Marans Owners -- anything "bad" about this breed?

[cthrash1]

Quote:
I got my eggs from her and they are very pretty and big...One looked like it may have hurt coming out it was so big. I had to turn some over after the first candling because I had them upside down, both ends looked the same so couldn't figure out which way they went til I got to candle them. I am on day 17 with what looks like about 5 out of 8(she sent 2 extra) developing, the other 3 look like they have floating airsac and scrambled. PO was hard on my box as they cut into the side and it looked pretty bad so I think 5 developing is good under those circumstances.
A lot of folks on here had really good stuff to say about this seller...Mine are the wheaton Marans. Cindy

 

[Oblio13]

The color of those eggs is outstanding. Here's what we typically get, terracotta or a shade darker:

This is one of our better eggs:

 

[The Monkey Mama]

Hey, I have some cuckoo marans that are 11 weeks old now that we hatched from eggs we got from this eBay seller:

http://myworld.ebay.com/comfortableboots

I don't know anything helpful about the seller you mentioned, but this lady we bought from above was wonderful - very nice, the eggs were individually wrapped in bubble wrap - NONE of them broke and she sent several extras. She shipped immediately too.

We bought two sets of eggs from her and had a great experience with both breeds we got from her.

The chicks we got from her eggs were all very hardy and beautiful - great stock in my amateur opinion. [We got eggs from another seller at the same time that hatched a ton of crippled chicks with all kinds of leg/feet problems - they hatched from the same incubator on the same day as our awesome Marans so I know it was the stock....]

"Comfortableboots" doesn't have an auction listed today, but usually she has several different kinds of Maran eggs listed.

As far as how I like my Cuckoo Marans - I really do. They are only 11 weeks old, so I can't say about laying potential, but they have been amazingly sweet and docile birds. Very self sufficient and large, clean, and healthy. It is also easy to tell boys from girls, which I appreciated since I have to sell the roos!

Good luck! I bet you'll really like the Marans!

Kelly

 

[Crunchie]

Quote:
Those look like pullets to me.

In the "con" column for me are:

They are feed hogs. I feed a large quantity of high-protein game bird starter/grower to my "chickasauras rexes".

My roosters are mean (however, they are wonderful flock protectors and very good to their hens).

Egg color is not consistently dark (starts out the darkest at the beginning of the laying cycle and gets progressively lighter). This isn't so much a negative for me as much as something I think that anybody wanting to get involved in the breed should be made aware of! As an example, the same chickens (Cuckoos) laid the eggs in both of the below pictures. The first picture is of eggs during the hen's first year of lay; the second, their second year of lay. I also occasionally get an egg that is much lighter, as if the egg missed it's coat of "paint" when coming through the chute.

 

[Jenlyn9483]

Crunchie, I hope your are right!

 

[drom]

Quote:
Ahaha, so, there's a Chicken Elite? I had no idea.
Well, so far I'm enjoying myself here in the hood. For me, it's been a great resource for information. And I absolutely love seeing people's pictures of their birds and eggs.

 

[drom]

Quote:
Those look like pullets to me.

In the "con" column for me are:

They are feed hogs. I feed a large quantity of high-protein game bird starter/grower to my "chickasauras rexes".

My roosters are mean (however, they are wonderful flock protectors and very good to their hens).

Egg color is not consistently dark (starts out the darkest at the beginning of the laying cycle and gets progressively lighter). This isn't so much a negative for me as much as something I think that anybody wanting to get involved in the breed should be made aware of! As an example, the same chickens (Cuckoos) laid the eggs in both of the below pictures. The first picture is of eggs during the hen's first year of lay; the second, their second year of lay. I also occasionally get an egg that is much lighter, as if the egg missed it's coat of "paint" when coming through the chute.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/613_eggs_web2.jpg

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/613_eggscolorful.jpg

Ok, question for you. How do you get your eggs so clean and shiny? Some of these egg pictures look like the eggs have been waxed and polished!!

They look so pretty!

I think I read somewhere that you can actually rub the color off the Marans eggs since they have a coating on the outside. Is that true?

 

[Frogdogtimestwo]

.

 

[amazondoc]

Quote:
I think they are fairly frequently called names like "chickasaurus rex".

In fact, somebody here on this thread may have called them that as well. I'm too tired to remember right now!

 

[ginasmarans]

Funny you shoud call them raptors because that's one of the breed standards. The head is supposed to be flat and raptor like. You can see it in this picture:

I honestly don't notice that my adults eat any more than my other large breeds. Now the chicks probably do, but they grow so fast and are so much bigger,even as hatchlings, than the other chicks. They're like 6 ft tall teenage boys. You gotta alot of room to fill up.
Mine are calm,gentle birds. They don't particularily like to be handled,but I don't routinly handle my birds and none of them really like it.