Bielefelder chickens: features and recommendations for breeding

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Bielefelder chickens were bred by the famous breeder G. Rott in the 70s of the XX century. They were recognized as a separate breed in 1980, in 1983-84. a dwarf variety appeared. The name "bielefelder" these birds received in honor of the city in West Germany, where the whole story began.

Features of the breed

In these birds, within a day after hatching, it is possible to distinguish between females and males. A very serious advantage and beneficial for the owners, although not unique. The hens are light brown in color, with “eyeliner” near the eyes and stripes on the backs, the cockerels are lighter, pale yellow.

The second distinguishing feature of Bielefelders is their color - a rare color, the so-called "krill", golden-black-striped or silver-black-striped.

The official name Bielefelder was given to the breed on December 30, 1978, and the presentation took place even earlier - in 1976.

Characteristics of hens and roosters

Roosters byThe standard should have a wide neck and upper back, and the shoulders should be cuckoo-colored. The chest is yellow or reddish with a hawk pattern, yellow legs and medium-sized dark gray or cuckoo wings.

Chickens are more uniform in color than roosters, with a golden-rusty chest and a hawk pattern on the back and elytra. The tail feathers of the female are quite dark, while those of the male are grey-cuckoo above with yellow blotches below.

Bielefelders are heavy large birds of a meat and egg orientation with a long straight back and a convex chest. They have an elongated body and a leaf-shaped crest on the head, complemented by red earrings and earlobes. Adult males can gain up to 4.5 kg, females - 3.9 kg.

Bielefelder chickens are resistant to cold, so they can live in peace in the Russian climate.

Purpose of selection

G. Rott's desire was to breed a bird that is disease-free, with tasty meat, capable of producing many eggs, but at the same time growing quickly and resistant to frost. The hens had to be calm and sociable, and their eggs had to be large in size, of the correct shape and color.

He achieved all this in Bielefelder chickens. Despite being one of the youngest German breeds, it quickly became popular with breeders and spread throughout Germany.

There are a lot of them now. In other countries, like England and Holland, they are not found often and not in large numbers, as they are not unique - there are other autosex breeds, and quite a few varieties of poultry cancompete with Bielefelders in productivity and meat quality.

Egg production

Birds lay 180-200 eggs per year, brown in color, while the size of the egg is quite large and weighs up to 65 grams. In this respect, they are quite comparable to the Wyandotte, another American breed, although they cannot reach the level that distinguishes such specialized egg breeds as, for example, the White Leghorn.

They begin to rush at 5, 5 - 6 months and, subject to proper feeding and maintenance, continue to do so all year round. The maximum productivity - in the first 12 months of life, then it decreases slightly (but this is a common feature for many birds).

Containment conditions

Adult Bielefelder chickens are very calm and peaceful even near the feeder, so you need to make sure that they are full. Chicks need plenty of protein and calcium in their diets (fish, meat, corn, dairy products, or alternatively prepared foods like PC-5 are suitable foods).

It is common practice to give dry dog food to chicks at 1.5-5 months of age to make up for the required amount of minerals.

Poultry

Birds need a good, well-built chicken coop with perches, without drafts, preferably with insulation (in moderate winters, you can do without heating). Doing double and triple tiers of perches is not worth it - chickens are heavy, and, trying to climb higher, they will push and fall in vain. In addition, there should be a spacious aviary or garden/garden.

Chicken or Egg?

If you have an incubator and experience in breeding poultry, you can purchase "replenishment" in the form of eggs. It is much more convenient to transport them in this form (often the nursery and the farmer are hundreds of kilometers apart).

However, if there is no experience (or confidence), it is better to purchase adult specimens. While chickens are small, they require much more knowledge and care, a serious mistake with temperature or diet can come back to haunt the disease or death of birds. At the same time, young chickens at the age of several months are already quite independent, they are hardier and less picky about food.

Content recommendations

One rooster is enough for 12 females of this breed. From 5, 5 months, it is worth planting them in separate compartments until the hens begin to lay. You need to pay attention to the diet: although sufficient calcium and protein during growth are most important, adult chickens also need to be fed with vitamins and minerals.

In order for chickens to give eggs in winter, the duration of daylight hours is important: if they are too short, they will not rush. There is no ideal schedule - someone creates a "light" time of day from 6 am, someone from 7-8 am to 10 pm.

Chickens are best kept separate from other birds. Chicken feed does not provide everything you need, so it is advisable for both babies and grown-up chickens to add cottage cheese, fish or special complexes of vitamins and minerals to food.

You can and should also give beets, cabbage, pumpkin, meat and bone and fish meal, wheat, oats, corn, peas, soybeans. Oats - veryhigh-calorie product, moreover, it is rich in carbohydrates, vitamins and many elements of the periodic table. Feeding one oat, as some poultry farmers do, is also possible, but is it necessary? It is more reasonable to add it to bird feed in winter-spring, in a ratio of 30-50% of the total amount of food.

