Marans

I really enjoyed my black copper marans. I had one, who would see me and run after me, bawling like she was saying "maw maw maw" all my chickens were spoiled. These hens really fought over the nests and would peck my Easter egger and americauna's while they tried laying, til they drew blood. All my problems were because I did not have enough room for these hens. I had to give to a free ranging 100% farm.. Please learn from my mistakes, I hope. If you go by the books and from others experiences, you should have no problems raising chickens.. Colors ranged from black with iridescent colors with black eyes, black with some brown tints with brown eyes. Neat variety..

i have a dark cuckoo maran rooster, he is almost 4 months old, at 3 months he started to crow which is not that bad but i live in town so if we get a complaint, he is out of here, he is so sweet and tame, he is so gentle and friendly to my hens, and very protective (but not mean protective, he does not attack people) and he is always on the look out for predators, my rooster's name is Thorin of of the Hobbit, and he was my free chick from murray mcmurray, at 1st i thought he was a barred rock, but comparing him from my other barred rock he looks different, I almost wish i had a female for their dark eggs.

I just started hatching out marines last year. I am addicted! I am in the North East and find these birds cope well with summer rain storms and the change of seasons. They handle the cold very well. Good egg layers, good meat birds. I find them to be somewhat entertaining with a good personality. They are clever so make sure you have a good latch on their coop. I have more trouble with them opening their coops and letting themselves out than I do with creditors getting in! They will watch you work the latch/fasteners and figure out how to work it themselves!

They are also stunning!

I have raised quite a few of these birds, and am really impressed with them. They are very quick to mature, and are one of the friendliest birds I raise. They are known for their rich chocolate colored eggs, though not all strains lay super dark eggs. The roosters are mature by 4-5 months and are pretty good meat birds. I recommend this beautiful breed, coming in a wide range of colors, for your flock!

I have only had one bird of this breed but she stood out from the rest of my flock. She was a calm thing but she was at the bottom of the pecking order which i guess isnt a bad thing but she didnt defend herself. She was a good layer even when she reached three years old. The only negative is her eggs were a brownish colour with chocolate freckles but definitely not as dark as they should be but i spose that was down to the breeder i got her off.

Ordered some hatching eggs!! Cant wait to try them out to see what a flock would be like

I have a Blue Copper Marans cockerel, and he is by far the nicest boy I have. Bluebell came from a very bad situation, but he does not show it other than he is afraid to be outside the run unless his favorite girls are out there. The other boys will sometimes pick on him. He does not even try to fight. He runs right to me. I do not know about the girls because I only have a boy, but if they act like him, I would take some in a heart beat. He does not mind being picked up and held, he does not run away or act aggressive.

My first ever eggs I bought in the post from online were french wheaton marans for my autistic brother. I actually didn't know they were wheaton, but I thought they were cuckoo as I never heard of the breed prior and just googled "marans" on google, assuming they were cuckoo. Found out through the breeder that the cuckoo aren't even in Australia and we are only limited to a few colours due to our terrible importation laws for poultry, wheaton being the only breed imported but black coppers, birchen and blue created by breeders with wheaton as the base to start with. Very inbred in Australia, hard to get birds without knocked knees unfortuently so they are hard to win at shows in the light feather catagory. Do VERY well in egg carton competitions however; makes the barnevelders cry in a corner haha!

I recieved a dozen eggs, with 3 extra freebees by the breeder and hatched the lot which I was totally wrapped with. Since they were wheatons, they pared with instant sexing after a few days and we ended up with all roosters but 3. Roosters were beautifully shanked and impressive to look at, most of them easily finding homes, especially considering they came from very dark eggs (popular for easter egger breeding). Since then I grew up the hens and was amazed by my first maran egg laid in the nest, becoming the family favourite ever since I bought them 4 years ago. Even my blind father can tell them apart in the fridge by their texture, shape and size apparently, so there are rarely ever maran eggs in the fridge. He wants only marans in the backyard!

