Chicken Beefelder breed: features and recommendations for breeding

Chicken breeds bilefelder 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 "bilefelder" these birds received in honor of the city in West Germany, where the whole story began.

Features of the breed

In these birds, one day after hatching, you can distinguish female and male. Very serious advantage and advantageous for the hosts, although not unique. Hens of light brown hue, with "podvodkoj" near eyes and stripes on backs, cockerels - more light, gentle-yellow color.

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

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

Characteristics of hens and cocks

Cocks according to the standard should have a wide neck and upper back, and shoulders - cuckoo color. Chest - yellow or reddish hue with hawk pattern, yellow legs and dark gray or cuckoo wings of medium size.

Chickens are more uniform in color than cocks, they have a golden-rusty chest and a hawk pattern on the back and elytra. The feathers of the tail are rather dark in the female, while in the male they are gray-cuckoose on top with yellow patches from below.

Bielefelders are heavy, large fowl-meat-oriented birds with a long straight back and a bulging chest. They have an elongated body and a leaf-shaped comb on the head, supplemented by red earrings and earlobes. Adult males can gain up to 4.5 kg, females - 3.9 kg.

Chickens of the bilefelder breed are resistant to cold, so they can safely live in conditions of the Russian climate.

Purpose of breeding

The desire of G. Rott was to bring out a bird that is not susceptible to disease, with tasty meat, capable of giving many eggs, but at the same time rapidly growing and resistant to frost. Chickens should have been calm and sociable, and their eggs - large size, regular shape and color.

All this he achieved in the hens bilefelder. Despite the fact that it is one of the youngest German breeds, it quickly became popular among breeders and spread throughout Germany.

There are a lot of them and now. In other countries, such as England and Holland, they are not found often or in large numbers, since they are not unique - there are other autosexual breeds, and quite a few species of poultry can compete with bilefelders for the productivity and quality of meat.

Eggplant

Birds lay 180-200 eggs a year, brown, while the size of the egg is large enough and weighs up to 65 grams. According to this indicator, they are quite comparable with Wyandotts, another American breed, although they can not reach a level that distinguishes such specialized egg species as, for example, Leggorn White.

Beginners start at 5.5 - 6 months and, provided they are properly fed and kept, continue to do this all year round. Maximum productivity - in the first 12 months of life, afterwards it decreases slightly (but this is a common feature for many birds).

Conditions of detention

Adult chicken breeds bilefelder very calm and peaceful even near the feeder so you need to ensure that they are full. In the diet of chickens need a lot of protein and calcium (in terms of products suitable fish, meat, corn, dairy products, or, as an option, ready-made feeds like PC-5).

It is common practice to give dry dog food to chickens aged 1.5-5 months to compensate for the required amount of minerals.

Birdman

Birds need a good, high-quality chicken coop with perches, without drafts, preferably with warming (in conditions of moderate winter, you can do without heating). Doing double and triple tiers of plots is not worth it - the chickens are heavy, and, trying to climb higher, they will be jostling and falling in vain. In addition, there should be a spacious aviary or garden / garden.

A chicken or an egg?

If there is an incubator and experience in breeding a bird, you can buy "replenishment" in the form of eggs. Transport them in this form is much more convenient (often a nursery and a farmer are hundreds of kilometers apart).

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

Content Recommendations

A single cock is enough for 12 females of this breed. With 5.5 months, it is worth setting them in separate compartments, until the chickens begin to sweep. It is necessary to pay attention to the diet: although the most important amount of calcium and protein during growth, adult chickens also need to be fed with vitamins and minerals.

To ensure that chickens give eggs in winter, the duration of daylight hours is important: if they are too short, they will not be carried. There is no perfect schedule - someone creates a "bright" time of the day from 6 am, someone from 7-8 am to 22 pm.

Chickens are better kept separate from other birds. Chicken feed does not provide everything necessary, therefore, both children and grown chickens are desirable to add to the food curd, fish or special complexes of vitamins and minerals.

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

That the birds are not burnt (so they are worse rushing), it is desirable to limit the amount of food, but there is a danger of underfeeding. It is especially bad this winter - if the feed is small, then first the adult chickens are eaten, and the young can stay half-starved. On the other hand, if the owner uses additional lighting in the winter, the chickens continue to carry and do not accumulate excess fat.

Feed adult chickens enough once or twice a day. And, if this summer, you can pour the grain into the troughs, and cooked food only two or three times a week.

Predecessors of the breed

Chickens of the breed bilefelder have among their ancestors birds Amrox, New Hampshire, raspberries, rod-island and wulmer. The latter are one of the most outstanding species of Dutch breeding, which rally year-round and produce 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 - the velumers are hardy, they are fast, have good food during the paddock, they have a calm character.

The breed Amrox, another ancestor of bilefelders, appeared in Germany in the 70s of the XIX century on the basis of breeding of the breed Plymouth striped. They are calm, balanced birds, also autosexual, capable of giving up to 200 eggs per year. They are quite large - cocks reach a weight of 4 kg, chicken - 2.5 kg.

The breed of chickens in Russia is rare, it is a species of a 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, which is best proved by the fact that the main national dish of Mechelen (where they come from) is the specially cooked breast of this bird.

New Hampshire

These flesh-and-egg birds are both ancestors and "siblings" of bilefelders, as they were also bred with the participation of the rod-island breed. Chickens of this species have a strongly developed instinct of brooding, good egg laying (200-220 pieces a year at a weight of 65 to 70 grams), and moreover they are quite large - up to 4.5 kilograms for cocks and up to 3.5 for hens.

Chickens of New Hampshire are unpretentious in food and in 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

Chickens of the genus-iland are also meat-egg and were bred in the United States in the XIX century as a result of the crossing of Legorne, Wandot, Cornish, Cochin and Red Malay.

As a result, beautiful heavy chickens with tasty meat turned out, giving 160-170 eggs a year.

Breeding competition rivals

In the Russian Federation and in the expanses of the former USSR as a whole, there are other breeds that can seriously compete with bilefelder.

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

These birds were withdrawn by the method of multiple transfusion - as Australians, Australians were chosen as donors, whose blood was added to the body of white leggorns.

Another good domestic breed - Moscow white, bred in the All-Union Institute of Poultry. It is not very common - it is bred mainly in collective herds and household plots. However, birds give up to 180 eggs (with a weight 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-egg breed, bred at the State Poultry Plant "Kuchinsky" in the second half of the 20th century, had very high egg laying rates for this direction. Kuchinskaya jubilee, as well as bilefelder, has ancestral genus among the ancestors, and also autosexual - the sex 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 the males already weigh 1.6-1.7 kg, chickens - 1.3-1.5 kg.

In this case, layers give 16-200 eggs per year.

Kuchinskaya jubilee chicken is unpretentious, adapts to the cellular content and quickly feathers. Weight at the same time reaches 3.0 kg for females and 3.7 kg - for males.

The content of adult poultry is not too complicated, according to the forces of an ordinary rural or urban resident - in conditions of moderate 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 are approaching one of the most popular breeds in Russia and often encountered in private farms, Russian white. It was also removed from the Leygorns, only the cocks of this species were interbred with common non-native chickens.

The result, approved in 1953 (and work on breeding began in 1929), surpassed all expectations: unpretentious in food and strong birds with a weight of 1.6-1.8 kg for females and 2-2.5 kg for males, Capable of giving 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 occurred in 1965, however, since they were still inferior to their "ancestors" Leygorn, by 1990 the population from 29.7 million heads had fallen to 3.2 million.