Black Copper Marans: Everything You Need To Know (2024)

Though still relatively rare in the United States, Black Copper Marans are loved for their dark, russet brown eggs and attractive plumage.

Originating in France, Black Copper Marans have only been recognized by the American Poultry Association since 2011 which means most chicken keepers understandably have a lot of questions upon discovering the breed.

This article provides an A to Z of information on the Black Copper Marans, a comprehensive guide detailing the most important things to know about this stunning variety.

First, a few technicalities…

Is It Maran Or Marans?

First, a note on spelling and pronunciation:

Whether you’re talking about one Marans or several Marans, both the singular and the plural form have an ‘s’.

This is because the bird is named after the French port city of Marans.

If someone is writing “Maran”, minus the ‘s’, it might be a sign to take everything else they say about the breed with a grain of salt.

In French, the ‘s’ is silent but in the US, it’s most commonly pronounced with the ‘s’.

Is Brown Red Marans The Same As Black Copper Marans?

In its home country of France, the Black Copper Marans is actually known as “la noir-cuivré” or the brown-red Marans.

Brown-red and Black Copper Marans are exactly the same variety, but Black Copper is the description used in the US.

Are Black Marans And Black Copper Marans The Same?

Black Marans and Black Copper Marans are two distinct and separate varieties of Marans, both accepted and recognized by the American Poultry Association.

Genetically, Black Marans are very different to Black Coppers and “black” lines should not be developed from over-melanized Coppers e.g. hens without copper hackles.

Is There A Difference Between French Black Copper Marans And Black Copper Marans?

These days, Marans are referred to without the “French” prefix.

French Black Copper Marans are exactly the same breed as Black Copper Marans.

The “French” is implied, as all Marans originated in France.

“English type” Marans have been bred to have “clean” legs rather than feathered shanks but the United States follows the original French standard which calls for lightly feathered shanks and toes.

The American Poultry Association deems the absence of leg feathering a disqualifying fault.

Do Black Copper Marans Bantams Exist?

Black copper Marans bantams do exist but they are very rare, including in France.

All the traits of the bantam Black Copper Marans are the same as the standard-size bird except for the height and weight.

Now let’s get to some of the most common questions about Black Copper Marans.

Here are the answers, organized more or less alphabetically.

Are Black Copper Marans Aggressive?

Experiences with aggression in Black Copper Marans roosters vary.

As with any breed, some chicken keepers report their Marans showing aggression towards humans, while others have no issue.

Some lines tend to show more aggressive tendencies than others.

When the breed was being developed in the 1800s, French breeders mixed several breeds including Langshans, Faverolles and local game birds.

It’s thought that these gameco*ck genes may contribute to the taste for confrontation that some Marans roosters display.

There are breeders who believe there is a link between aggression and virility.

Aggression in roosters of any breed can make life difficult for other flock members and certainly for the chicken keeper.

Injuries from rooster spurs (and beaks!) can be quite severe and many other breeders cull roosters that display “man-fighting” tendencies.

Rooster aggression is a complex equation influenced by factors including:

Flock dynamics and the rooster’s place in the pecking order
Socialization and whether the rooster was raised around older hens
Living conditions and care (Aggression more likely if there is overcrowding and competition for resources)
Treatment by humans (Both too little and too much handling and human contact can produce aggression)
Genetic factors and temperament of parents
Age — Many co*ckerels develop a bit of an attitude as they reach sexual maturity around 18 weeks, but usually settle down as they get used to the hormones

Certainly, Black Copper Marans — male and female —are outgoing, confident birds.

Marans roosters of all varieties are large, weigh about eight pounds (3.6kg) at maturity.

Even the hens come in at 6.5 pounds (2.9kg).

By virtue of sheer size difference, Marans roosters are not always suitable for running with smaller breeds like Polish which can get pretty beat up by the attentions of a Marans roo.

Are Black Copper Marans Autosexing?

Black Copper Marans are not autosexing like Cream Legbars or Welsummers, meaning the gender of chicks isn’t clear at hatch.

However, Black Copper Marans chicks reveal their sex within a few weeks when the wing feathers come in.

(Marans are considered a rapid feathering breed.)

The easiest way to tell the difference between male and female Black Copper Marans chicks is the appearance of copper coloring on the shoulders of the males.

