Here are two marans cocks, the first from my English cuckoo breeder, the second is Chooks man’s.
I thought it would be good to have a visual comparison of two birds which both get called ‘dark cuckoo marans’ according to different standards, mostly because I’m going off a different one to everyone else. The lack of consistency across poultry terminology can be frustrating!
View attachment 4093233English standard dark cuckoo
E/E, S/S, B/B
See the uniform cuckoo pattern which is as even in shade across the body, though still clearly barred throughout.
View attachment 4093234
French ‘standard’ dark cuckoo (they are not a standard variety but a result from mixing true colours)
E^B/E^B, S/S, B/b+
See how the batting is dull across the tail, the lighter hackles a result of the birchen allele. A ‘light’ silver cuckoo has the barring of the top photo but lighter hackles like the bottom.
This made me jealous of all chooks man’s marans, look at that huge body.
Thank you to
@chickengr for pointing this out because it made me do a little research into the two standards.
