| Golden Cuckoo Marans |
Cuckoo Marans Cock & Hen Cock: Cuckoo plumage much lighter than that of the hen, with some straw colour highlights *. (Taken from the French Standard) Mainly white in the neck and showing white on the upper breast, also on top. Remainder banded throughout, with a lighter ground color than the Dark Cuckoo. (Taken from the British Standard) Hen: Fairly dark cuckoo plumage, with a rough pattern and irregular lines; lighter hackles; gray or lightly gray under color. Mainly white in the neck and showing white on the upper part of the breast. Remainder banded throughout, with a lighter ground color than the Dark Cuckoo. General Appearance: Cock: Body : strong, fairly long and wide especially near the shoulders which are held high. Neck : long, fairly strong, tending to curve in on top towards the skull; the hackles are made of many long and abundant feathers covering the shoulders well Back : long, flat, slightly concave towards the rear Saddle : large, slightly raised but not rounded, covered with many lancets Breast : strong and large Abdomen : well developed Wings : short , kept close to the body Tail : strong at its base, quite short, fairly up without going over 45 ° Head : average size, slightly flat and long Comb : simple, of an average size, with a fairly rough texture. Sharp edges. The lobe not touching the nape Wattles : average size, red with a fine texture Ear-lobes : average size, red and long Face : red colored with or without down Eyes : bright, with a orangey-red iris Beak : Quite strong, slightly hooked and horn-colored Shanks : big, without vulture hocks Tarsi : average size, with some feathers white or lightly pink colored for all the varieties except for the BLACK, BROWN-RED and BIRCHEN Marans were gray or dark gray is permitted, although not preferred, for both sexes. Four long and well separated toes with the outer one sparsely feathered. The claws are white or horn- colored. Hen: Smaller than the cock, with a large, strong and more rounded body, a straighter back line, a well developed abdomen , and a fine comb, straight or inclined only in the rear part. |
__________________________________ In our experience the Golden Cuckoo Marans do not breed true, or not here in the US anyway. By that I mean when you breed 2 Golden Cuckoos you will usually get a variety of shades. You could get from silver to very dark golden. The reason for this I believe is that they were not imported originally, but were created here by possibly using the cross listed above. We are currently working on the rare French Standard feather shanked variety which we hope will be available for sale in 2011. Currently we only offer the clean legged Goldens. If anyone knows of documented Golden Cuckoo Marans being imported to the US I would like that information, if you would drop me an email I would really appreciate it and will pass it along to our readers. These are one of my favorite Marans! Thanks! Nellie (See below for Cuckoo Marans Standards) |
| Variety of Golden Cuckoo chicks. The light colored chicks are little roos and the dark colors are the girls. There is quite a variation of color from beige to black in these chicks. |
| It is suggested that you can get golden cuckoos by crossing silver cuckoos to brown red (Black Copper). Save the males and cross them back to brown red females and you will get some golden cuckoo males and females. Half the males and females will be gold and half of these will have sex-linked barring. You may be able to use the silver cuckoo blood to breed out the gold breast lacing from the brown reds. |
| Golden Cuckoo rooster color variation |
| Cuckoo Cockerel |
| Cuckoo pullet |
| Color difference between males and females |