Marans of America Club’s blog is a place where all Marans enthusiasts can share their thoughts about this wonderful heritage breed. A place where the novice as well as the seasoned breeders can come together to learn and teach. Enjoy the blog and share your experiences with others in a positive way.
Stand Education is a project that Marans of America Club decided was needed to help with educating the Marans community as a whole on the differences of the USA submitted standards as opposed to the French Standards of Marans. We will be posting comparisons of the two standards of each variety of Marans side by side in a way that has never been shown before. MaransBlog will become the main source for all discrepancies of the two standards.
Our MOAC team will be working along with several French standards experts and APA Standard Committee members. This is for educational purposes only and positive comments are welcome. Our team will endeavor to provide all Marans Enthusiasts truism of all the facts.
I feel the MCC standard committee should take in consideration the eye color on the submitted standard. After talking to a few APA judges they agreed that the eye color is very different on the Marans from other breeds of poultry. The orangey-red color should be adhered to not the reddish-bay.
It would be a shame to have true french standard birds get points taking off of them due to the eye color on the submitted standard states reddish-bay instead of orangey-red.
I feel the submitted standard should be revised.
Brenda Little
USA-Delegate-MCF
I agree with the French in saying that the eye color should be listed as orangey-red. We have some pictures on the club forum that are from christian who is from Marans Club de France, and this is very educating.
http://www.maransofamericaclub.com/MOAC-Open-Forum43.php
It lists some very good examples of the eye color and what is should be.
Here is a small excerpt from the Black Copper Qualifying meet in 2009.
The birds present had a wide variation in type and leg color and were mostly under the standard weight of eight pounds.
The hens were much more uniform in type and color but were still, as a group, under weight.
I feel a revised submitted standards should not be altered to fit these birds
Brenda
I agree on both points. I feel if we are going to try to keep the Marans to the French standards the eye color needs to be addressed in the submitted standard and the weight should be kept the same. These birds became popular because of there beauty, uniqueness and those wonderful russet eggs. If we were to change the submitted standard to what we want them to be then we loose the whole point of the French Standard. After all these are French birds.
Why does weight matter?
There may be nice small birds; but unless we’re trying to breed bantams, why would we want them smaller than the original standard calls for? Marans are meant to be a dual purpose bird. Meaning, they should be capable of providing meat, as well as eggs. We’re not just breeding leghorns which lay a dark egg.
Ask yourself which weighs more: an unvigorous bird, or a healthy bird? An unmuscled bird, or a bird carrying some meat on its bones? A shallow, narrow or short bird, or birds of prime depth, width, and back and keel length?
If the reason for wanting the weights lowered, is based upon poor quality birds, then we should strongly be questioning the wisdom of this.
If you looks closely at the wording, you will also notice many other very significant changes, such as allowances for a longer and wider tail (and higher tail-set), and an obvious trend toward more upright, leggier birds. Compare for yourself.
The wording is tricky. Here would be just one example:
Proposed U.S. standard: “Body deep, long and broad, especially through the shoulders, and carried high….”
French standard: Body…”strong, fairly long and wide, especially near the shoulders which are held high.”
Read that carefully. Read it through twice, if you need to. Notice how the same words are used, but to a totally different meaning? The proposed standard is saying that the entire body is carried high; while the french standard is merely stating that the shoulders are carried high on the body. There are many more examples of this.
These are extremely crucial issues. We’re not only dealing with color, but the basic type and build of the breed itself. These are the points which set different breeds apart.