The hens looked beautiful only for 2 years and now they look ragged, despite a healthy diet and care (other hens grown up with them look fine) so I'm not sure if it's the breed, or the limited genetics for the marans in my country but they really aren't pretty. I am growing out some new hens from another breeder that are nearly at 8 months old so I will find out if they have the same problem. I've also found that my older girls have lost their laying ability since their second year and can take up to 3 months off laying at a time, but being a bird with a carcass that is not as heavy as let's say a plymouth rock or rhode island, I don't really look forward to chopping them, which is probably why I haven't already; plus they are still laying.....sometimes.

As for their appearences, the wheatons look tidy while young in their first and second year. The roosters look stunning, especially the french with their feathered shanks. English marans with clean shanks are nice as well, and less needing of maintenance in the show scene (feathered legs are a pain) but the feathered shanks just look far more impressive and I am willing to put in the effort to make them look good. I found my boys get very vicious at about 6 months old after I sell them on, as I sold a black copper maran rooster to my brother and it was instantly changed from a friendly chicken that I could hand feed to a hormonal, testosterone fueled fellow, beating up his silkie rooster and hassling the hens to where he gave a bit of concern to if he was actually harming the hens. My previous wheaton maran rooster I sold him actually slashed him with his spurs so he got rid of him for the younger black copper. My blue maran is more friendly but all we can do is wait by the sounds of it, as every rooster I've rehomed doesn't seem to be on the gentleman side.

The new blue marans I managed to pick up from interstate eggs are quite different to the black copper and wheaton I have owned before, I am unsure on them being genuine do to their temperment. The rooster is the most magnificent bird I've seen, with red spots on the tip of each tail feather, gorgeous fluffy shanks and without knocked knees. The hen is an english maran as she lacks the feathered legs. She hasn't laid yet but the colour of her egg will tell me if she is the real McCoy.

Overall marans, mainly the French variety for their appearence are one of my favourite breeds, and will probably be a nostalgic breed for me later on due to their impact on my now obsessive egg buying disorder where I cannot stop buying eggs from across the country to get the breeds I cannot get locally. They seem to be a breed you have to replace if you want optimum laying but that just might be Australian birds, I cannot vouch for the far superior quality marans overseas. Will always wow friends, family and neighbours when you present them with an eggbox filled with their dark eggs or mixed with other coloured eggs just to show them off. Just need to be careful around the roosters when you collect the eggs from breeding pens or just let them out at the end of the day and only collect the eggs then. Hens have never sat for me either, which is good if you don't want a broody.


The tail of my blue maran at about 5-6 months. Notice the red spots on the tips of his tail feathers?


About 4-5 months again. Sorry no pictures of him as an adult now as he lives at my brother's.




Blue maran pullet at about 4 months old (she's about 6 months now). She is English as she lacks feathered shanks. Notice knocked knees? Wheaton pullet in the background.

We have some Cuckoo Marans Hens. They get along great with the rest of the flock. I have nothing negative to report!

I don't want to bash our Cuckoo Marans but she was a pill to say it kindly. She did not play nice with her flockmates and did a full-on clawing vicious attack on a Silkie pullet and she challenged the alpha hen - but was promptly put in her place. She was sneaky nipping and pulling at other hens' crests or combs as they walked by. Her eggs were about 2-3/week and never dark. However they made an interesting egg carton since no two of her eggs looked alike - sometimes light brown, sometimes half light/half brown, sometimes large speckles, sometimes tiny speckles, sometimes half speckled and half plain - but never got anything dark or "chocolate" like advertised. And her eggs were not the usual egg-shape. The eggs looked like smooth golf balls. We might have kept her if she wasn't so nasty. She was 7-lb of aggression and not fair to the 2-lb Silkies. The assertive Leghorn was the only one to keep her in her place when she got aggressive. We finally re-homed her into a friend's egg-layer flock where she is very sneaky still nipping at gentler younger breeds in the flock. She is kept for her egg-laying and then probably will be stew later. She layed a half-dozen fertilized eggs which she didn't brood so we gave them to a friend to incubate. Her eggs produced 3 nice Cuckoo cockerels with feathered legs and 2 plain legged pullets but none will be used for breeding since her strain seems to be nasty-tempered. Since Marans are considered dual purpose she didn't lay that many eggs and her large size gave her an enormous appetite which we couldn't afford for how few eggs she gave in return. She tolerated humans but was not particularly friendly - more calm and aloof. Even our Leghorn was more personable and friendly than she was. I suppose that's why there are dedicated breeders for perfecting Marans because of the bad rap they have for producing sub-par eggs with some being very aloof if not downright aggressive.

