We bought our Cuckoo Marans chickens on April 21. Remember . . we were coming back from the Llano Crawfish Open, stopped in at Tractor Supply in San Saba, saw they had chickens, got the cuckoo marans, came home, realized they also had the Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, drove back to San Saba and got those too.
That’s been about 17-1/2 weeks ago. I’m guessing that the Marans were about three weeks old when we got them and the Wyandottes were just a few days old. They were so much smaller and the Marans were already starting to get feathers.
It takes 16 – 20 weeks on average for the chickens to start laying so I’ve been watching for eggs.
Marans Egg
Sometimes the first eggs hens lay are outrageously large and will have double yolks until their system gets it all figured out. Sometimes, the eggs are tiny and sometimes, they don’t even have a yolk in them but that’s pretty rare. In a week or so, the new layers will be giving me full sized eggs. I believe I read that the Marans will lay about 150 eggs per week so that’s an egg about every other day or every third day. I have 8 of those hens so if they’re all good layers, I should get a couple dozen dark brown eggs per week.
Yesterday I was so happy to find the middle egg . . for sure that’s a Marans egg. They’re known for their chocolate brown colored shells. The large eggs are from either the Dominique or the Buckeye hens. On Monday I had gotten two eggs that I thought might be Marans eggs.
Eggs
On the back row, on the very left is the egg shown above (in the middle of two regular eggs) but the egg next to it is very small and darker than my other eggs. There was also another one in one of the nests and when I tried to get it, the mean hen attacked my hand and cracked the egg.
After getting the egg yesterday, I know they’re starting to lay and their dark eggs will add variety to the eggs in my cartons. I wish I had some of the Easter Eggers but I’ve not had much luck with those. They haven’t been good layers and haven’t played well with others!
And . . we all know that I don’t need any more chickens!
wanda j says
Oh those are beautiful eggs. Now what do the hens look like? Are they as pretty as you had hoped.I looked them up and told my chicken keeping friends about them too.They had never seen any of the lace ones around here offered. But they will keep looking I’m sure. Have great egg hunting.
Rebecca in SoCal says
Pretty egg, and so smooth! I hope that keeps up.