Females remain solid black with the only coloring the copper hackles, which come much later in development.

Here is a detailed guide for sexing Black Copper Marans chicks.

Do Black Copper Marans Lay In Winter?

With Marans eggs, it’s a case of quality over quantity.

Marans of all varieties including the Black Copper are not known as prolific layers.

Hens generally produce about three eggs per week, equating to about 150 eggs per year, give or take.

Are Black Copper Marans Broody?

Black Copper Marans aren’t generally thought of as an especially broody breed, but many Marans keepers do find they regularly get broody hens each season.

Marans can make great mothers, although it of course depends on the individual hen and their are good and bad mothers within any breed.

While Marans aren’t particularly light in terms of avoiding egg breakage, their size means they can keep more eggs warm than the classic broody choice, the Silkie.

Broody hens make great alternatives to hatching eggs in an incubator but can be a nuisance if you don’t want the interruption to egg production.

Broodiness be discouraged or encouraged, depending on your priorities.

Hens are more likely to go broody if:

Eggs are left to accumulate in nesting boxes
Other hens go broody
They have gone broody in the past
It’s spring or summer and the weather is warm

You may be able to “break” a broody hen by simply lifting her off the nest and taking her outside to resume normal life.

Be sure to remove any eggs.

You’re more likely to be successful in breaking a broody if you catch it early, before she’s in the full grip of the hormones that drive this instinct.

A common approach is to place the hen in “broody jail”, a well-ventilated wire cage that is set off the ground to allow air flow underneath.

The idea is that this lowers her body temperature, which is elevated as part of the broodiness.

It may well be easier to allow her to hatch a small number of eggs, or to allow her to sit for a while and then give her a few day old chicks to raise (although a broody won’t always accept chicks she hasn’t hatched and close monitoring is necessary at first, to make sure she doesn’t reject or attack them).

If not, the broodiness will generally break on its own after 21 days —just make sure she gets enough to eat and drink during this time so as not to lose condition.

Are Black Copper Marans Cold Hardy?

All Marans can cope well with the cold, provided they have a dry and draught-free roost and somewhere to get out of the weather, especially the wind and rain, during the day.

The only limitation for keeping Marans in cold places is comb size on the roosters.

Large combs are prone to frostbite which can be painful and permanently disfiguring and is caused as much by moisture in the air as by low temperatures.

Feathered feet can create challenges when it’s wet, making it harder for the chickens to keep their feet warm and dry.

The breed standard calls for “sparsely” feathered shanks and it’s the heavier leg feathering that causes most problems.

Are Black Copper Marans Dual Purpose?

Black Copper Marans are dual-purpose birds, meaning they are valued for both their large, reddish brown eggs and their meat.

It’s said James Bond will only eat eggs laid by Marans chickens, and these are the eggs sought by French chefs.

The fine flavor of their flesh and their sizeable frame makes Marans good eating, providing a way to make use of excess roosters.

Are Black Copper Marans Expensive?

Their relative rarity and dark eggs mean Marans tend to be pricier than the average chicken.

Whether buying hatching eggs, day old chicks or pullets, expect to pay a little more for a Marans.

As a guide, one major US hatchery sells its Black Copper Marans pullets for about $8, roughly double the price of Rhode Island Reds.

However, another large hatchery sells Black Copper Marans fertile eggs and Rhode Island Red hatching eggs for the same price: $4 per egg.

Price tag will be higher (but so will quality, overall) when buying from a breeder instead of a hatchery.

Are Black Copper Marans Friendly?

Black Copper Marans are an active, inquisitive breed that likes to forage.

When raised as pets they will be friendly, some exceptionally so.

Their calm, stable temperaments make them accepting of children and other animals including dogs and cats if raised alongside them.

Common Faults In Black Copper Marans Chickens

Black Copper Marans can be challenging to breed, due to a large array of common faults and the added degree of difficulty introduced via the extra trait of egg color.

