please allow folks time to answer your question; you posted it just 3 hours ago.I am repeating this question in hopes someone will know before it gets buried. I have three pullets that are about 5 months old... Yesterday, two of them laid a pair of Rhode Island Red brown colored egg with tiny brown speckles on it... They are new chickens so I wanted to know if this was normal? The birds look just like the black coppers in all the pictures. They have feathered legs. White skin and feet. Their parents looked great although, I never did see any eggs during my trip to the breeder. The egg is bottom heavy like the Marans in the standard. These birds look great by everything I have been able to gather. I was just wondering if this is something commonly seen when a hen first starts to lay. I noticed some anomalies with my blue copper pullets at first, but they are laying quite a dark caramel colored egg now.
That said - 5 months is quite young for them to begin laying. Some lay very dark eggs, and some do not. They do sometimes darken up after the first week or two, sometimes they do not. The dark egg genetic is extremely difficult to work with, and unfortunately, not all Marans lay a nice, dark egg. However, they should not have "white" legs; so, I suspect you may have a cross there...it's difficult to know without seeing pictures, but the female Black Copper's legs should be dark slate (very dark gray). If yours are WHITE, there is a problem with their genetics. Can you post some pictures?