The Poultry Keeper

Aussie Chick · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:15 am Post subject:

No probs,

thewinkingtiger · Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 936 Location: East Yorkshire, UK

WOW!!! Amazing colour!

jaydee67 · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:05 pm Post subject:

Now THEY will add variety to my egg basket! Very Happy

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 6973 Location: isle of lewis

lovely colour ,i hope my french maran is going to lay a good colour as she's hopeless at everything else ,are yours flighty ,mine is really flight she was raised on her own as she was the only egg i managed to hatch .
suz

Aussie Chick · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:18 pm Post subject:

Wow, thats amazing. My Marans not that dark Sad

fenwoman · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject:

I have just bought myself a copper blck marans cockerel to go with my 3 hens and one pullet. They lay very dark eggs also.

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 409 Location: Shetland

fenwoman · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2006 3:26 pm Post subject:

I find my copper blacks also to be calm. I thought it was because I kept the girls as spare totty for the cochin lads when their own girlies went broody and the cochin laid backness rubed off but no, the young cockerel I have just bought came from a wild free range life on a big farm and yet he is also nice and easy going.

Sparklepeeps · Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 1901 Location: Cheshire

I thought I would add a link to this post for anybody with Maran Chicks that they would like to sex early.

mojo · Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 4:40 pm Post subject:

been talking to all 3 times all france champion maran breeder....so here is what i gleaned..........egg colour seems to be transmitted by hen but a coq from a pale egg will dilute colour...........she says you must choose for show birds or egg colour .the two dont go together..........sexing of chicks is NOT foolproof what ever any one says....if you only hatch the darkest eggs you will carry the colour forwards..............black/coppers give the best colour eggs................whites the palest but lay well.............wheat rather than maize is the treat cereal...............change chick water at least twice a day to keep it cool.............. she reckons to get a 75 % hatch rate and raises about 1000 chicks a year...............and her eggs sell for about 3 pound each and day olds for six.............hope that helps................if you have any questions i will be visiting her again at the end of july so pm me

NannyP · Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject:

I am putting him here, because he is a X and I think he is all Maran...hopefully someone will let me know.

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 409 Location: Shetland

I think I'd go for a X, Nanny. He's not 100% the original French version of Maran - look at the legs - no sign of leg feathering, which he should have some of. Those legs look very heavy too, certainly heavier than my Maran boys - almost like there's something of a heavier breed in the ancestry somewhere?

Attila

Chris Kurzfeld · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 1230 Location: Carmarthenshire

Except for the legs he looks remarkably like my Welsummer cockerel.

Chris

Tarka · Joined: 21 Dec 2007 Posts: 291

These Marans are my favorite breed Cool

Really consistant egg layers and steady as a pet for children , the eggs are always a beautiful colour too .

JK · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 1

Nice topic and photo's! As I understand it, the dark egg colour is based on a normal autosomal gene and influenced by selection.
This means that both sexes transmit their egg colour genes equally. So if you want dark eggs, keep the darkest to hatch and breed on with a cockerel from the darkest eggs.
But the problem is, that the darkest eggs get so dark because they get a large amount of colour from the hen gland (don't know the right words, would have to look it up). There isn't a unlimited amount of that, so the darker the egg, the longer the gland did save up the colour excretion between the two eggs. So, the less eggs this hen would produce. In Holland this killed the utility use of the Barnevelders.
So best is to look for a way of selection on both traits, with the medium coloured eggs (from the good laying hens) and sometimes using a cockerel from a real dark egg to spice up the colour.