Commonly seen faults specific to Black Copper Marans include:

Light eggs —A Marans that doesn’t consistently lay at least a 4 on the official Marans color chart put out by the Marans Club of France is not considered a Marans, hence the importance of maintaining the dark brown-red egg color for which the breed is prized
Wrong coloring —The hackle and saddle feathers should be a rich copper tone, not yellow, straw or gold.
Black flames in the hackle feathers — Black inside the individual feathers of the hackle is allowing on females, although undesirable and constitutes a fault in males
White wing tips
Incorrect color legs e.g. blue or yellow instead of light to mid slate (male) or dark slate (female) with pink between the scales and pinkish white soles
Brown wing bay instead of crow wing (Crow wing means a black wing triangle) — This can be a sign of wheaten genetics resulting from an unfortunate wheaten/black copper cross in the bird’s background
Heavy, absent or wrong color leg feathers
Chest bleeding — Excessive color in the chest which is meant to be solid black with just a few copper spots

Other traits considered faults in any breed also affect Black Copper Marans, including:

High or squirrel tail
Halo i.e. a band of lighter feathers in the hackle
Split breast i.e. a cleavage in the chest rather than one full round breast
Wry tail
Side sprigs, floppy comb and other comb faults
Upturned toenails, crooked toes, missing toenails and other foot defects

Note, beetle green sheen is “not required” according to the Marans Club of France, but it’s unclear whether it’s allowed.

Do Black Copper Marans Have Feathered Feet?

Feathered feet are a requirement for Marans, but the feathering should be light.

The outer toe should be feathered, as well as the shank but inner toes can be feather-free.

Are Black Copper Marans Good Meat Birds?

As dual-purpose birds, Black Copper Marans make good eating as well as good layers.

Many chicken keepers choose Black Copper Marans because they lay great-tasting large dark eggs and the excess roosters make great table birds with good size and fine flavour.

Do Black Copper Marans Eggs Get Darker?

It’s an oft-repeated common misconception that Black Copper Marans lay the darkest eggs of any Marans variety.

In fact, egg color depends more on the particular strain of birds and how effectively they have been selectively bred for dark eggs.

A polygenic trait, egg color is determined by a separate set of genes to those associated with plumage or feather color.

Within any one season, the color of most Black Copper Marans eggs starts off dark and lightens as the hen’s bodily resources including pigment deplete.

After the molt, egg color will once again return to a darker shade and progressively lighten although hens generally lay lighter each year as they age.

The French Marans Club recommends assessing a hen’s egg color at the start of the laying season but after the 20th egg.

It’s not so much her darkest egg that determines her value, but the color of the egg she most regularly lays.

The shell color of eggs laid by Black Copper Marans can be darkened over successive generations by:

Only hatching from hens that consistently lay the darkest eggs
Using only roosters that themselves hatched from hens who laid dark on a regular basis

Other factors may play a role in egg color, such as diet, stress, how much exposure the hens get to sunlight.

Are Black Copper Marans Hard To Hatch?

Some people believe Black Copper Marans eggs can be harder to hatch than lighter shelled eggs due to the additional pigment in both the calcified layer and the outer cuticle.

It’s thought that the heavy pigmentation may “block” the pores in the eggshell, reducing permeability which may:

Impair gas exchange via the shell, important for healthy embryonic development
Restrict moisture loss during incubation, resulting in air cells that aren’t large enough by the time chicks pip

Marans breeders often use breed-specific incubation settings for their Black Copper Marans.

See below section on Incubation Settings for BCM eggs.

Are Black Copper Marans Heat Tolerant?

Black Copper Marans generally cope as well as any other breed with heat, as long as their housing provides plenty of shade and they have constant access to cool water.

Recommended Incubation Settings for Black Copper Marans Eggs

Black Copper Marans eggs may benefit from incubation settings that differ slightly from those used for other breeds including:

Dry hatching
Higher incubation temperatures
Sanding egg shells

Dry hatching, which means adding no water to the incubator, facilitates greater moisture loss from the egg.

The standard temperature for incubating chicken eggs is 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit (37.5 degrees Celcius).

Experienced Marans breeds often incubate their Black Copper Marans eggs at 37.8 to 38.1

Less commonly, some breeders recommend using fine sandpaper to gently remove some pigment from the darkest eggs.

This is thought to mimic the way that the oils in a broody hen’s feathers naturally wear down the pigment, increasing shell permeability.

All of this is avoided, of course, by using the magic of a broody Marans hen.

Are Black Copper Marans Loud?

