Can Black Copper Marans Throw The Other Colors Of Maran?

A couple of years ago I saw a picture on the Internet of a night, nighttime brown egg. I thought it was a chocolate egg really, ready and waiting to exist dragged through a jar of peanut butter.

But it wasn't. It was from a item breed of chicken called a Marans.

I accept been obsessing over having one of those chickens ever since. For me, half the fun of owning backyard chickens is having eggs that are colours people have never seen earlier. That and being able to wear a live chicken as a corsage at a moment'south observe if demand exist.

But with a a smallish coop and four hens already I couldn't even recollect of calculation another craven. Well I could retrieve about it but I couldn't practise anything about it.

And so Norma died.

I know. I'm sorry to shock y'all. But it's true. And that's one of the horrors of owning chickens. They up and dice on you, oftentimes without warning. Information technology was deplorable and awful and I cried. She had a prolapsed vent, which is something chickens who lay big eggs (and Norma's were HUGE) can be prone to. I know a lot of people just throw their chickens in the garbage or burn down them when they die merely I merely couldn't do that so I built her a little crate, (O.K., it was a coffin, but saying I built a bury for my poultry makes me sound like a nutjob) put her in it and buried her in a safe place.

After an appropriate period of mourning, I started looking for a replacement for Norma. And what I started looking for ... was a Marans.

(Quick notation ... when you purchase chickens yous either purchase hatching eggs to hatch them in an incubator yourself, day old chicks, or pullets. Pullets are 5 month (or so) old hens that take just started laying. Getting a pullet is great because you don't take to get through the bother or raising chicks which can exist fourth dimension consuming, but not a lot of people sell pullets. Chicks are much easier to come up past, especially for the rarer breeds.)

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Marans are a rare (in North America) French heritage breed. They come up in a variety of recognized colours with the Black Copper Marans existence the nearly popular.

At present a scrap nearly those dark eggs. People accept them very seriously. There'south even a colour chart.

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The egg color produced past the Marans hen has to be a #four on the nautical chart or darker to even exist recognized as a Marans.

Anything in the 8 or ix range is very rare and more of a mistake than anything. Hens are most likely to lay this color of egg in the offset of their laying bicycle and right subsequently a moult. And so the eggs will consistently get lighter, but they can't get any lighter than a #4.

People breed Marans with the goal of getting the darkest eggs possible. Which brand sense, because fifty-fifty though they're supposed to exist very overnice, gentle birds, it'due south the eggs we're all after.

If you Google Marans eggs y'all run into egg cartons filled with nighttime, DARK eggs, but that isn't the norm and if that'due south what you're hoping for you'll likely be disappointed. Information technology really bugs me actually that people postal service those pictures but don't put the disclaimer that these eggs are rare and won't always look similar that. Kind of similar when people mail service only the the *really* proficient pictures of themselves having nifty times on Twitter. Really? Where's the picture of you where your lazy eye is noticeable and your child has thrown up on your pilus?

Anyway.

I strapped on my typing fingers, headed over to Kijiji and started my search. I simply realized I'grand already lieing to y'all.

Kijiji WASN'T where my search began. Information technology began at a local farm that I discovered had Marans. So I sent them an email. Obviously they aren't e-mail people because they never responded. So I drove past the subcontract. Patently they aren't real farmers considering they weren't outside. A real farmer is outside from forenoon until night. They wear overalls, checked shirts and chew harbinger. Sometimes they take their hands in their pockets and stare quizzically at big cleaved pieces of machinery.

I saw none of this equally I sped past the subcontract.

So from in that location I went to a farmer friend who knew someone else who had Marans. This also led nowhere. I'thou now starting to retrieve that the Marans breed is the unicorn of chicken breeds. But I knew they were real. I'd seen pictures of them. Mind you I've besides seen pictures of unicorns.

O.K., so it was at THIS indicate that I headed over to Kijiji. I plant several people selling them, but they seemed sketchy to me for some reason. I was basing my judgement on how they wrote their post, what they had to say about their hens and whether or non they spelled Marans correctly. If they chosen their chicken a "Maran", they were scratched off my listing of potentials. There's supposed to exist an "S" on the end of Marans.

My listing quickly got whittled down to one breeder. A woman who was fairly close, just a few towns over from me. She was VERY into craven breeding and had just listed a first bound hatching of Black Copper Marans. I was at the indicate in my search where I was only kind of browsing around and all of a sudden I was in a position where I had to brand a decision. It was like browsing on the MLS and finding your dream home even though you had no real intentions of moving.

I emailed her, she emailed me, I emailed her dorsum, I himmed and hawed. Then the chickens were gone. Sold. Shit.

Y'all might exist wondering why I didn't just snap em upwardly like a pair of half price shoes. Well, the truth is buying a chick isn't quite that easy. For one matter you lot can't purchase but one chick. You have to buy at least two and three or four are meliorate. That'southward because chicks are flock creatures past nature and could die of loneliness if there'due south only ane of them. They need each other for protection, warmth and companionship.

The other problem was, Black Copper Marans are very difficult to sex activity. Then if you lot get one chick it could very well be a rooster, which aren't known for their fantastic egg laying ability. Plus if you get a rooster, yous have to figure out a way to get RID of the rooster. If yous go 3 or iv chicks the chances of you getting a hen are greater and if one happens to die, you lot still accept a few left.

Since I simply needed ane hen, the prospect of suddenly having to enhance several of them kind of made my caput explode and I only couldn't commit.

A month or so went by and I couldn't end thinking about those chicks. So on a whim I emailed the woman dorsum and asked if she happened to hatch anymore unicorn birds.

She said "Equally a affair of fact, yes". She had some in her incubator right at present that would be ready in a few days. I said I'd take all the Marans she had. I at present had a program.

I have a couple of friends who have chickens. I contacted both of them to see if they'd be interested in a hen once I raised them. They both said aye. And then if I have too many hens in my group of chicks, I know they have expert homes to go to. As far equally the roosters get, if I go any of those ,they are a rare and in demand enough brood that I'll have no problem selling them on Kijiji.

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In terms of how they look the Black Copper Marans is well ... black. They're distinguished equally Blackness "Copper" Marans by the copper ring around their necks of the hen, which you tin can only barely see in this picture show.

The beneath pictures, which is a rooster, shows how beautifully colourful they are.

The Marans fit my climate ... they were bred originally in a cold clammy climate, and then they're good in the cold winters of Ontario.

The other distinguishing feature in the Marans is their feathered legs. Which I love. Which is ironic, considering when things brainstorm sprouting out of my own legs I hate information technology. Their temperament is nice and not aggressive like a Rhode Isle Reddish tin can be and they lay fairly regularly but not nearly as much as the more than common breeds that are bred specifically for laying a lot of eggs.

There'due south i of me, and 4 chickens laying eggs. I can only swallow so many pavlovas, and then I'1000 O.Grand. with this detail breed but laying three or 4 eggs a calendar week as opposed to v or 6.

The i thing no ane tells you when you are looking to buy a Marans is this ... while virtually breeds starting time to lay eggs between four and 6 months of historic period, Marans have been known to await until they're 8 or nine months old. Of course at that place are exceptions.

Then now that yous know what chicken I chose yous can go along with your twenty-four hour period.

Tomorrow, I will accept 20 photos of the chicks looking impossibly cute. This beautiful phase only lasts a couple of weeks before they hit the gawky teenage phase. At which indicate, I will have 20 more photos for you. Perchance one of them will have a unicorn horn strapped to her head.

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Source: https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/the-breed-i-chose-black-copper-marans/

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