I've done that cross, it is pretty good cross. Handsome birds, good weight. Light eggs though. Most were fair layers- the Marans I used were layers of very dark eggs but not very productive-way ;long breaks between laying cycles, so the cross did much better than the Marans in production.
and oh I cannot stand feather legs at all.. not a fan but what makes me despise them is the near impossibility of totally eradicating it after a cross. It is very annoying to have a 3rd generation bird that is perfect in all ways.. except it has a row of feathers down the legs....
It is difficult to get rid of because there are several genes for leg feathering, some dominant some recessive but the tricky part is all of them vary in expression.. you can get a bird that is genetically feather legged but for whatever reason, presents clean legs. Or they have some easily-missable sparse fuzz on their chick legs that disappear early on....
