In preparation for my Marans eggs (which should be arriving within the week) I have written up (with the assistance of numeral chicken information sites, thank you) a collection of facts about the Marans chicken, including its history and type for educational purposes. I had a nice time researching additional stuff about the breed, and may do more of these pages on different breeds of chickens.
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The MARANS chicken
History:
The Marans chicken (always spelled with a “s” at the end) originate from France, and were “officially” imported to the United Kingdom during the 1930s.
You see, during the year 1929, Lord Greenway was attracted to the fleshy, meaty qualities of the birds he saw at a Paris exhibition. He sought to get a flock of his own, but unfortunately there was an import restriction on livestock. However, some eggs were smuggled into his country that same year as hard boiled eggs intended for lunch!
Lord Greenway's poultry manager then hatched some foundation stock from these eggs, and found the dark brown factor. He was so impressed by the deep color that as soon as the import restriction was raised he imported 60 day-old chicks. These early birds had both silver or dark cuckoo markings and feathered shanks. Black, cuckoo, and white Marans were derived from these first lines, and occasionally throw-back chicks will be born with colors like the originals.
In England, there was difficulty differentiating between the Cuckoo Marans and other Continental Cuckoo breeds at first---especially the North Holland Blue---unless the eggs could be seen, so after some years he began to concentrate his efforts on the selection of the Cuckoo variety only. At that time both clean and feathered shanks were common and he decided to breed the clean-shanked birds.
Due to the instability of the plumage of this variety, J.S. Parkin (the poultry manager) subdivided it into two sub-types: Dark Cuckoo and Silver Cuckoo. These English Marans were developed with clean shanks. Interestingly, while breeding out the shank feathers of Marans chickens, the British breeders bred them on to the formerly clean-shanked North Holland Blues.
The Marans chickens were accepted into the British Standard of Perfection in 1935. The Standard was drawn up by J.S. Parkin and W Powell-Green. Gold Cuckoos followed their predecessors in 1944, and so did the Blacks in 1952. Unfortunately the Whites died out before they could be accepted.
Black Copper-necks (now more simply known as the Black Coppers) were also imported from France in the 1930s but were never accepted into the British Standard. The popularity for the dark egg led to indiscriminate breeding over the next 20 years to try and improve the identification of pullets and cockerels as day-old chicks. Some chickens, for instance, are able to be sexed as day-old chicks by a white mark that is present on the head of a cockerel.
Day-old sexing of the chicks meant that the breeders didn't have to raise the cockerels, so they could rear more pullets at reduced costs. This was done by using other breeds such as the Light Sussex. Their offspring were put to a pure Marans and the resulting Marans-looking hatchlings were sold as pure-blooded Marans. The cockerels were much lighter at a day-old age than the pullets, so it was easy to cull them out. Many years of breeding from these stocks produced a paler egg, poorer productivity and more white color in the feathering, (from the Light Sussex).
Good, pure Marans can now be very difficult to find as a result, because it can be very difficult to distinguish between these birds and the mongrel-like versions which have become incorporated into some flocks.
Recent importations from France into the UK have resulted in both clean-shanked and feathered-shanked birds being available. The Poultry Club of Great Britain currently refuses to recognize the feathered birds, though they are accepted by The Marans Club of Great Britain.
It is not clear when the Marans chicken was imported into the USA, but they are one of the rarest strains to have been imported into our country; partially because of an import ban on fowl into the USA. Only recently have Marans become available in hatcheries, and in a way this is a bad thing; because hatcheries are notorious for inbreeding their stock, and mixing purebred birds with other types of chicken to create fresher lines---destroying the good chicken breeds in the process. This is a reason why all hatchery Marans are clean-legged, and lay lighter eggs, sometimes even having morphed combs and different leg color. Because hatcheries now have Marans, they will some how or another "infect" heritage breeding stock by getting mixed in, thus degrading the quality of Marans all over the country.
Type and Appearance:
There are currently nine recognized colors in the French standard.
These are: Cuckoo, Golden Cuckoo, Black, Birchen, Black Copper, Wheaton, Black-tailed Buff (Fawn), White (they have made a comeback since 1930s, being re-imported from France) and the Columbian. Other colors that are not officially recognized (such as Blue Copper) also exist. (Blue Copper is the same as Black Copper, but with a body of blue feathering, rather than black. This strain is a small form of BBS {black, blue, splash} that is currently being better developed by private breeders.)
Black Copper (black with copper feathers on the neck) and Cuckoo (barred feathers, giving a black and white speckled appearance that is nearly indistinguishable from the actual “barred” pattern) are the most common of these.
All Marans should have red or orange eyes and white (oftentimes gray-dappled white, from hatcheries) legs and feet. They should have a “single” comb. The Marans chicken is caught between a medium, and large weight class. Different places say different things about this. My experience with them, however, has been that the roosters are quite larger, and the hens are medium-sized, much like a Rhode Island Red bird, but meatier. They can have feathered-shanks, or may instead be clean-legged. Generally, hobby breeders breed one or the other; but either way it is very common for a throw-back clean-legged bird to appear in a clutch of feather-legged Marans chickens. The French Standard of Perfection requires Marans with feathered-shanks.
And of course there are their beautiful eggs! The French Marans egg color chart has a set of levels that range from 1-9. The higher the number, the darker the egg color, and therefor the more precious the Marans' egg.
The Marans chicken remains a historically dual-purposed bird. Not only are they prized for their large, dark chocolate eggs, they have a lot of good table qualities as well, and the English strain is sometimes bred as a meat bird, which ruins their naturally dark egg color, and conformation as people seek to increase their growth speed, and size. But even now breeders all over the USA are making a fight to improve our lines of Marans chickens, using fresh imported stock, because one of the problems with our birds---besides being tainted by outside breeds---is a shortage on different breeding lines. This issue is raised continuously with Black Copper Marans. Nearly all USA stock is from one line. BUT, this is why the Black Coppers have some of the darkest eggs of all the Marans types currently. They just haven't spread yet. People are using the Black Coppers as a sort of base in the USA to improve type and egg color, and I think that this will help the overall population problem as well.
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