Has anyone purchased Black Copper Marans from a hatchery?

[bdcraig]

If so were you happy with the results and were the eggs they laid darker than other breeds?

Thank you.

 

[chicklover 1998]

I myself have not ordered any hatchery BCM but from what I have heard from other people they do lay a darker egg than other breeds but do not lay quite as dark of an egg as what a breeders stock would have.

 

[KF0002]

A friend of mine has a flock of Black Copper Marans from Murray McMurray hatchery. They are beautiful chickens, but definitely not SOP quality. They lay really well for her and are a good dual purpose bird. She gave me a dozen eggs for helping her sell a few chickens she had for sale back when I was just getting interested in the breed. In the dozen she gave me were some Splash Marans, which were the darkest of the bunch, a few hatchery grade cuckoo marans, and her hatchery grade Black Coppers. The cuckoo and black copper eggs were the lightest in the bunch and were a far cry from a 4 on the Marans scale. Marans eggs must be at least a 4 to even qualify to even technically be called Marans. I hatched the eggs and will only use the Splash Marans as breeders since their egg color was pretty good. The hatchery grade cuckoos and black coppers I will be using in my layer pen only. Definitely won't be using any of them for breeding. I purchased some quality Marans hatching eggs from a few different breeders and have been very satisfied with the egg color of the eggs I received. If you want quality black coppers try Papas Poultry. He is a smaller scale breeder/hatchery and breeds high quality rare breed chickens. He has beautiful chickens and advertises on this website. He also has his own website.. www.papaspoultry.com. Most of his chicks are sold as straight run though aside from his auto sexing breeds. I have some chicks coming from him next month!

 

[GGLaRoo]

I ordered some from chickenscratch in Illinois. They were beautiful birds, with very dark eggs.

 

[popsicle]

I've gotten Black Copper Marans from Cackle Hatchery the past two years. Their eggs are darker than other breeds, but certainly not 8s and 9s on the color scale--more like 4. I was plenty happy with color of their Cuckoo Marans and Welsummer also.

 

[3riverschick]

If so were you happy with the results and were the eggs they laid darker than other breeds?

Thank you.

Hi bdcraig,
If you want the really dark eggs from your Marans, here's what you do. Go online and check out the results of the Marans egg shows. Check the 2 Clubs websites or ask the Clubs where you can find them. Look for breeders who are winning consistently in good competition.
http://maranschickenclubusa.com/March2014ShowResults.html ( check the rest of the results archive too)
http://www.norcalpoultryncpa.com/mccusa_2014_egg_show_results.pdf
excellent article on the Marans egg plus egg color chart and a link to a European expert's article on inheritance of color in the Marans egg:
http://www.maransofamericaclub.com/the-marans-egg.html
Ok, I just read the 6 page article above. It is excellent and will give you the information to speak informatively with a dark egg breeder of Marans.
Buy chicks from them. Make sure the sire of the chicks is from a dark egg laying female. Easy to do if they pedigree their birds but if not, if the flock is one a formal breeding program , just go with that.
Marans egg shows are a lot of fun. When I had the Salmon Marans I won a couple of ribbons. Lots of fun for the kids, too. Realize that if you do get the extremely dark eggs, you will get an egg less a week from your hens as the eggs stay inside the hen longer to get painted darker.
Also, do not, ever cross your darkest egg layers with another strain. The genetics of dark egg are complicated and you will lose color and take several generations of careful culling to get ti back.
If you need fresh blood in the furture , go back to the same breeder only and get hens. Or a cock out of a darkest egg laying hen
Best,
Karen
Former Director of Archives, Marans of America Club