I’m typically interested in rare breeds – plants, chickens, insects, whatever – but I think that’s pretty common among hobbyists. Or maybe it’s because I grew up playing trading card games like Pokemon and Magic. Whatever the reason for my interest in rarity, I’ve been very interested in Swedish Flower Hens and Bielefelder chickens.
Rare or Common: Which is better?
When it comes to living things, rarity can be a sign that the breed is not robust in some manner – maybe a lot of the baby chicks are born with deformities or the breed isn’t heat or cold tolerant. Fortunately, neither of those are true for the Swedish Flower Hens and the Bielefelder chicken. They are both very robust breeds, though they came about their robust genetics in different ways.
Swedish Flower Hens are what is called a Landrace chicken – they are more wild in the sense that they have not been selectively bred, but just allowed to have evolution run its course to allow the strong to survive. Bielefelder chickens, on the other hand, are the result of an extensive breeding program in Germany in the 1970s. So, though Bielefelder are “mutts” of a variety of different and largely unknown breeds, Bielefelders were selected for highly desirable traits of high egg production and a meaty body (making them a dual-purpose breed – good for both meat and egg production).
Home Breeding of Bielefelder Chickens
I bought a Swedish Flower rooster chick and a Bielefelder female chick in the hopes that they would breed and make an ever more super super-chicken, but the Swedish Flower chick was dead on arrival. It was very sad. I’ve ordered chicks through the mail twice from Meyer Hatchery, and lost 2 of 9 the first time and 3 of 9 the second time, so I’m not going to order chicks through the mail anymore. Which means rare breeds are likely not in my future anymore, which is okay, I’ve come to terms with keeping chicks as a practical art, rather than something that I might eventually make some money from, by breeding rare chickens together and making funny names for them.
The two images above show what the Bielefelder chicken looks like after 2 weeks from birth. The pattern on it’s back is significantly different than when it was first born, especially since it’s wings have started to grow feathers.