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CHERRY CREEK CANADIANS |
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Cherry Creek Canadians
The Canadian Horse Breed
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Chantecler Chickens
Having helped to do our part with the conservation of the Canadian Horse, it was time to turn our attention to another little known, and rapidly disappearing Canadian developed breed – the Chantecler chicken. This breed remains quite rare, with only about a 1000 birds in existence, all being maintained only by small farms with an interest in the preservation of heritage breeds. Just as with the Canadian Horse, this rare poultry breed was also developed in Canada and thus is uniquely adapted to our climatic conditions. The original Chantecler, white in color, was created in the early 1900’s by a monk named Brother Wilfrid, who lived in Oka QC. This unique and very attractive dual purpose chicken breed, declared a “heritage” breed of QC by their parliament, is little known by the rest of Canada. The Chantecler chicken is noted as having critical status by the American Livestock Conservancy as well as by the Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities, and endangered by Rare Breeds Canada. Yvonne's idea to keep chickens was NOT met by enthusiasm by Jim who for years always swore “there will never be a chicken on this place as long as I am here”! After some persuasion, he was finally convinced that we would be doing our part to help conserve a rare breed, in addition to producing our own home raised, organic chickens and eggs. He finally relented, so it was time to start finding our chickens. Not an easy task as it turned out!
Bringing these eggs back home to BC also proved to be quite the adventure! Since I had flown to QC, I had to bring them back to Kamloops with me in a carry on bag on the plane. Talking my way through airport security in QC was an adventure to say the least! Picture me (with my almost non-existent French skills) trying to convince the French speaking security staff that they could NOT xray my eggs as it would damage them. I was clutching my bag of eggs and they were tugging on it too. I am sure they thought I was some sort of lunatic! Once they figured out that I was bringing Quebec's heritage chicken breed all the way back to BC, they became very obliging. In the end, they didn’t xray them and agreed to only hand check them. As I was leaving with my bag of eggs safely in my grasp, they flapped their arms up and down while “cheeping” aloud, congratulated me on becoming an “eleveur de poulet Chantecler”, and I was on my way. After borrowing an incubator from a friend, we managed to hatch a good number of the eggs out, ending up with a small flock of 4 white hens/2 roosters, and 10 partridge hens/2 roosters. Needless to say, this was great fun. We learned how to candle the eggs, and got to follow all the various stages of development. Once those cute little balls of fluff emerged, we were both hooked! Needless to say, Jim the previously “confirmed chicken hater” is now completely enthralled with his flock of “girls”, and can hardly wait to go out each day to see how many eggs they have left for him.
We can definitely attest to the
accuracy of the comment found on the ALBC site: “The breed is noted for being
calm, gentle, and personable” as this certainly describes all the members of our
little flock, to a “T”.
If you are interested in possibly obtaining some Chanteclers from us, please visit our Chantecler Sales page.
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For information on our farm, poultry, horses, or on the Canadian Horse breed in general, please feel free to contact us. If you will be in the neighbourhood and want to come see our horses and farm, Updated Saturday January 02, 2010 © Cherry Creek Canadians |
