My new Cuckoo Marans opinions please!!

[New Hatcher]

frow all you Marans Lovers I just bought myself 4 Cuckoo Marans Hens and I would like some responses of how they look. I'm new to this breed and any input would be well received. I haven't had an egg yet from them ( Just got them last night) so I don't know about egg colour yet. I think the girls look a little washed out but I'm comparing to my Barred rock roo so I could be out to lunch

I'm not yet into showing so if they are not up to that standard thats ok but I still want someone to tell me. Good traits and bad let me have it also for the bad if you know of things to look for in a roo to fix them would be very in lighting.

Heres a few picks anyway thank you all

This girl has some gold coloured barring so is she siding on a Gold Cuckoo??

Thank you all for looking and replying

 

[poultrycrazy]

i nothing about cuckoo marans but yours are bautiful

 

[Tala]

Naaa, Cuckoo Marans don't have crisp bars like Barred Rocks do. (I have both in my laying flock right now, that's how I can tell them apart lol)

They look like pretty girls to me

In general Cuckoos don't have as dark of eggs as the BCMs, but it all depends on their bloodlines.
Also my Cuckoos are not exactly show quality, so I'm no expert on judging them. Mine are laying good for me, again not as dark as my BCM's, and they make black sexlinks when bred with my RIR rooster

 

[New Hatcher]

Thank you for your Replies. I'm slowly trying to collect all 12 colours of marans. This is a hard feat to do here in Canada. I do have a Blue Copper and Wheaten roos but no girls for them. These hens will be placed with the layer flock and the blue copper roo. I'll be hatching out what eggs I get from this pen which will consist of EE cross, red rock sussex cross and barred rock crosses. I'm just building my layer flock until I can get hens to match my roos or at least some Black Copper Marans hens. Thank you for the input any more is welcome but I like to hear they look good so far.

Anyone know what I would get crossing a blue copper roo with the cuckoo hens?? Or the Wheaten roo ??

 

[Illia]

To be honest, I'll warn you that you're likely to not get good egg color at all. Their barring is very poor, verging on not being even cuckoo (Yes, cuckoo is naturally more smudged than barred birds, but these look like someone crossed cuckoo with birchen) and their legs are clean. "French" Marans, the feather shanked ones, are much more likely to lay a better egg color. Clean shanked Cuckoos are often a sign of the stock being hatchery based.

To tell you the truth, Cuckoos in general give a 70% chance of a poor egg color due to over-breeding for production. (this done both by hatcheries in America and egg farms in Europe)


Still, they're very pretty and will be a great starter for Marans.

They may even lay well-speckled eggs.


Blue Copper x Cuckoo hen = sex linked chicks. Hens will look like blue/black coppers, cocks will look like barred coppers

Wheaten x Cuckoo hen = sex linked chicks. Hens will look similar to black copper, but are merely "rusty" black, cocks are barred with black leakage as well.

 

[New Hatcher]

@ Illia: thank you for your honest reply. I was already thinking they didn't look as good as some pics I had seen of other Cuckoos so I'm not surprised. Crossed with Birchen is not very pleasing but as mentioned before I have mostly cross/Hinz57s anyway. I knew from the get go that they are clean legged and like you said will be good starter Marans for me. At least now I know what bad colouring looks like in the flesh (or I guess in this case feather LOL) Truth be told my Blue copper Marans has a few flaws himself with white earlobes and a neck riding comb so just barnyard stock anyway. Maybe with some selective breeding I can get some decent egg colour

I love the idea of Speckled eggs and I'm sure my kids will like them as well

Thank you again for everyones opinions