[b.hromada]

Wow, those are some pictures! Beautiful birds you've got!!