Bielefelder hens were bred by the famous breeder G. Rott in the 70s of the XX century. As a separate breed they were recognized 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.
Breed features
In these birds, one day after hatching, females and males can be distinguished. A very serious advantage and beneficial to the owners, although not unique. The hens are light brown in color, with “eyeliner” near the eyes and stripes on the backs, the males 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 assigned to the breed on December 30, 1978, and the presentation took place even earlier - in 1976.
Characteristics of hens and cocks
According to the standard, roosters should have a wide neck and upper back, and shoulders should be of a cuckoo color. Chest - a yellow or reddish hue with a hawk pattern, yellow legs and dark gray or cuckoo wings of medium size.
Chickens are more uniform in color than roosters, have a golden-rusted chest and a hawk-like pattern on the back and elytra. The feathers of the tail of the female are rather dark, while in the male they are gray-cuckoo on top with yellow blotches on the bottom.
Bielefelders are heavy large birds of meat and egg orientation with a long straight back and 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 peacefully in the Russian climate.
Selection purpose
G. Rott's desire was to breed a disease-free bird with tasty meat, capable of producing many eggs, but at the same time rapidly growing and resistant to frost. Chickens were supposed to be calm and sociable, and their eggs were large, of the correct shape and color.
All this he achieved in the hens of the bielefelder. Despite being one of the youngest German breeds, it quickly became popular with breeders and spread throughout Germany.
There are many of them now. In other countries, such as England and Holland, they are not often found and not in large quantities, since they are not unique - there are other autosexual breeds, and quite a few varieties of poultry can compete with bielefelders in productivity and quality of meat.
Egg production
Birds lay 180-200 eggs a year, brown in color, while the size of the egg is quite large and weighs up to 65 grams. In terms of this indicator, they are quite comparable with the Wyandotte, another American breed, although they cannot reach the level that distinguishes such specialized egg breeds as, for example, white leggorn.
They begin to rush at 5.5 - 6 months and, subject to proper feeding and maintenance, continue to do this all year round. Maximum productivity - in the first 12 months of life, subsequently it decreases slightly (but this is a common feature for many birds).
Conditions of detention
Adult hens of the Bielefelder breed are very calm and peaceful even near the feeder, so you need to make sure that they are full. A lot of protein and calcium are needed in the diet of chickens (from the point of view of products, fish, meat, corn, dairy products, or, as an option, ready-made feeds like PK-5 are suitable).
It is common practice to give dry dog food to chickens aged 1.5-5 months to compensate for the required amount of minerals.
Bird house
Birds need a good, well-built chicken coop with perches, without drafts, preferably with insulation (in a mild winter, you can do without heating). Doing double and triple tiers of perches is not worth it - the hens are heavy, and, trying to climb higher, they will be vainly pushing and falling. In addition, there should be a spacious aviary or garden.
Chicken or egg?
If you have an incubator and experience in breeding poultry, you can get "replenishment" in the form of eggs. Transporting them in this form is much more convenient (often the nursery and the farmer are hundreds of kilometers from each other).
However, if there is no experience (or confidence), it is better to acquire already adult specimens. While the chickens are small, they require much more knowledge and care, a serious mistake with temperature or diet can result in illness or death of birds. At the same time, young chickens at the age of several months are already quite independent, they are more enduring and less picky in food.
Content Recommendations
One rooster is enough for 12 females of this breed. From 5.5 months it is worth dropping them into separate compartments until the hens begin to rush. You need to pay attention to the diet: although the most important thing is a sufficient amount of calcium and protein during growth, adult chickens also need to be fed vitamins and minerals.
In order for the chickens to give eggs in winter, the length of daylight is important: if they are too short, they will not rush. There is no ideal schedule - someone creates a “bright” time of day from 6 in the morning, someone from 7-8 in the morning to 22 in the evening.
Chickens are best kept separately from other birds. Chicken feed does not provide everything necessary, so it is advisable for both children and grown chickens to add cottage cheese, fish or special complexes of vitamins and minerals to food.
