I breed Welsummers and Marans for dark eggs. Welsummers produce more eggs, but the Copper Marans lay the absolute darkest eggs.
Welsummers are a popular egg laying breed from Holland. Most of our Welsummers are Welbars, which are autosexing, unlike Partridge Welsummers. Some lines of the Partridge Welsummers are somewhat sexable at hatch, but the differences are subtle and in some individual chicks, too ambiguous to be certain of the sex of the chick. Welbars are very sexually dimorphic at hatch, they look like entirely different breeds!
Marans are charming birds. Roosters are very large and excellent “flock masters” because they are gentle giants around people and the hens, but are capable of staging a deadly attack on the smaller hawks. The roosters are easily the largest of all the breeds I raise, but I would rate them the second most docile roosters. It is as if they know they can take any comers and just don’t feel the need to prove it. Hens are also large and fluffy and tend to be very docile. Marans hens are reputed to be very broody. Broodiness is obviously largely genetic, and my lines of Marans almost never go broody. The Welbars go broody more than the Marans, but none are very devoted to the cause, and easy to break.
Egg Color
I breed for the darkest eggs, but also balance that with high production. Some eggs have heavy speckling, as Welsummers are known for, but the darkest eggs have minimal speckling. In this picture are actual eggs from 5 breeds, in order left to right:
1) Welbars (silver and gold are the same egg colors)
2) Ameraucanas
3) Lavender Marans
4) Opal Legbars
5) Copper Marans (blue, black and splash are the same egg colors)
You can see that overall, the Marans are darker eggs than the Welbars, but the darkest Welbars are nicer than the lightest Marans. Remember than the Welbars lay considerably more eggs than the Marans, in a sense they are just spreading the “paint” across more eggs.
