Marans are a heavy, dual purpose bird. They are generally raised for their dark brown egg, but also make a good meat bird.

Marans are named after a port town in France. Over the centuries local birds were bred with birds brought from seaman coming to port. The modern Marans breed began development in the 1800’s and was adopted into the French standard in 1931. Black Copper Marans were accepted into the American Poultry Association standard in 2011.

The French standard has nine recognized color varieties:
Silver Cuckoo
Golden Cuckoo
Black
Black Copper
Birchen
Wheaten
Black-tailed Buff
White
Columbian

As of 2017, The American Poultry Association has 3 recognized color:
Black Copper
Wheaten
White

Of these recognized varieties, we have had two. Plus two varieties not in the standards. The information on this page is based on my knowledge of the varieties we have raised.

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Saturday was the Oregon Fall Poultry Swap in Corvallis. This was our first time being a vendor at the Fall Swap. Although, earlier this year we were vendors at the Spring Swap.

OUR BOOTH

OTHER VENDORS

WHAT WE BROUGHT HOME

Farm Kid2 bought a Muscovy duck from a vendor across from us. He also bought hatching eggs from the vendor right next to us. The 3 light brown eggs are Seramas & the white egg is an Olandsk Dwarf. Ooh, I hope they hatch.
Update: Day 6 I candled the eggs & all 4 looked to be developing. I was so excited. However… about day 14 we were in town all day & sometime early in the morning our power went out. By the time we got home the eggs were cold & had been for a number of hours. Our power didn’t come back on until the next day. They never did finish developing.

The day went very well. My only complaint is that going to the swap as a vendor, I don’t have time to look around at what everyone else is selling or take part in the other activities. Last year at the Fall Swap I had a great time browsing & taking pics. Whether going as a vendor or a customer, though, the event is fun. I’m sure we’ll be back next year.

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Hatch #8 was our last incubated hatch for awhile. It was a last effort to get a few more Marans. Last year we sold all the chicks we hatched, which meant we didn’t have any left over for ourselves. This year we hatched many more & will keep a few.

CHICKS

The odds when breeding a Blue Marans with a Black are that you will get a 50% mix of Blues and Black Marans. For the majority of our hatches, I’d guess that’s close to accurate. This hatch, though, we got about 75% black & 25% blue.

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MAMA HENS

Once again a Black Copper Marans hen went broody. Last time a BCM went broody the outcome wasn’t great, but I decided to give them another shot at motherhood.

The broody hen made her nest box in a black plant container in their coop, certainly not an ideal place for a chick. Not long later another hen went broody and thought the same nest box seemed like a good place to sit.

Then, a third BCM hen went broody. Of course, opting to sit on the same eggs as the other two broody ladies.

As my estimated hatch day was getting closer I told Farmer John we needed to do something about the 3 sitting hens. I didn’t think it would go well for the babies to have 3 hens trying to be mama.

Well, my estimation was a few days too late. One morning I checked on the 3 pack in the nest box and noticed a chick.

Our plan was to take two of the hens off the nest and to separate them from the one hen designated to be mama and the chicks.

At bedtime we let the other 2 back in the coop hoping they would hop on the roost. Of course, they didn’t. And by the next morning the other two snuck into the netted area and were back on the nest box. I pulled back the netting & promptly tossed two hens back outside.

I needed to move the chick out of the nest box so it could reach food & water. So, I moved mama, baby & eggs to the ground on a pile of straw. As I was doing that I noticed a second chick. Unfortunately, it had a wonky leg. I don’t know if it hatched that way or was the result of having too many broodies in the nest.

This mama wanted nothing to do with the wonky-legged chick. The two broodies outside, though, were clucking away, so the chick hobbled and drug itself trying to get closer to the mamas that seemed to care. Truth is, its leg was so bad I knew it wouldn’t make it. But, I wasn’t anticipating what happened next.

I decided that maybe if I gave this chick to the two mamas outside that they would leave the one inside alone & focus on the chick they had. Wrong.

As soon as I placed the chick outside, those two bitches came over and started pecking it to death. I’ve never seen anything like, nor do I care to see it again. They were ruthless. I grabbed the chick, but not before it got a number of good pecks. I just assumed that since they were sitting there while it hatched that they would take it in as their own. Nope. I don’t know if they knew it wasn’t quite right & that was nature’s way of dealing with it. Or, if our BCM’s just aren’t meant to be mama’s.

We didn’t have a good solution to keeping the chick and any others that hatched safe from the craziness of three broodies. So, I took the chick & eggs away.

I put the one chick in with some other chicks that were a couple weeks old.

And, put the remaining eggs in the incubator. Four eggs hatched & appear to be doing just fine.