To keep the birds from getting fat (this way they rush worse), it is advisable to limit the amount of food, but there is a danger of underfeeding. This is especially bad in winter - if there is little food, then adult chickens will first eat up, and the young may remain half-starved. On the other hand, if the owner uses additional lighting in winter, the hens continue to lay and do not accumulate excess fat.

Feeding adult chickens once or twice a day is sufficient. Moreover, if it is summer, then you can put grain in the feeders, and give boiled food only two or three times a week.

Predecessors of the breed

Bielefelder chickens have Amrox, New Hampshire, Raspberry, Rhode Island and Welzummer birds among their ancestors. The latter are one of the most outstanding types of Dutch selection, laying all year round and producing large eggs weighing 70-80 g. They were bred in the first decade of the 20th century. They have a set of very advantageous qualities - Welzummers are hardy, early maturing, find food well while walking, and have a calm character.

The Amrox breed, another ancestor of the Bielefelder, appeared in Germany in the 70s of the 19th century based on the selection of the Plymouth Rock striped breed. These are calm, balanced birds, also autosex, capable of producing up to 200 eggs per year. They are quite large - roosters reach a weight of 4 kg, chickens– 2.5 kg.

The Raspberry chicken breed is quite rare in Russia, it is a kind of bird bred by German breeders. Their origin is complex and goes back to the 19th century. “Mechelen chickens” (another name for the breed) have very tasty meat, the best proof of which is the fact that the main national dish of Mechelen (where they come from) is a specially prepared breast of this bird.

New Hampshire

These birds of meat and egg direction are both ancestors and "siblings" of the Bielefelder, as they were also bred with the participation of the Rhode Island breed. Chickens of this species have a highly developed incubation instinct, good egg production (200-220 pieces per year with a weight of 65 to 70 grams), and, moreover, they are quite large - up to 4.5 kilograms for roosters and up to 3.5 kilograms for hens.

New Hampshire chickens are unpretentious in food and conditions of detention, today they are often used in industrial poultry farming and household plots. In Russia, there is a fairly large number of birds - more than 200 thousand copies.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island chickens are also meat and egg and were bred in the USA in the 19th century as a result of crossing Leghorns, Wyandots, Cornish, Cochinchins and Red Malays.

The result is beautiful heavy chickens with delicious meat, producing 160-170 eggs per year.

Bielefelder competitor breeds

In the Russian Federation and in the expanses of the former USSR as a whole, there are other breeds capable ofto seriously compete with the Bielefelders.

Among the meat and egg breeds, for example, there is one such as the Leningrad white - very productive not only among domestic ones, but also in comparison with all breeds in general. The chickens created by the Leningrad Institute of Poultry Farming reached the level of specialized egg breeds - laying hens gave up to 240 pieces per year (weight - 60-62 grams), with good quality and quantity of meat.

These birds were bred by multiple transfusions - Australopes were chosen as donors, whose blood was added to the body of white leghorns.

Another good domestic breed is the Moscow White, bred at the All-Union Poultry Institute. It is not very common - it is bred mainly in collection herds and household plots. However, birds give up to 180 eggs (with a mass of 55 grams) and quite tasty meat. One chicken grows to a weight of 2.4 kg, a rooster - 3.1 kg on average.

Kuchinki

Domestic meat and egg breed, bred at the Kuchinsky State Poultry Plant in the second half of the 20th century, had very high egg production rates for this direction. Kuchinskaya jubilee, like Bielefelder, has Rhode Island ancestors among its ancestors, and also autosex - the sex of chickens can be determined with 85-98% accuracy.

These hens are often raised for slaughter - they have delicious meat, and at two and a half months, males already weigh 1.6-1.7 kg, chickens - 1.3-1.5 kg.

At the same time, laying hens produce 16-200 eggs per year.

Kuchinsky anniversary chicken is unpretentious, adapts to the cellular content and quickly fledges. The weight reaches 3.0 kg for females and 3.7 kg for males.

Maintenance of adult clumps is not too difficult, within the power of an ordinary rural or urban dweller - in mild winter conditions, they can live in a wooden shed, if it is closed from drafts and there is enough straw to burrow into it.

In terms of indicators, these birds are approaching one of the most popular in Russia and often found in private households, the Russian White breed. She was also bred from Leghorns, only roosters of this species were crossed with ordinary outbred chickens.

The result, approved in 1953 (and selection work began in 1929), exceeded all expectations: unpretentious in food and strong birds weighing 1.6-1.8 kg for females and 2-2, 5 kg for males, capable of producing an average of 200-230 eggs per year, and sometimes up to 300 eggs per year. At the same time, these small birds are resistant to cold, leukemia, neoplasms, carcinomas and Marek's disease and are very tenacious.

The peak of popularity of the Russian White breed came in 1965, however, since they were still inferior to their "ancestors" Leggorns, by 1990 the population fell from 29.7 million heads to 3.2 million.