Britain’s development of the famous French breedEnglish Marans
The English Marans is the traditional British form of the Marans breed, developed from imported French stock (first smuggled as “hard boiled eggs”) and refined by generations of British breeders into a distinct dual-purpose fowl. Best known in its Dark Cuckoo variety, the English Marans is identified by its featherless legs, dark brown eggs, attractive barred plumage and calm, practical temperament.
At Scully Poultry we have both Dark Cuckoo and Silver Cuckoo English Marans, selecting for traditional British type, utility and egg quality, while staying true to their French heritage and original character. Both colours run together and are vital for our projects crossing them with Copper French Marans to re-establish the Golden Cuckoo variety in the United Kingdom.
Shop English Marans Hatching eggs
The Dark Cuckoo
The most common variety of English Marans seen across farmyards in Britain and hatcheries in the USA (although they aren’t officially recognised outside of the UK and Ireland). They are black birds with signature cuckoo barring across their feathers.
Being as commonplace as they are, they often suffer from careless and intensive breeding. The results of this may be paler eggs and poor confirmation that put shame on the Marans name. We select only well kept, traditionally bred Marans to prevent such issues, and use the dark cuckoo largely as donors of ideal cuckoo patterning in other Marans projects rather than putting them at the forefront of our operation.
The Silver Cuckoo
A rarer colour of Marans but due to sharing a similar colour pallet to the dark cuckoo (black and grey-white barring), the two are often confused and bred together simply as cuckoo Marans. They differ from their dark counterparts by being birchen based, giving them much whiter necks (and shoulders and backs in males) and paler barring overall. Silver Cuckoos are recognised also by the French Standard, while Dark Cuckoos are not.
Being birchen based, they share their base genetic pattern with Black Copper Marans. As a result, we have paired our Silver Cuckoo English Marans cock Duke of Wellington with Copper French Marans hens in our attempts to combine the warm golden tones with the Cuckoo plumage and bring back the Golden Cuckoo.
