Author: Anna & Mark

Cuckoo marans are one of the
new chicken breeds we’re trying out in
2011.  We decided to test the variety since Harvey Ussery uses
cuckoo marans as his mother hens and we want to find a very
broody/maternal variety.  Other folks keep
cuckoo marans for their
extremely dark brown (“chocolate”) eggs, because the chickens are a
relatively
rare breed, or because their owners like eating James Bond’s favorite
type of
egg.





Origin

Cuckoo marans chickens
originated in the mid 1800s in the French town
of Marans.  As a result, it’s technically incorrect to refer to “a
cuckoo maran hen” — instead, the name “marans” should always have an
“s” at the end.  The English imported marans and selected for
non-feathered legs, so you can tell whether your marans are of English
stock (like ours) or of French stock by looking for leg feathers. 
(Most American birds are English-type marans.)  Either way, marans
share the European trait of
white (well, pink, really) skin, which makes for a different-looking
carcass than that of traditional American meat breeds.



Marans were probably
originally bred to be good farmyard birds and are
now considered a dual purpose breed due to their moderate
heaviness. 
According to some sources, a marans type chicken dates back to the
thirteenth century, which presumably means marans were selected for
utility as well as looks.  Cuckoo marans originated in marshland
and they’re supposed to be able to handle damp and wet better than some
other varieties.



Modern cuckoo marans lay
anywhere from 160 to 210 eggs per year, which
is not so hot if you’re raising the chickens just for their eggs. 
(We hope their maternal abilities will make lower egg-laying
worthwhile.)  Although marans are famous for laying “chocolate
eggs”, many individuals lay ordinary brown eggs instead — if shell
color is important to you, be sure to look for a dark-laying strain.




Identification: Cuckoo marans vs.
barred rocks

Cuckoo marans look a lot like
the more common barred rock, but the two
breeds aren’t that tough to distinguish.  In barred
rocks, look
for:

• Barred feathers, meaning
  straight white lines running across the chicken rather than a speckled
  effect.
• Yellow legs

In contrast, cuckoo
marans have:

• More speckling than
  barring (although the rooster may look nearly barred.)
• Light pink legs

Sexing cuckoo marans

You can get an idea of
the sex of a cuckoo marans nearly from the day
it hatches.  At the fluff stage, males tend to be light silver
colored while females are almost black.  The males also usually
have a a larger yellow spot on their heads than the females (but this
isn’t as easy to distinguish as it is with dominiques.)

Once your chicks feather out,
sexing becomes simpler.  Female
cuckoo marans are much darker than males, with the white spots on the
feathers being smaller and further apart.  Of course, once your
chickens reach three months old, you should be able to distinguish
males from females of any breed by body size,
comb size, etc.





Behavior

We raised our cuckoo marans
in the ragweed
forest, which means
they were easily able to hide just by walking a
few feet back into the weeds.  Perhaps that’s why they turned out
so skittish and shy, although the trait may be genetic since some
internet sources report similar behavior.  (On the other hand,
other folks say that their cuckoo marans are calm and tame.)



It’s also tough to get a
solid handle on our cuckoo marans’ foraging
ability.  We processed our cockerels at 12
weeks (at which time they weighed 2.06 pounds) and found that their feed
to meat conversion rate was around 5.2.  The
number suggests that
the marans foraged better than our dark
cornish last year
but worse than our black
australorps. 
To be fair to our marans, though, they didn’t have perfect pasture
conditions
since I kept them in one large pasture during their entire youth rather
than rotating, so they might have had limited access to good food.



I’ve read from several
sources that cuckoo marans exhibit extreme
broodiness, which can be good or bad, depending on whether you want to
raise your own chicks.  Our pullets aren’t old enough to show
off their broodiness yet, so we’ll have to wait until next year to tell
you
whether the reports are true.

Our first
batch of Cornish Cross is
getting close to their “retirement” age.



They do seem interested in
the pasture. We open a door and give them the option of staying in or
going out, but they don’t seem to forage much at all. I have yet to see
one scratch at the ground, which in my mind would be the best technique
for finding bugs.



We like the idea of eating a
chicken who lives more naturally, which is why we started experimenting
with chicken
pastures. I suspect the
benefit of these chickens will only be slightly better than a store
bought bird. Stay tuned for another update where we’ll post about the
taste test.