Black Copper Marans aren’t especially noisy birds, although you can of course expect an enthusiastic egg song from hens and crowing from roosters.

Black Copper Marans Personality

The temperament of Black Copper Marans is similar to other Marans varieties.

Black Copper Marans are generally:

Calm (Not flightly like other breeds like Araucanas and Cream Legbars can be)
Assertive in the pecking order without being overly aggressive
Inquisitive and good foragers
Active and hardy
Observant and decent at predator evasion

Show Quality Black Copper Marans

Show quality Black Copper Marans are hard to come by due to the preponderance of faults the breed can display, as outlined earlier in this article.

As with all breeds, a show quality Black Copper Marans must meet the breed description as laid out in the Standard of Perfection published by the American Poultry Association.

This means a show quality Black Copper Marans must have both good conformation and good type.

Conformation means the various physical traits match the breed standard.

Type refers to the overall body shape or silhouette of the bird, which is distinct for each breed.

Black Copper Marans have a boxy or brick-like body type, conveying strength and stature without undue heaviness.

The tail angle on a Black Copper Marans should be 45 degrees from the line of the back which should display a long “top line” (i.e. not a short back).

Most Black Copper Marans sourced from hatcheries will be pet or backyard quality and may lay eggs that are best described as tinted (slightly colored) rather than dark.

Even genuine award-winning parent birds typically only produce one in ten offspring that are themselves show quality.

Producing a line of Black Copper Marans that are truly “show quality” is a labor of love that takes many years of smart selective breeding.

To complicate matters, outstanding birds don’t automatically throw the best offspring.

Much depends on the correct pairing of the bird with its mate and the use of complementary breeding, which means choosing breeding pairs so that one bird’s strengths complement the other’s weaknesses.

It’s best to avoid breeding to extremes.

In other words, to fix a trait like squirrel tail, don’t breed a super high tailed rooster to a super low tailed hen thinking it will magically split the difference of the parents and produce birds with all mid-range tails.

In reality, the two extreme parents will tend to produce high tailed birds, low tailed birds and everything in between.

Better results will be achieved by choosing parents that both have tails closest to the correct angle.

A common mistake made by breeders is to introduce a new rooster every few years to “increase genetic diversity” in their flock.

These breeders are then dismayed to find the offspring benefit from hybrid vigor but phenotypically (appearance-wise) are much worse than the parents and previous generations.

As a breeding principle, mating birds from different lines of Black Copper Marans recombinates the genes and can produce offspring that display greater genetic diversity and, with that, new faults that weren’t expressing in either parental line bred to itself.

Poor quality offspring is not necessarily a fault of either parental line, but rather a consequence of the new blood.

Many a breeder has undone all their progress refining a line by trying to counter inbreeding with regular infusions of unrelated birds.

When Do Black Copper Marans Start Laying Eggs?

Black Copper Marans can be slightly slower to mature than other breeds.

You can expect your first egg anywhere from about 18 weeks onwards, but it may take as long as …

The best indication that your Black Copper Marans pullets are nearing point of lay is when their combs and wattles become a bright rosy red.

You may also notice your hens begin to squat when you reach for them, as though bracing for mating.

If you keep a rooster, he will also start paying much more attention to pullets as they near maturity.

If breeding, the slow rate at which Marans mature means it’s worth growing out your co*ckerels as long as possible before choosing keepers and culls (barring obvious faults like comb sprigs etc).

Black Copper Marans SOP

The American “standard of perfection” (SOP) for Black Copper Marans follows the original French standard which, in summary, calls for:

Reddish-bay eyes
Dark horn colored beak in hens, horn for roosters with black shading permitted (Horn is an ivory-tinged gray with low saturation and low brilliance)
Lustrous deep copper head (Neither yellow nor mahogany)
Lustrous deep copper hackle, some feathers may have a narrow dark stripe through the center
Saddle feathers in roosters should be same lustrous deep copper as hackle
Wing bows in roosters should be dark russet red (Russet is dark brown with reddish-orange tinge)
Solid black breast with a few copper spots in roosters, a few copper spots allowed in hens
Slate legs with pink between the scales and pinkish-white soles (Hens dark slate shanks, roosters light to mid slate)

Black Copper Marans With White Feathers

Some Black Copper Marans have some white feathers in the wing tips.

