If darker eggs or dark eggs is what you are after ........see if you can find a free Marans rooster to use over your light brown egg layers. He will darken up egg color for you on a goodly portion of the offspring if he carries good dark egg genetics (meaning that he hatched from a dark egg) . Remember that some of the offspring could end up laying a light brown egg, but it is my experience that the dark egg genetics of the Marans is a dominant trait and carries over easily into another breed of light brown egg layers.
I say this last statement only out of my own experiences in my flocks...I test mate my Marans males to light brown egg layers (or birds that lay lighter brown colored eggs..including crosses to my Welsummers) to verify that he passes the dark egg genetics to his offspring and I get lovely eggs from the pullets from those crosses. I have to keep them marked and in a layers flock because, even though the birds may look completely different from my pure Marans ...dang howdy if I can tell those girls' egg color from the pure Marans.
Then keep in mind that not all Marans (or Welsummers for that matter) lay dark dark eggs...so crossed offspring also have the chance of inheriting lighter egg color genetics to include shades or levels of darkness and other characteristics of dark egg laying breeds, ie., to be speckled or not to be speckled, smooth looking matte finish or nice and shiny, etc., each bird is different and has her own special signature for her eggs...but they sure are pretty to see all lined up in an egg carton, like a array of fall colored little gems....speckled or not . I love seeing my moms face when she opens her egg cartons.
Hope others that have done some of these dark egg layer crosses comes to give you their opinions and thoughts.
