When I think about the Bresse chicken found in North America, it almost seems too good to be true.

How did we get yet another one over on the French? Those poor souls. Could it really be as easy as changing the name to American Bresse, Bressy, Bress-a or the multitude of other pronunciations I have heard through the years? Or is there some chicken loophole that one needs to rename the impossible to get Poulet de Bresse in order to avoid INTERPOL on your way home from Europe? Now after more than 10 years of American Bresse hype, I can no longer find articles that were actually written about the French Bresse in its native tongue to gain further insight on the breed. It’s long lost to the marketing pages of American farms looking to hawk a bird regurgitated from a single page on the internet.

My wish is to one day acquire elite stock, the Bresse otherwise known as Bresse de Bény that are closely guarded behind the rumored triple bio security walls. The Gauloise blanche attainable only as a borrowed commodity since its acceptance as a French designated Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée status.

I was among the very first to buy into American Bresse. It was between 2012 and 2013. At that time, I was developing some of our own non-Cornish lines of large dual-purpose breeds and had not quite achieved the growth potential that was found within the Bresse chicken breed.

The Bresse has good production, decent growth and some other traits I have found useful. One such observed trait was when an eagle scouting low altitude prepared for a divebombing attempt. As it dropped into a field of about 100 males, I yelled in fear for the lives of my chickens at surely what was to become a predator's delight and a chicken farmer's worst nightmare. It landed for what it thought would be a quick KFC drive through. It only needed to grab one of the birds in a field of about 100 males. Much to the eagle's surprise, the Bresse went charging towards what I can only imagine as the eagle's white feathered head as the center of the Bresse’s bullseye target. They came in hot! Spurring, pecking and with pure pandemonium and enough noise to wake the dead, As the dust settled, the eagle was able to regain some composure as well as some loft under its wings to reach the top of the 10' perimeter fence. It took about 5 minutes to recover and check its wounds before hungrily flying away.

Bresse males are known for their standoffish and protective demeanor.  They certainly have what I consider attributes for a slow growth dual purpose free roaming pasture raised meat bird. Ours are not calm, they are mostly vigorous. If you cross paths with someone that says theirs are calm and easy going, it's not a Bresse, and if they are, they are likely inbred. Bresse chickens are not a friendly choice for a child, pet, coyote, eagle, or your elderly friends. For a white bird who stands out like a neon sign in a pasture, they cannot and must not be mild mannered or they will only support the diet of your local wildlife. Anyone who has raised white chickens will agree or have a story about white birds and their farmyard predators.  When you raise birds like we do with unconfined forest or pastured poultry rearing, it's a necessity that they are strong and smart. The strong survive, it minimizes losses and makes the next generation better than the last for tractor-less pastoral production. We do find that they mostly breed true, with the occasional sport. 

In recent years, we again acquired a small grouping of Bresse birds from the southeastern US. They looked pretty good to start, and I was very excited about a new line (other than they were 90% roosters.) As they grew, it became a challenging batch of birds. The majority of them had red leakage and black in the hackles as well as shank color issues etc... I’m not one to complain, I do the best with what I’m given. Out of that batch of about 12, we were able to hold 2 decent roosters back and they appear to have added some heterosis to our nucleus flock with minimal mutations.

Most recently we felt the need and initiated conversation with Bechanne (centrebechanne.fr) regarding sourcing various genotyped breeds of poultry to add to our genetic bank. When you purchase Pacific Northwest Bresse from us, you can be assured that we have put forth hours of countless research sourcing stock.

Our process for hatching is in accordance with the USDA NPIP standards. We have always implemented strong standards of hatchery biosecurity. This allows customers to select from vaccinated or unvaccinated birds that have not been exposed to Mareks disease or the vaccine. Our breeding stock is not vaccinated. All the chicks that we produce are from sanitized eggs. We have a small 8' x 20' hatchery and another brooder house of the same dimensions. These are equipped with high quality hatchers with water from UV treated reverse osmosis system, heated poultry towers and just about everything a chick could want to be happy and comfortable. We only incubate and hatch in our hatchery, we only brood in our brooder house. We are not hatching in old wooden hatchers that cannot be properly sanitized or a Hovabator on the floor of our garage, bathroom countertop or wherever "chicken breeders" these days hatch chickens. (I will admit, guilty of the Hovabater on our guest bathroom countertop many many years ago.)

