Our Heritage Breed Chickens
We have narrowed down what we were looking for in heritage breed chickens. We love so many of the breeds but wanted to keep our lives a little simple and concentrate on a few breeds that would meet the need of being gentle and multi-purpose with a little bit of fun thrown in for good measure. We are currently concentrating on the German breed of Bielefelder Chickens, Heritage Rhode Island Reds and Crested Cream Legbars. We have also hatched out a mix of RIR and Legbars which will produce a green egg layer since we must keep the grandkids happy.
Bielefelder Chicken Breed
We chose the Bielefelder (Bee-luh-feld-er) breed for a few reasons. The first being that they were known to be incredibly docile and gentle, which was a must when you have grandchildren visiting. We were also looking for a dual-purpose bird that was a heritage breed, and these chickens fit the bill. The hens lay between 200 and 250 eggs a year and their large size would make a good meat chicken if you were wanting to stay away from production chickens which is what we were looking for. Another plus was that they are an auto-sexing breed which is very helpful. The female chicks have dark eyeliner chipmunk stripes on their eyes and back and are a darker color and the males have a white dot on their head and are lighter in color.
The Bielefelders are an extremely beautiful bird that was created in Germany in the 1970’s by German breeder Gerth Roth. They are a cross of Rhode Island Reds, New Hampshires, Malines, Amrocks, and Wyandottes. Roth bred for egg and meat production, temperament, hardiness and appearance and he hit the mark in all those categories.
Crested Cream Legbars
The Crested Cream Legbars (also called Cream Legbars) are a medium sized bird created in Britain in the 1930’s. They sport a cute little poof of feathers on the top of their heads and have a single comb that can stand up straight or flop over which gives them an even cuter look. The females are a silver- grey with a salmon-colored breast and the roosters are cream with dark gray barring on their breast and tail.
They lay about 230 beautiful medium sized blue eggs a year. They are friendly and are great foragers. The Crested Cream Legbars are also an auto-sexing chicken which is very handy if you are breeding.
I bought two Legbars on a whim so I could have some blue eggs when my granddaughter came out to visit. They were so sweet that I immediately bought two more hens and a rooster and I’m very happy I did.
We purchased our original stock from Chicken Scratch Poultry, and their breeding stock is from Greenfire Farms and is from the Jill Rees line who placed 1st 2nd and 3rd in the UK with her Legbars. If you are looking for a sweet and very pretty chicken that lays blue eggs, then this is your chicken! I haven’t found anything disagreeable about them.
The Heritage Rhode Island Reds
The Heritage Rhode Island Reds are a large stunning bird that has a rich dark mahogany-red plumage. They were developed in the 1880’s in Massachusetts and Rhode Island for egg production and meat and very quickly became widely known as an excellent dual-purpose chicken.
I first saw the Heritage RIR’s while I was visiting a friend of my sister as a pre-teen. I immediately noticed how beautiful and shiny they seemed to be as their mahogany color shimmered in the sun. They also seemed very large to my young eyes. I remember thinking that one day I would get these chickens and made a mental note to remember their name.
Please don’t get these calm and gentle birds mixed up with the production reds they started creating in the 1940’s for more egg production. The production reds are smaller, meaner (in my opinion), less broody and lighter in color.
The Heritage Rhode Island Red’s make an excellent dual-purpose bird with around 260 eggs per year and the roosters weighing in around 8.5 lbs and the hens at 6.5 lbs.
These girls can get broody and their chicks are not auto-sexed so they are usually available as straight run.
We bought our original flock from Chicken Scratch Poultry who have the Dick Hortsman line.
If you could only buy one farm bird, I would say this is the bird I would buy with the Bielefelders an extremely close second.