My lesson learned here is that if I’m going to let a mama hatch chicks then I need to let nature take its course and stop interfering. I’m not sure the interfering is doing the chicks any favors… Or, who knows maybe it would have ended up worse. I just don’t know.

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We’re still hatching chicks. We have one more Marans batch in the incubator now, then I think we’ll be done for awhile. I’m hoping by October we’ll be able clearly identify all the pullets from the cockerels. The pullets will come with me to the Fall Swap. Some of them should even be laying by October.

A couple months ago we got another incubator. It was a last minute decision & we needed it right away. So, I ran to the feed store & bought the same incubator we already owned. To keep things straight in my records, I’ve named the incubators. The original incubator is Wilma. I named the new one Betty.

For this hatch the eggs were set in Wilma. At lock down I separated the Easter Eggers & Olive Eggers from the Rhode Island Reds & Marans. I do this because many of our OE’s look similar to our Marans. After the Marans hatch I place a band on one leg to identify them.

HATCHING!

On one side of Wilma I placed the Olive Eggers. These eggs were layed by our EE hens & fertilized by our Splash Marans. On the other side of Wilma were the EE’s & OE’s. The Easter Eggers were fertilized by our main stud of the farm, Mo. The Olive Eggs were fertilized by Roost, our OE rooster. In Betty were the Rhode Island Reds & Marans.

CHICKS

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HATCHING!

CHICKS

For this hatch we hatched our typical Easter Eggers & Marans. But, we also put a couple light colored Easter Eggers in with our Splash Marans to create Olive Eggers. These chicks are so cute! They are a mix of pale yellow & light gray. I can’t wait to see what they look like as adult birds.

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MAMA HEN

One of our Black Copper Marans had gone broody & was doing quite a good job sitting on her eggs. The only problem was that the other hens kept wanting to lay their eggs where she was sitting. So, she wasn’t able to sit on all the eggs all the time.

A few weeks prior we moved the ducks from their pen to the garden. So that left the duck pen empty & we moved the broody hen & 6 eggs to that pen.

For the first few hours, Ms. Broody paced back & forth in the pen not liking her move. Eventually she settled down & sat on the eggs. Once she sat, she rarely got up.

I wasn’t exactly sure when the eggs would hatch, or if they would hatch. But, I had a date in mind that I thought would be close to hatch day.

As my hatch day guess got closer, I kept a closer eye on the happenings in Ms. Broody’s nest. The day I thought they could hatch I peeked in and saw a fluffy, spry chick!

An hour or two later I went back to check on them and found a squashed chick under the new Mama. I didn’t see the fluffy, spry guy.

Later, Farmer John pulled the dead chick out from Mama. He didn’t see the fluffy, spry guy.

I went on with my day, taking kids to their activities. By the time I got home I decided I should take the rest of the eggs from Mama. I don’t know why she stepped on the chick. Was it purely an accident or was she just not good Mama material? So, Farmer John & I grabbed the 4 remaining eggs & put them in the incubator. We didn’t see the fluffy, spry guy.

The next morning I was shocked to see Mama and a chick wondering around the pen. Apparently 2 eggs had hatched. We never saw the chick alive that ended up dieing. And, the fluffy, spry guy is a master at hiding.

It made sense, though, because I knew she was sitting on 6 eggs. But, when I went to move the eggs there were only 4. I assumed something happened to the missing egg sometime over the couple weeks she was sitting on them. I never caught her off the eggs to get a look at how many she was still sitting on.

MEANWHILE IN THE INCUBATOR

One Blue Marans hatched with no problems.

A day or two after being in the incubator, an egg began looking odd. Bubbly gross things were coming out of the egg. It was rotten. It began to stink. Just for curiosity’s sake, I took it out of the incubator, placed it in a plastic baggie & broke the egg. Disgusting! It was filled with dark, pukey green liquid & what was once a developing chick. Let me just say it again – Disgusting! This was our first experience with a rotten egg in the incubator. Blech!

That left two more eggs in the incubator. I candled them & they looked different than what I’m used to seeing. But, so did the egg that hatched. I ended up just dumping them because I was getting nervous that maybe they were rotten, too.

So, 3 out of the 6 eggs hatched. But, only 2 survived.

We had a chick squished to death, a rotten egg & 2 questionable eggs. If every hatch were like this, I would not be a chicken farmer. Thankfully, our hatches typically go much better.

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On Saturday a friend & I were vendors at the Oregon Spring Poultry Swap. This was our first time as sellers not buyers. It was a long, yet fun, day starting with my alarm going off at 4:20am. Most of the chicks we’ve been hatching this year came with us to the swap. I was wanting to also bring a few laying hens that hatched last spring, but there was no room in my car for them. Bummer. Maybe next time.

