I have a pure black Marans roo from a very dark egg. I don't like his comb because he has a double serration but I like everything else about him. I might use him on some cuckoo projects to darken up egg color if needed. I did find some good looking silver cuckoos to purchase who are feather shanked tooI already have golden cukoo projects going and starting on the lemon cuckoos now that my new breeding pens are finished.
Here is my black Marans boy. Like I said, I hate his huge comb (too many points, a double serration, but clean with no sprigs lol) His body is just huge now. He was pretty young in this pic. I have one pure black Marans hen as well with heavy feathered shanks who lays a 7-8 depending on her laying cycle.
I have blues from a 3 different sources and finally hatched out some blacks from them. I don't know if I believe that 25% black thing when it comes to Marans. It took me forever to get black hen then a year later to get a black male. I've hatched lots of blues and lots of splash males. Kinda strange. It seems with all the blues people have they would be hatching out more blacks but you just don't see it for some reason. I am going to be mating my 2 blacks together to get a black flock going. I've had my female in a different project for awhile. I will try and get some pics of her. She has been trying to go broody on some eggs that aren't all hers and a few started smelling bad. I made her get off of them lol.
Heres some of the blue babies I hatched last year. I lost my good blue male roo to a hawk late last summer after I hatched the black male roo. I am just sick about that. I have one other blue male that looks okay but he is sooo nasty to both people and the hens I am not letting him near my girls. So now will need to use this black male instead for further breeding, at least he is nicer..he doesn't like to be picked up but not nasty at all and the girls like him.
Some blue chicks
Nasty blue boy when he was younger
I really need to do more breeding but they are supposed to be all true blues. I had a blue line earlier that had some coppering show up on a male but I am really thinking it was from the sun now because he got the dirty brown tint on his saddles like even my pure blue ameraucanas get after running around in the FL sun all summer long. After this particular guy molted, he was all nice solid blue again sooooo... I didn't use him for breeding though because he also has middle toe feathers and they are too much trouble to try to breed out. I've had too many projects and things going on (not chickens lol) and haven't had much time all throughout last fall and winter to work on my chicken projects so hopefully, I can do some this spring and summer.
There are some flocks around...