All of our birds are raised on site and hatched on site. Our eggs will not be carriers of Mareks or Salmonella Pullorum or Avian Influenza due to biosecurity, testing and veterinarian visits every 30 days. (If needed, additional testing can be provided by request for a fee.) 
​
Our PNW Bresse parents have been raised on pasture, and we have found that they do not need additional care beyond the normal feed, house, warmth, and water. We have found that Bresse birds don't typically require vaccinations. The immunity is locked away in their genetic code, passed down from generation to generation. It's important to remember that flock size remain large enough to remain strong and vigorous. The magic number seems to be around 75 hens and as many roosters as you can house apart from hens while rotating them with hens 10- 12 at a time. 25 hens will normally do well from good breeder stock with as many males as you can house apart from the hens. 

Our final selection of breeders is done intentionally to keep the most genetics in the flock, and you may observe some differences. Although not extreme differences like one would observe between a Cornish Cross and Americana. We have never seen major mutations such as a totally different breed. We have had one complaint in the last 6 years, but when I offered to take the birds back so I could genotype them to see if in fact they were actually related to our birds, the client declined my offer of a full refund+. It was such a totally different bird than ours that when we were told what was happening, it would have served as a wonderful special project if in fact it was an actual Bresse mutation. Our passion is preservation and our breeding programs. We also understand how passionate customers can be about the breeds they keep. But sometimes we encounter some pretty strange feedback or requests, and typically we can accommodate or do our best to help. There are always challenges that come with raising poultry, but so far it has not outweighed the fulfillment they bring.

Every year, we hatch between 600 to 900 Bresse and select from those for a variety of traits. What you receive from us is the roadmap to select the stock that suits your needs. I have found with the Bresse that you can't just throw out the birds that don't fit the mold. As a purist it pains me to say that it's the quickest way to find yourself with an inbred line of birds and no sources to freshen the genetics without stepping away from pure breed preservation. I think that most would agree that an American Bresse Americana would not be a good outcross even though they both have dark legs. I can't really think of a good way to outcross Bresse, one would have to assume the foundation breeds since I can no longer find any documentation. If you have further documentation, please drop me an email. I guess maybe a better comparison would be a Swedish Flower/ Jubilee Orpington/ Speckled Sussex cross although similar will not do anyone a favor when preserving the old lines of genetics, but people still do it. 

If you have already tried Bresse and it doesn't meet your needs, if you are looking for a meatier and more suitable bird around children and farm animals or pets, we would suggest that you raise our Le Grand or Armocks. They are much more suitable for a small market farmer, homesteader or prepper looking to have high quality eggs and meat in a more suitable time frame without the fuss of French cooking. It's very difficult to raise a bird 16+ weeks on pasture and remain profitable. In our local market, we are at the top tier when it comes to price and quality USDA inspected meat.   The Le Grand and Amrock are both sweet and powerful birds that can be crossed as a sex link hybrid to produce chicks for your neighbors and offset the purchase cost and maintenance upkeep. It's a great way to rein in costs and provide a good quality bird to your neighbors without buying commercially available Cornish. We currently have some farms who are now vertically integrated and others who are following our model to be more sustainable and less reliant on shipped or commercial birds. ​

To our knowledge, our Pacific Northwest Bresse are not descendants of Peter Theissen's Canadian Bluefoot. We do know of some flocks that are purported to own Bluefoot stock, but we have yet to acquire them. Nor have we ever intentionally added Bluefoot at any of our farms.  We are preservationists of pure-bred heritage breeds, and doing so would be counterintuitive. I breed enough birds per year to stave off common bottlenecks found in most breeding programs. We import our stock or we acquire from original importer to stay as close to the family tree as possible and have less room for error and disease from birds going through multiple farms. We have done our best to remain as close as possible to the original birds we started with more than 10 years ago. (Less some of the issues that we had when we received them.)  And someday, if we have the opportunity to get some of Theissen's Bluefoot or Poulet Bleu, we will promote it as such and create a separate breeding program for it. Because that is who we are, and the Poulet Bleu venture is quite commendable. 

You have to ask yourself; how do so many breeds of chicken make it to North America from all over the world? Birds like the Malines, Black Bresse, Hungarian Yellow, Euskal Oiloa Basque, and Hrvatica chicken have actually existed in Canada longer than any place on the North American continent. According to what I have learned through my research, both the Black Bresse and the White Bresse have existed in Canada much longer than they have in the USA, mostly due to federal push to build professional population (yes farmers are professionals and fall under the same critical infrastructure as doctors), through spousal immigration and the newly settled individuals love for poultry. There was at the same time a need for a better chicken as the corporate takeover of marketing boards and the commodity industry only allowed small farmers the quota to raise very limited amounts of commercial Cornish in the quota system.
​
In the past, prior to today's strict enforcements, people from Canada that visit Europe have been known to pack a few "table eggs" home. I have searched high and low for healthy varieties of birds, often being able to acquire them from the older poultrymen. The ones who know the names of the people that brought eggs or chickens back from many countries all those years ago when life was simpler and diseases less common prior to the near complete takeover of industrial poultry. 

