“The Marans are now officially a recognized breed of the Continental Class by the American Poultry Association. The Wheaten variety was recognized in October of 2011 at the Crossroads Show in Indianapolis, Indiana”. The Wheaten line carries feathered shanks and amber eyes with light wheaten colored feathers. These birds are friendly, sociable and active. Roosters are very calm and can co-habitat nicely with each other. French Wheaten Marans are bred to lay dark chocolate eggs and are considered gourmet eggs. With the dark eggs during the laying cycle, as with all fowl eggs, the color will lighten as the laying season progresses. These are some beautiful birds to be on the farm and a great addition to your flock. Mahogany brown eggs but color with this variety is not as dark as with the Black Copper Marans. While the back color is fairly standard there are a variety of shades for the breast and rear ranging from almost white to deep red clay. Marans lay a large egg 2.3 oz for a pullet to 2.8 oz for a hen. They should have a consistently deep dark red-brown shell (minimum of 3 on the color chart). However with this being said our current flocks in 2015 produced about 5% clean legs. Our cackle flock lays egg shell colors of 5-8 on the French Marans Egg color chart found in the gallery.