You can also give beets, cabbage, pumpkin, meat and bone meal and fish flour, wheat, oats, corn, peas, and soy. Oat is a very high-calorie product, moreover, it is rich in carbohydrates, vitamins and many elements of the periodic table. Feeding with one oat, as some poultry farmers do, is also possible, but is it necessary? It is more reasonable to add it to bird food in winter and spring, in the ratio of 30-50% of the total amount of food.
To prevent the birds from becoming obese (as they rush worse), it is advisable to limit the amount of food, but there is a danger of malnutrition. This is especially bad in winter - if there is little feed, then adult chickens will eat up at first, and young growth can remain half-starved. On the other hand, if the owner uses additional lighting in the winter, hens continue to sweep and do not accumulate excess fat.
It is enough to feed adult hens once or twice a day. Moreover, if this is summer, then you can add grain to the feeders, and give boiled food only two to three times a week.
Breed predecessors
Bielefelder chickens include amrox, new hampshire , raspberry, rhode island and welsummer among their ancestors. The latter are one of the most prominent types of Dutch breeding, flying 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 - beelzummers are hardy, early ripening, they are good at finding food during walking, have a calm character.
The Amrox breed, another ancestor of bielefelders, appeared in Germany in the 70s of the XIX century on the basis of breeding of the Plymouth Strip breed. These are calm, balanced birds, also autosexual, capable of giving up to 200 eggs per year. They are quite large - roosters reach a weight of 4 kg, chicken - 2.5 kg.
The raspberry chicken breed is quite rare in Russia; it is a species of bird bred by German breeders. Their origin is complex and rooted in the XIX century. Mechelen chickens (another name for the breed) have very tasty meat, which is best evidenced by the fact that the main national dish of Mechelen (where they come from) is a specially prepared breast of this bird.
New hampshire
These meat-and-egg birds are both ancestors and “siblings” of bielefelders, as they were also bred with the participation of the Rhode Island breed. Hens of this species have a well-developed instinct of incubation, good egg production (200-220 pieces per year with a mass of 65 to 70 grams), and besides, 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 in keeping conditions; today they are often used in industrial poultry farming and homestead farming. 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 crossbreeding of Leghorn, Wyandotte, Cornish, Cochin and Red Malays.
As a result, we got beautiful heavy hens with tasty meat, giving 160-170 eggs a year.
Competitive breeds of bielefelders
In the Russian Federation and the vast expanses of the former USSR as a whole, there are other breeds that can seriously compete with bielefelders.
Among the meat and egg there is, for example, such as Leningrad white - it is very productive not only among domestic, but also in comparison with all breeds in general. 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 the method of multiple transfusion - Australops, whose blood was added to the body of white leggornas, were chosen as donors.
Another good domestic breed is Moscow White, bred at the All-Union Institute of Poultry. It is not very common - it is bred mainly in collection herds and homesteads. However, birds give up to 180 eggs (weighing 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. The Kuchinskaya jubilee, like the bielefelder, is among the ancestors of the rhode islands, and also autosexual - the gender of chickens can be determined with 85-98% accuracy.
These chickens are often grown for slaughter - they have tasty meat, and in two and a half months, males weigh 1.6-1.7 kg, hens 1.3-1.5 kg.
In this case, laying hens give 16-200 eggs per year.
The Kuchinsky anniversary chicken is unpretentious, adapts to the cellular content and quickly feels. The weight in this case reaches 3.0 kg for females and 3.7 kg for males.
The maintenance of adult heaps is not too difficult for an ordinary rural or urban resident - in a mild winter, they can live in a wooden shed if it is closed from drafts and there is enough straw to dig into it.
In terms of indicators, these birds approach one of the most popular breed in Russia and often found in private households, the Russian white breed. She was also bred from the Leghorn, only roosters of this species crossed with ordinary outbred chickens.
The result, approved in 1953 (and selection work began in 1929), exceeded all expectations: unpretentious in eating and strong birds weighing 1.6-1.8 kg for females and 2-2.5 kg for males, able to give 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 the popularity of the breed Russian White fell in 1965, however, since they were still inferior to their “ancestors” of the Leghors, by 1990 the population from 29.7 million animals fell to 3.2 million.