I see this occurring in the US much in the same way after the ban of game fowl sports in the early 1900's, game fowl was only kept by few primarily in the Southern and Eastern states for show and preservation. Now, due to the emergent population in the US, you’ll find a larger selection of game fowl due to migration from Spanish and other non-English speaking nations where fighting cocks are still part of their traditional heritage and culture. 

The more I considered the free ranging border free chicken black market, the more I started to link together marketing and promotion of birds going back hundreds of years and even linked between kings and queens to lawyers, lobbyists and politicians as well as a few of those guys who whisper, "hey buddy" and try to sell you contraband pinned to the inside of their trench coat. And I am not certain I can trust any of the above. 

For a homesteader, breeder or farmer, the Bresse is a cost-effective bird that can generally be finished by 16 weeks and the hens lay a wonderful number of creamy eggs per year.  And for the gourmands out there, if finished right and then cooked right, they can be the best chicken you'll ever have! Feel free to email any questions that you might have. My email address is [email protected].

I'd like to think all of us raising Bresse in North America are in fact doing so, but that nagging question in the back of my head asks, or are we? For now, the old adage "if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck" rings true. Plus, I’m not a big fan of raining on people's parades. It’s worthwhile considering, after all, who knows, without genotyping the flock of everyone with American Bresse, I think it’s entirely possible that Bluefoot could actually be the craze known as American Bresse. Do you?

A Spring Creek Heritage Farms Blog Editorial written by farm manager Matthew Nelson Poultryman

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of Spring Creek Heritage Farms or of its customers.

Barred Plymouth Rock chickens first appeared on the scene in the mid 1800's in Boston Massachusetts. Renowned for its dual-purpose traits as well as being reliable, cold hardy and well behaved. They gained tremendous popularity in the early 1900's. By the 1950s the commercial Cornish had taken its place in popularity. Today the flocks are recovering through the work of dedicated poultry men and women. 

The Amrock is our version of a Barrred Plymouth Rock that can compete with today's industry, thriving on pasture, bugs, and blue sky instead of a barn.  A lifetime in the making towards achieving our own farmstead independence is finally complete. Unparalleled performance now available for small farmers without a corporate overlord or breeder contract. Your own line of strong growth barred birds without the Cornish cross or shipping costs... Read more>

If you’re willing to pay six dollars a gallon for gas, you should be willing to step up and help the real farmers out. Here’s a few things to think about next time you are in the store bargain shopping.

Let’s face it everything in this world today costs a dollar whether it’s a mango or an apple or insert some other wholesome vegetable here. Nothing offers what the egg can offer. It is a complete meal in and of itself with proteins, good cholesterol, omega, minerals and vitamins. Why the heck can’t I charge a dollar per egg?

Next to palisade peaches, the egg is one of the most fragile commodities in the world. Chickens literally have to bust their butt for commercial farmers to make enough eggs every year, and their final reward, the soup pot.

With chickens you have to manage the input and the output properly as well as good accommodations for them to produce eggs. It either takes millions of dollars of automation or a lot of manpower to take the egg from the farm to the store.

Industrial poultry is not really feeding you eggs. It’s more like an egg substitute produced by a chicken. Our eggs versus commercial farms win every time. I don’t know what the big farms feed their chickens to produce an egg for a nickel but I can’t even come close. And my chickens are so spoiled they refuse to eat cardboard & calcium pellets.

Calculating profit, how much are your eggs really costing you?

Our eggs currently sell for $6.99 a dozen. We make about $0.75 per dozen on average we sell 50 to 80 dozen per week. You do the math, it’s more of a hobby one would think. But whether or not we make a nickel, it’s still a nickel. Once you add in the components such as seed stock, chicken, chicks, pork, and vegetables it almost runs out by the end of the year.

So, before you quit your job at Microsoft to become an egg farmer, think long and hard about the hours you’re going to have to work and the vacations you’re going to miss because your livestock won’t do well if you’re not around 365 days a year. And a chicken sitter with the new minimum wage of $15 an hour adds up pretty quick. Most trustworthy farm help will work for no less than $20 an hour.

So next time you order some food to go in the computer and it asks you how much of a tip you’d like to leave, maybe you can just save part of it and tip the person who’s working at poverty line growing and caring for your food…  

Things you need to know in caring for your new baby chick:

BROODER BOX
1. You will need a brooder box. It can be as simple as a storage container. You can use sand, 1/4" hardware cloth or pine wood shavings for the floor of the brooder. Shavings are our preferred method. Shavings can be dusty but absorbent.

