Cuckoo and Barred are feather patterns.
I guess you could have a poorly patterned Plymouth Rock and call it a Cuckoo Rock, couldnt you?
When your girls lay an egg, if it's a dark dark egg, you have a Cuckoo Marans (It's always spelled with an "s" not Maran - a mistake I used to make before I met the Marans folks here
)
Ah, then again, according the French standard, if a Marans, even though a pure bred bird, does not lay a dark enough egg, a "4" and up on the color scale, such a bird should not be considered a true Marans anyhow...
So even though a bird may have pink legs, and be Cuckoo patterned, it needs to lay an EGG to see if its an acceptable Marans at all
! (If you dont know who it's parents are?)
Do you have any idea what it's family history is, so that you can tell what lines it is descended from? Hatchery birds are a mix of breeds, and are often crossed with Barred Rocks.....it is the indiscriminate crossing with other breeds that causes a lot of confusion for the general/lay person just entering the interesting field of the Marans breed. Marans actually have a known genetic history, they were originally imported from France, and have a serious following here in the United States. A hatchery bird is sort of an unknown chance that you might be getting the real deal, with the unknown parentage, or an unknown mix in there....
Tina/tfpets
