Young French Copper Maran cockerel

Our little chicks from May hare growing into large, free-ranging, self-sufficient birds. The Copper Marans are actually better at foraging that our Chanteclers are it seems. They are also a bit more flighty than our Chanteclers, but I am hoping that will change over time. This batch of chicks is our second so things were different this time. Much of the obvious stuff is still interesting but not as novel. It has been interesting to see the difference between this batch of chicks and the Chanteclers from last year. The Marans seem flightier and much better at foraging than the Chanteclers. The hens seem to stick together a litle more and the roosters have become sexually active much earlier. When laying starts it will be great to see how the eggs develop. I have read that Marans are not good layers, so we shall wait and see. The one cliam to faim they do have is being the James Bond egg of choice.

Young French Copper Maran pullet

Of course when you get straight-run or unsexed chicks the general rule of thumb is to expect 50% of them to be male. Our batch was no exception. Out of our 27 chickens, it appears that 13 of them are cockerel; last year we only had four males in our batch of 16 chicks. We will be keeping two of the cockerels for breeding and perhaps one of our farming friends will take another couple. Having extra cockerels is a good thing as we will have lots of free-ranged, organic, pastured chicken in the freezer for the winter. Out of the nine birds we will have for the freezer it appears we will have already sold a couple.

Young Cuckoo Maran Cockerel

On another note we also tried to hatch some eggs this year. Knowing that we will need to replace our Chantecler hens in the next couple of years we thought it would be a good idea to try our hand at hatching. Almost 30 eggs were collected at different times. They had been selected for the best shape, colour, and shell quality. We bought a simple incubator and started the eggs. To make a long story short none of them hatched. Out of the 30 odd eggs only four were fertile and out of those four only two chicks were formed. I am not sure what happened to the four fertilized eggs. We even tried to hatch some eggs from the other cockerel we have under our silkie that went broodie. She also had no luck as the eggs were once again: infertile. This means we may well have to get a new cockerel for next year. If we replace our two current Chantecler cockerels that means we will be keeping them. We are going to try again in the autumn to have some point-of-lay hens for the spring. Let’s hope one of the boys performs this time.

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