HEATING DEVICE
2. The chicks will need heat. A broody hen will work but if you don’t have one of those around, you should probably get a heat lamp or a ceramic bulb heater to keep the bottom of the brooder for chicks as close as possible to 95° F for the first week. You can decrease the temperature by 5° per week. Once they have a good portion of their feathers you can move them outside. A good rule of thumb, if you are outside in a light jacket and get cold, chances are the chicks will get cold too. You might want to provide an outside source of heat or wait to move them out of your garage. Make sure brooder lamps are secured and away from flammable material.

FEED & WATER
3. Feed & water. The chicks require a 22-24% starter and a water dish that they won’t fall in or try to go swimming. As they grow, please read our guide to raising and feeding juvenile pullets. Since there are numerous feeds available, you will need to follow manufacturers guidelines for appropriate feeding. Once they are laying you can try your hand at things like growing meal worms or fermenting feed to supplement their diet. We do a combination of pasture, pellets, and fodder system for our birds.

KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR LEG ISSUES
4. Watch for leg issues. Chicks are very resilient but if you notice any leg issues you can let us know right away so it can be fixed. Leg issues can be caused by a variety of reasons, the number one reason we've found is slippery surfaces such as brooder floors that can cause slipped hocks or tendons or splayed leg. It’s also important to keep feed and water readily available.

BIO SECURITY
5. Simple bio security. As a precaution you should wash your hands prior to handling chicks and after. As irresistibly fluffy and cute as they are, you should not let them run around your house or snuggle with them. Try not to track anything into their area. If you have the flu or cold, you should wear a mask around your birds.

​PASTY BUM
6. Tips on pasty butt. If your chicks get pasty bums from fluctuating temperature or stress related to shipping or handling, you can add play sand to the brooder to fix the issue. Check daily and don't let the accumulation of dropping prevent the chick from going potty. I don't know the "science behind" what it is about the sand that resolves the issue, but I do know it works. Additional cleaning may be necessary but not likely.

MORE..
Another tip: chicks aren't like dogs and cats, you won't notice them going number one, or little puddles of pee in the brooder box. You will only see droppings. No cause for concern.

More information is readily available online or by sending us an email.

If you have any questions or suggestions for this publication please contact us.

​Email: [email protected]
​

DOWNLOADABLE SHOPPING LIST:

 Have you ever wondered how to get more flavor out of your eggs, or whether the chicken or the egg came first? For those of you looking for something to do this weekend, our farm manager Matt Nelson is booked for a chicken workshop at Christianson’s Nursery in Mount Vernon, WA.
​
Matt will be speaking about chick rearing and raising backyard chickens in the Pacific Northwest. He will also discuss the different plants that can help your chickens thrive in your garden. Matt raises some of the finest breeds of poultry and table birds outside of Europe. His knowledge in raising poultry has come from his love of preserving for future generations as well as years studying and refining his methods.

This class is for both the beginner as well as seasoned poultry keeper. Depending on attendance, Matt will cater the conversation to best fit the group's needs. As he learns about you, he will customize his talk for the majority of the group making it a fun and a learning experience. He will share a few of his secrets and I assure that you’ll learn something new!

Pre-booking is required. Please contact Christianson’s Nursery to reserve, 360-466-3821.  We hope to see you there! Here is a link to Christianson's Nursery and Greenhouse's classes and workshops page:  https://www.christiansonsnursery.com/events/classes-workshops/

​We are grateful to be featured in the fall-winter edition of Bellingham Alive! We are so thankful for this opportunity to share about the farm and our chickens. A visit from their editor-in-chief Cocoa Laney and her partner was one of the highlights of our year at Spring Creek Heritage Farms! It was quite motivating to meet someone who is truly passionate about Bellingham and all that it offers. The enthusiasm for local food, products, events, farming and nature was quite inspiring. The way they happily helped pick ingredients from the field and then enjoyed the meal we prepared for them was truly heartwarming. One thing about Cocoa is she isn't just any editor, she’s a passionate editor! She has made our hard work and endeavors come to life on paper.  We do our best to provide our customers with quality chicks, poultry breeding programs, sustainable seasonal vegetables, fruits, and flavorful chicken for your table.  

The article is entitled "Chickens Raised With Knowledge, Care, and Fresh Air"; page 109 of the November-December 2021 edition of Bellingham Alive! Please grab a copy from a local store.  It’s also available online, here is the link to the article on their website: Chickens Raised With Knowledge, Care, and Fresh Air | Bellingham Alive

The Hungarian Yellow is a new release here at Spring Creek Heritage Farms for the Summer of 2021.  Please click here to read more about this rare breed.