The Lohmann Brown POL is a remarkable breed of chicken known for its sociable nature and exceptional egg-laying abilities. With a stunning array of attributes ranging from 96 to 1440 eggs per year, this breed is truly a champion in the world of poultry farming.
The Silkie chicken was first recorded in the 13th century, when Marco Polo described encountering a “furry” chicken during his travels through Asia. Named for their soft, silk-like plumage, Silkies have since captured the hearts of chicken keepers around the world.
The White Leghorn originated in Tuscany, Italy, with its first exports recorded in the early 1800s. While Leghorns have since been bred in a wide variety of colours—including red, black-tailed red, light brown, dark brown, black, buff, Columbian, buff Columbian, barred, and silver—the White Leghorn remains the most popular and, arguably, the most productive of all.
White Face Spanish Black chickens are a breed with ancient origins, believed to date back to at least the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (218 BC–19 BC)—if not earlier. As one of the oldest Mediterranean breeds, they played a significant role in the development of the Mediterranean class of poultry and continue to captivate breeders and enthusiasts with their striking appearance and historical importance.
Originally kept by the Venda people of Limpopo, the Venda chicken is an alert, hardy, and resilient indigenous South African breed. While considered a dual-purpose bird, the Venda is primarily valued on farms for its natural pest control abilities, especially its habit of removing ticks and flies directly off livestock—much like the Boschvelder.
Originating in Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the 1840s, the Rhode Island Red is one of the most iconic and widely recognized chicken breeds in the world. Developed through a cross between Malay and Brown Leghorn chickens, the Rhode Island Red is renowned for being a hardy, reliable layer with a friendly temperament. It is a low-maintenance, dual-purpose breed, ideal for both egg production and meat.
The Potchefstroom Koekoek is an excellent, low maintenance, dual-purpose breed that originates in South Africa. Bred as a local hybrid in Potchefstroom in the 1960s by the Potchefstroom Agricultural College, the Koekoek is made up of 3 distinct breeds: the Black Australorp, White Leghorn and the Barred Plymouth Rock. Selections were made for productivity, feed efficiency, maturation times, hardiness and auto-sexing – a highly desirable trait enabling easier, reliable sexing of day-old chicks.
The New Hampshire is a relatively new breed, less than 100 years old. It was developed in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and is a separate strain of the Rhode Island Red. Beginning about 1915, New Hampshire poultry breeders began to continually selection hens from Rhode Island Red strains that feathered, grew, matured faster and had a light under colour.
Originating in Sussex County, England, the Light Sussex made its first known appearance in the mid-1800s and was officially standardized in 1902. Prior to the development of modern hybrid strains around the time of World War II, the Sussex and Rhode Island Red were the two primary meat breeds in the United Kingdom.
The Hamburgh is a small, active, and graceful bird with a distinctive rose comb and upright tail. Though they’ve been kept in Britain for at least 300 years, some believe they may have originated in Eastern Europe. They are available in a variety of striking colours, including black, white, gold pencilled, silver pencilled, gold spangled, and silver spangled.
Easter Eggers are a fascinating, diverse, and relatively “new” breed, originally developed by crossing an Araucana with a brown egg layer. Most Easter Egger chicks carry the blue egg gene, and typically feature muffs, beards, a pea comb, and often slate blue or greenish-grey legs.
Barneveld, a town in the Netherlands, is home to a large agricultural college specializing in poultry. As such, the area became a hub of the poultry industry in the early twentieth century.
Reg. 2019/222131/07 VAT.4200296632
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