White feathers in the wings are a fault in Black Copper Marans and these birds should not be bred from.

A hen’s wings should be entirely black and a rooter’s are black except for a deep russet red at the wing bow.

Black Copper Marans Wrong Color

It’s said that when breeding chickens, “first you build the barn, then you paint it”.

In other words, type and conformation is more important than feather color, which can be worked on later in the breeding process.

However, many a Black Copper Marans is ruined by poor coloring.

The copper in a Black Copper Marans should be rich and lustrous, not verging on yellow/straw or gold.

You want the color in a Black Copper Marans rooster’s hackle to match the color in the saddle rather than one being lighter than the other.

Can Black Copper Marans Produce Blue Copper Marans?

Copper Marans actually come in three varieties:

Black Copper Marans
Blue Copper Marans
Splash Copper Marans

Black Copper Marans breed true, producing 100 per cent Black Copper progeny.

However, Black Copper Marans can interbreed with Blue Copper Marans and Splash Copper Marans to create all three colors.

When working with the various forms of Copper Marans, the rules for blue color genetics in chickens apply.

Blue coloring in chickens, abbreviated as Bb in genetics shorthand, is created by the combination of two different genes:

The Black gene, abbreviated as BB
The Splash gene, or bb

Plug the genes into a punnet square calculator and you’ll see the likely genotypes of offspring and in what proportion.

Essentially, the basics of breeding Black, Blue and Splash Copper Marans are:

Black Copper (BB) x Black Copper (BB) = 100% Black Copper (BB) offspring
Black Copper (BB) x Blue Copper (Bb) = 50% Black (BB), 50% Blue (Bb)
Blue Copper (Bb) x Blue Copper (Bb) = 50% Blue (Bb), 25% Black (BB), 25% Splash (bb)
Splash Copper (bb) x Splash Copper (bb) = 100% Splash (bb)
Black Copper (BB) x Splash Copper (bb) = 100% Blue (Bb)
Blue Copper (Bb) x Splash Copper (bb) = 50% Blue, 50% Splash

So, the breeding combination that produces the most variety is Blue x Blue, which gives all three colors among the offspring.

The breeding pairs that beget the most uniformity are:

Black x Black (all Black offspring)
Splash x Splash (all Splash)
Black x Splash (all Blue)

How To Breed Blue Copper Marans

As shown above, blue is a tricky color in chickens because it never “breeds true”.

In other words, when breeding blue chickens you will always get some splash and some black offspring.

To produce 100 per cent Blue Copper Marans chicks you would need one parent to be Black Copper and the other to be Splash Copper.

The difficulty with this is that a Splash Copper chicken is white or off white all over, with flecks of color.

This means there’s no opportunity to observe the parent and see that they have the correct conformation you’ll want in a Blue Copper chick i.e. no chest bleeding of color, deep copper distributed in the hackles and the saddle of the males, crow wing etc.

Perhaps the best guide when selecting a Splash Copper bird for breeding Blue Coppers is the coloration in the siblings of the Splash bird.

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Conclusion

Black Copper Marans are a delight for any chicken keeper, though they can make a challenging breeding prospect.

There is no hiding the faults when a Black Copper Marans is poorly bred …and then there’s the matter of egg color, a complex trait governed by multiple genes.

Nevertheless, Black Copper Marans are growing in popularity.

A calm, outgoing bird with a steady temperament, they fit well into mixed flocks and provide fine flavored meat as well as the celebrated Marans egg.

Although not autosexing, Black Copper Marans reveal their gender within a few weeks of hatch as the first copper appears on the shoulders of the co*ckerels.

Black Copper Marans breed true but can be run in breeding pens with Blue Copper and Splash Copper Marans to produce chicks of all three colors.

Keep a Black Copper Marans and you may find they are the gateway chicken for a host of other Marans varieties like cuckoo and wheaten, to name just two.

Then all that’s needed for a rainbow egg basket are some blue egg layers like the Cream Legbar and maybe an olive egger or two.

References

Marans Chicken Club USA, Black Copper —Approved Variety, Downloaded January 2023

Marans Club Of France, The French Official Standard of the Marans Breed, Downloaded January 2023