OUR BOOTH

This was our first swap & a good learning experience. I learned our company sign rests perfectly on the legs of a particular table we have. I learned people really enjoyed the sign I made listing what we were selling.

I layed our booth out in an L shape trying to give us more table space, expecting people to come in and look at the other table. They didn’t.

So, we moved one cage from the back table to the top of the dog crate. That was perfect. The cage then was up front & at eye level. I constantly moved birds to that cage as the ones in the cage sold. We got many questions about the nipple waterers.

I also tried selling hatching eggs & my friend brought vanilla extract. FYI, the vanilla is fabulous.

Chicks we brought were:
Rhode Island Reds: ages 2 days & 1 week
Marans: ages 2 days & 5 weeks
Easter Eggers: ages 2 days, 5 weeks & 10 weeks

I brought a couple crafty things just to see if they would sell. They didn’t.
I made small garden signs out of pallet wood. They are painted with outdoor paint & sealed with a clear coat.
I also brought 2 of the cement leaves I made last summer.

OTHER VENDORS

This swap was set up in two different barns. We were in the goat barn with most of the vendors selling animals. The sheep barn was mainly for the craft vendors.

It was such a good time. The day started out slow. But, once it picked up we never slowed down until close to closing time. My crafts didn’t sell, but I sold most of the chicks. People were just as interested in the 5 & 10 week old chicks as they were the 2 day old chicks. I’m sure I would have sold a couple laying hens, too, had I been able to bring them. Many vendors had Marans & Easter Eggers & many customers wanted them. Not many shoppers were interested in the Rhode Island Red’s. I’m not sure why not. They are great layers & a fairly calm bird.

All the shoppers were friendly & great to talk chicken with.

The only downfall of the day was that I didn’t get to do shopping of my own. I would have liked to look around more than I was able. But, it’s hard to complain when the reason I couldn’t leave our booth was because there was usually customers at it.

My friend & I decided it was such a good time that we signed up for the Fall Swap.

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Thursday & Friday more chicks hatched! I’m tellin’ ya, this never gets old. These were the last chicks to hatch before taking part in the Oregon Spring Poultry Swap.

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Weather

Not much to say except that March was a very wet month.

The door on the Rhode Island Red coop got left open one day & the chickens, of course, got out. They didn’t care that it was pouring down rain. They were just happy to be free. They were soaked to the skin, but still spent the day scrathin’ & peckin’ in the great outdoors.

One particularly stormy day lightning was directly outside our house. That was a weird feeling. We don’t typically get much lightning & certainly not so close. Lucky for us, the only thing it seemed to ruin was one port on the router. This is/was the only port with cables going outside to the satellite dish.

We did have a few nice days, though, & the chickens enjoyed taking dust baths.

Flower Beds

Thanks to a local nursery sale & Costco, one day I came home with many new plants. The next weekend I went back to the nursery & grabbed more of the heather. I have the perfect place for it.

The thistles & blackberries are making an appearance. Damn it! We’ve lived here for 6 years & the Canadian Thistle is still my nemesis.

Gardening for Food

While I do most of the work in the flower beds, Farmer John does most of the food-type gardening. His favorite method for starting seeds is mixing his own soil & creating soil blocks. These little guys were started in a tiny soil block. Once germinated Farmer John moved them to a larger soil block.

The seeds I ordered arrived!
Farmer John ordered the seeds that will eventually turn into food in our pantry. Later, I ordered some fun stuff. I ordered a variety of flowers, including sunflowers, wildflower & rudbeckia. I also ordered 5 different types of pumpkins & gourds. They will mostly be used for autumn decorating, but also to feed the chickens. And, I ordered a bunch of herb seeds. The herbs will be used for cooking, and again, also for the chickens.

Chicken Keeping

Are you going to feed us or just stand there taking our picture?

Blue Copper Marans rooster & Black Copper Marans hen enjoying a nice day in their covered run.

The Littles from our February hatch were moved from the brooder to a raised sectioned-off area in one of the coops.

Another batch of eggs were set in the incubator on March 1st. Three weeks later, we had more chicks, including our first Marans of 2014.

March 27th, I placed yet more eggs in the incubator. This round, we have for the first time this year, Rhode Island Reds. I also added in our bluest Easter Egger eggs. I have hatched these eggs before, but at the same time as all the other EE’s, so I’m not sure which chicks have come from these eggs. I want to see specifically what these chicks look like.

Aquaponics

The aquaponics system is slowly, but surely getting set up. All the tanks are in place.

And, the plastic is covering the greenhouse.

Goats

The big, unexpected news of the month is that we got 2 Nigerian Dwarf Goats. They are super cute, full of personality & have been keeping us busy.

Random Pics of Good Ol’ Country Living

Mr. Quail all fluffed up & ticked off that I’m disturbing him & his lady. He really is a grouchy little thing.

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