La Copper Marans

The egg laying flock currently numbers around 60 birds. The dominant breed is the Marans at about 45 birds all at 6 months old and just coming into their first lay. These birds arrived as day old chickens last September. They hatched in Belgium in the morning, travelled by truck, ferry and white van to arrive with us by tea time.
They are not a particularly rare breed but are certainly uncommon in the UK and North America. The breed originates from the town of Marans in the west of France and remains a popular breed throughout France to this day. The unique feature of the Marans is its ability to lay chocolate-brown coloured eggs. Its a bit of a gimmick but important in the constraints it places on the grower. In order to produce such a rich mahogany shell the hen has to produce these pigments internally and so far no one has been able to genetically speed up this process. Therefore the breed has an upper limit to the number of eggs a hen might produce in a year; around 250. A commercial flock of genetic super hens can expect a laying rate of 325 per year.
With these French birds on the equivalent of a 35 hour week, you can at least be sure that they're enjoying life and not worrying unduly about their laying responsibilities.

They share their roosting shed with 8 Ixworth hens and a large Ixworth cockerel. These are large white utility birds, know for their fine table qualities and their wonderful cream shelled eggs. Being dual purpose these should be laying something like 220 eggs per year. They are currently laying quite a good number of smallish Farrow & Ball New White eggs.The balance of the flock have a different roosting house and are the remains of last summer's flock after several fox attacks through the winter. Charlie, the fox, left us with three Light Sussex, two large Ixworth hens and an elegant Dorking cock. If you find an enormous double yolker in your egg box then there is every chance that it came from one of these more mature ladies.