I love my black copper marans. They aren't flighty, and follow me around. the one that went broody
would not take no for an answer, so I bought her a mixed bag of fertile eggs and she hatched them
out and has been a fantastic mother hen. They lay more eggs than I expected. I'd recommend them
in a heartbeat!

I hatched 3 French black copper marans (out of 3 BCM eggs) with a mix of 3 other heritage breeds. Two ended up being male. The female is so friendly she jumps for our shoulder to perch the whole time we're in the coop. The males started out friendly but are getting pretty aggressive toward the other birds, and one is starting to get aggressive with us as well. They learned to use the nipple waterers and the roosting pole first, and they were the first to eat out of our hand and go for bugs. They aren't at laying age yet, so I can't attest to the quality of the eggs or the rate of lay. They've thrived really well and grown quickly, and they seem like they would be decent dual purpose breeds. The hen is also our favorite chicken because she's just so sweet. I would definitely recommend them, just maybe not with multiple roosters.

She has turned her whole personality around. She really was kinda mean, I spent alot of time with her, Now whenever I go outside she is one of the first to run up and see what I might have lol.

We got 3 Black Copper Marans a year ago for our backyard flock, and they are not our favorites. We much prefer our Buff Orpingtons. The Marans are not very friendly, are very hard to catch, don't like to be held and general shy away from humans. They tend to be a bit squawky.

One of our hens went broody when she was about 9 months old and it took her a long time to get over it. After that, however, they have been very consistent layers. Their eggs are gorgeous. They are a deep brown/red color and I can see why they are prized.

One note: when they started laying, they laid a lot of soft shelled eggs before getting it right. Our Buff Orpingtons didn't do that, just started laying normal eggs.

Got these 3 gals completely by mistake, as I thought they were another kind. They were the ugliest pullets, and I named them according to their appearance, ie: Buzzard, Blaze, and Skunk. Now, they are a year old, shiny and black with the copper necks, and produce dark brown but nowhere- near -chocolate eggs. Docile and curious, they are a wonderful part of my first venture into backyard chickens.

I started with 4 black copper Marans, 1 white maran, 1golden maran,1 silver coco maran that turned out to be a roo and he is now my favorite he gets up in my lap when I'm sitting in the pen or run and let's me pet him, however I seem to be the only one he comes to but he does not get aggressive with anyone else. I had trouble with the golden maran eating eggs, fixed that with a game cam and ceramic egg. And the white one it's first year was egg bound but has never had a problem since. They mingle well with the astrolops and barred rocks and new hampshires as well who by the way rule the roost.

I love the deep chocolate large eggs but the rooster is mean I have worked with him a lot and he tolerances me but I cant trust him with other people he will attack at the drop of a dime so all people are warned however he is a great protector to his hens and I have no plans to get rid of him I like him the way he is I have 2 amaricana hen that he breeds with regularly and now I have olive Eggers in the making so excited

Well the overall summary pretty much summed it up. I hate hatching these birds in the incubator. That's my only valid complaint I guess. I have seen a couple others say theirs are terminally broody, I've never had one go broody. It'd be nice. I wouldn't be trying to candle opaque eggs if they had a broody on them! lol!

My cuckoo maran hen, Frenchie, has been a pleasant surprise. She has kept us in eggs all winter despite below-average temps. She is a pleasant bird, not the friendliest, but still inquisitive and calm to be around. She is a little more independent than the others, and can often be found foraging alone. She doesn't need the rooster or other hens to feel safe and secure. Despite her independent streak, she is good with the others and even our guineas.